I recently borrowed Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart
The book follows Tim Butcher as he attempts to retrace the steps of Henry Morton Stanley across central Africa as he ‘discovered’ the source of the mysterious central Africa river that had it’s mouth on the West coast. After a few years of reading up on Stanleys journey, Butcher attempts to follow the footsteps of his expedition of the 1870’s where they tried to chart what we now know as the Congo River.
It is a well written page turner, giving interesting insights into the history of central Africa. Butcher starts his journey in Lubumbashi, the capital of Congo’s mining of copper and cobalt that is just over the border from where we lived in Zambia – and in so doing he describes well the many issues of the lucrative trade in metals, and inparticular the complex and colourful relationships this trade has with foreign investment and mining companies. In this way the book helps open up the complex and often sad relationship Congo has with it’s natural resources and export trade, uncovering the massive influence of China, as well as unscrupulous local politicians and business men.
Butcher weaves in tales and stories of people he meets along his way, and describes the many skeletons of industry and trade that he finds along this once thriving river. But sadly that is where he usually stops… everything he sees and describes is on the whole in the negative. Congo is described as a land where things once momentarily thrived under the Belgians and then came crashing down after independence. In ways this may be the reality, but it is surely only part of the story…
There are a few glimmers positive stories on the ground as he recounts meetings with people along the way – one of which is with CMS worker Louise Wright – but overall his description of Congo leaves a negative taste in the mouth and sadly fulfills many people’s negative perceptions of a helpless and hopeless Congo, and Africa more generally. Perhaps the negative were the only things the author saw on what in reality was a whistle-stop tour of a part of Africa not generally open to outsiders… but there in lies the reality of this book… it is a well written enjoyable book by a white Brit flying through a land he has read a lot about, but hasn’t really got the time to get to know. It thereby becomes another book on Africa written from an outsiders perspective… which fulfils the stereotypical view of a hopeless continent… and sadly seems unable/unwilling to spend time with the Congolese he meets and learn from them, and share their story.
It wasn’t until I finished reading the book that I read the authors blog and discovered it had recently been put on the Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year shortlist… needless to say a few weeks later it is number 1 in the non-fiction bestsellers and you’ll currently see it in every bookshop window!
Update: Good to see a more positive first hand account on life in Congo from Louise Wright on the CMS website – and she seems to agree with my thoughts on the book:
“Read it – but don’t be depressed about Congo,” she urges. Butcher’s view of the country is that it is “Africa’s broken heart”. “It is quite true what he says, that you go to a place and they’ll show you this was the post office, this used to be the bank, there used to be a ferry across the river here. All these things are true – but they haven’t left people depressed the way he gives the picture…
“People are immensely full of initiative and doing amazing things to survive. People are extremely energetic and positive. The boys in Kalima are always digging up tin – they pack it into sacks and get it out and get their money and get things in to sell. There’s constantly great enterprise – brilliant schemes for making money and making do and find clever ways out of things. I think that sort of creativity and imagination, perhaps [Butcher] didn’t see as much as I do.”
