A Season in the Congo

I did a double-take when I walked into the Young Vic auditorium last Tuesday. Girls in brightly-coloured Congolese wraps were laughing loud, with large, languid sweeps of their hands. Police in dark blue uniforms strutted around, guns under their arms, forcing our eyes downwards. Young men sat in the shadows, staring listlessly, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Jaunty, upbeat music stirred the irrepressible urge to dance, rhythmically, effortlessly, joyfully. It was Congo, 1960, the eve of Independence. I wished I’d worn my dazzling Golden Jubilee of Independence outfit with its slogans “Vive la RDC! Pour la paix, pour l’unité, pour le développement” splashed across it. It would have been a first : blending in in a Congolese dress in the UK.

We’d come to see “A Season in the Congo”, a 1966 play by Aimé Césaire, retold in a new English version by Joe Wright. It tells the brutal story of the brief rise and tragic fall of the first Congolese Prime Minister after Independence, Patrice Lumumba, an inspiring, idealistic and popular figure who was dramatically removed from power and assassinated just months after Independence. The circumstances surrounding his death are debated, but related to the secession struggle in the province of Katanga. Many claim that Western powers played a part in his demise. The UN was portrayed as weak, high minded but unwilling to take action to back the democratically elected government. What is indisputable is that fifty years on Congolese still mourn Lumumba as their greatest hero, the only truly democratically leader, the only one who was prepared to put the Congolese people before his own interests.

The play was a pulsating, colourful, creative explosion that captured the chaotic, vibrant, optimistic beauty of Congo and the crushed hopes of its people. The voice of traditional wisdom was represented by an elderly man, a traditional healer, perhaps, who commented on events in the cadences and proverbs of his mother tongue (Kikongo? Chiluba? I wasn’t sure, but it was certainly a Bantu language). There were moments when I couldn’t breathe for sadness, mesmerised by the intensity of Lumumba’s rhetoric of hope, transported back to Congo, feeling the heat, aware of the gathering storm clouds, knowing the march of history. Massacres in Katanga were brilliantly and appallingly portrayed by a writhing, slow motion dance to deafening, distorted drum beats and blood red lighting.

The play ended with a poignant echo of the Last Supper as Lumumba was passed by comrades, colleagues, countrymen, friends, down a long table before being shot dead in front of them, while those at the table washed their hands. Traditional wisdom was then shot, too, and died with him. With Lumumba lying crumpled on the floor, time suspended in silence, to me the play seemed to shout the message “Hope for Congo died with Lumumba”.

But that’s where I want to take issue with the play. Yes, the parallels between Independence Congo and current day DRC are depressingly obvious. It’s tempting to ask what has changed in 50 years. The ineffectiveness of UN intervention, interference from foreign powers, lust for Congo’s resources, corruption within the Congolese government, ethnic violence, an army that does not ensure the security of the country and the suffering of ordinary Congolese people, continue to bitter Congolese realities. And yet there is hope in Congo, and for Congo. I see it every day in the resilience and resourcefulness of its people, in their faith, in their laughter, in their compassion, in their ability to celebrate the good, in the millions who persevere with life despite the failure of almost every institution in the country.

 There is hope for Congo. It lies in the country’s people, in their vast, awakening potential. It lies in the God who created the Congolese and their country, the God of truth, justice and reconciliation, who brings good news to the poor and liberation to the oppressed.

more on Lumumba's assassination

review of the play 

working in a war zone

Genocide has a long tail. Ever since Rwandan refugees fleeing the genocide poured over the border into the Congolese city of Goma in 1994, the town has known little peace.  Goma, and the surrounding Kivu region, regularly finds itself in the international news. Images of rebels advancing on the town, displaced people fleeing with their few possessions on their heads, thousands crammed into refugee camps have become commonplace on our TV screens. In villages surrounding Goma, despite a UN peace keeping force, atrocities continue to be carried out against a vulnerable and exhausted population. A confusing array of different armed groups abound, all of whom prey on local people.

The homeland of the Tembo people is right at the heart of this troubled region. Bible translation work began in their language around fifteen years ago. Because of the insecurity, since 1999 the translation team has worked in a displaced situation in Goma city rather than in the centre of their language community. Their home area has seen more than its fair share of insecurity.  The troubles reached a new peak in May 2012 when 32 villagers were burned to death in their houses by rebels.

The five members of the translation team are fiercely committed to seeing the New Testament completed in their language. Genesis, Luke and Acts have all been published in the language, and around 85% of the New Testament has already been drafted. In the midst of relentless hardships, the team has amazing resilience. They need it. Goma may provide a greater measure of security than their home villages, but the cost of living in the city is sky high. In a town where prices are pushed up by the presence of aid organisations who can afford to pay over the odds for rent and food, the translators struggle to make ends meet. And whenever there is a fresh rebel advance in the surrounding region, the town is flooded by a new wave of refugees and the translation team can find themselves housing displaced relatives in their already crowded homes.

The ongoing conflict takes its toll in other ways, too. Bible translation involves much more than translators sitting in a room, translating from the Greek. It’s a complex community process involving many players: church leaders, a language committee who helps to guide the work and mobilise the community, revisers, who give feedback about the naturalness and clarity of the translation and speakers of the languages of all ages and backgrounds with whom the translation drafts are tested to see how they are understood. Carrying out these activities in a war zone with a displaced and often traumatised population poses huge challenges. Often the team cannot easily access people at the centre of the language community. But whenever there is an opportunity, despite the risks, members of the team try to travel to their home area to encourage people with God’s word in Tembo, and encourage them to be involved in the Bible translation process.

Recently I received an email from the translation team. They had spent a terrifying night listening to the sound of bombing on the outskirts of Goma. In the morning they had gathered at the translation office, not knowing what the day held. But when they opened up their email, they found a message encouraging them to read Psalm 46. They based their morning prayers on the psalm, and drew comfort from God’s Word for the day ahead by reading the passage in as many different Bible translations in different languages as they could find:

“God is our refuge and strength,

always ready to help in times of trouble....

The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us;

the God of Israel is our fortress...

He causes war to end throughout the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear...

 God’s Spirit speaking through his Word lifted their hearts and gave them fresh strength for a tough day’s work in a precarious situation. It’s because of their own experience of the unfailing power of God’s Word to bring hope that these translators are single-minded, no matter what the circumstances. It’s their vision and prayer that all the Tembo people will soon hear God’s Word in the language of their heart, and know the reality that God is their refuge and strength in times of trouble. 
more about the situation in Goma