The Congo free state, where everything you do, does not come with a price.
It is hard to imagine that such a rich country such as the Congo it is being destroyed by outsiders, as well as by their own people. In her play Ruined, Lynn Nottage touches on some of the issues that are contributing to the Congo’s devastation. Women are being sexually and psychologically abused every day, communities are being destroyed, and the entire Congo its being ravished. Lynn Nottage titled her play Ruined, because her play reflects on all these different factors contributing to the ruin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of the most important points that Nottage makes in her play is that women are psychologically and sexually brutalized in the
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(56) How is that part of democracy?
Kisembe and his rebel soldiers are no better, they killed fifteen Hema men in order to steel coltan from their own mining pit. One of the Hema men stuffed coltan into his mouth to prevent the rebels from stealing it, needless to say they split his belly open with a machete. (31) So as you can see, Kisembe was also no one to be trusted.
At the same time that this is going on, the Congo is being ripped off of its natural resources. Coltan is very abundant in the Congo and highly in demand. Forests fauna and flora are being ruined in search for this precious metal at a rapid rate.We learned from Christian how bad things are escalating in the Congo: “I was just by Yaka-Yaka. When I was there six months ago, it was a forest filled with noisy birds, now it looks like God spooned out heaping mouthful of earth, and every stupid bastard is trying to get a taste of it. It’s been ugly chérie, but never like this. Not here.” Such a shame that such a beautiful place it is being destroyed and drained from all its riches, and that includes their animal life and
Lynn Nottage’s play Poof! is noteworthy due to the combination she used of realism and the fantastic which played well in the effectiveness as a piece of drama. In drama, realism is the attempt to imitate real life which, Nottage does with the two leading characters in her play. Loureen and Florence both endure spousal abuse which connects them as friends. Nottage opens Poof! with an element of the fantastic (the spontaneous combustion of Samuel) following Loureen's curse “Damn you to hell Samuel” to grabbed the audience’s attention. When reading a play as opposed to seeing it the author really needs to try to convey the emotions of the characters and to relay what the dramatic conflict is. In the essay Poof! Nottage uses realism and the fantastic
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
One can easily note the physical and sexual violence brought upon the people (black and white) of Congo after independence, but we must locate the other forms of violence in order to bring the entire story of Patrice Lumumba to light. The director’s attempt at bringing the story of Patrice Lumumba to the “silver screen” had political intentions.
This play carefully outlines the roles of women and how they are treated based on their gender. Many of these women do not have a say so in what happens to them. They are looked at as sexual objects. As a result, it is decided that mutilation will be the answer to keep them from exploring other areas of their sexuality. Honestly it is terrible to see women in different regions of the world looked down upon because of their role in society. Granted that, Nottage does an exceptional job explaining the life of a female who has suffered genital mutilation and how one can succeed beyond means as a
Alas, in 1961 Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by a US- sponsored plot 7 months after independence, and replaced him with a “puppet dictator named Mobutu” (Kingsolver). In her book, Barbara Kingsolver surfaces a forgotten part of our nation’s history in the exploitation of the Congo through her main characters, the Price family, who are missionaries sent to the Kilanga village. Through characters’ narratives that “double as allegories for the uneasy colonial marriage between the West and Africa” (Hamilton, Jones), Kingsolver creates a relatable way for her readers to understand the theme she is trying to convey, which is “‘what did we do to Africa, and how do we feel about it?’” (Snyder). Kingsolver began with this theme and developed the rest of the novel around it, just as she does with her other works, and sticking with her trademark technique, she utilizes her book as a vessel for “political activism, an extension of the anti-Vietnam protests” she participated in college (Snyder).
In the end, Ruined illuminates a war that ravages the people of the Congo and strips them of the community they had once called home and of the people who they used to be. The need for cell phones and the mineral coltan in the Western world lead to a great deal of war and strife in the Congo. Ruined acts as a medium where we can view those consequences and understand just how big of an impact globalism can have on other areas of the world
“When these other mass murders went largely unnoticed except by their victims, why, in England and the United States, was there such a storm of righteous protest about the Congo?” In the reigning of King Leopold at Congo, unfairness, judgement, and brutality are only some of the things seen. In Baffour Ankomah‘s essay, The Butcher of Congo, Ankomah talks of Adam Hochschild’s new book, King Leopold’s ghost. He describes it as ‘brilliant’, and both the story and events as something that “..Africa and the world must not forget.” Ankomah points out several details and central ideas that can be seen in King Leopold’s Ghost, and with them he includes excerpts of Hochschild’s explaining and opinions: little compliments like, “Hochschild tells it better”
... attention allowed economic exploitation in the Congo and its people devastated by human rights abuses, and even today the lack of international attention has caused many conflicts in and around the Congo. The economic exploitation of the Congo during colonial times robbed the country of wealth which could have been used to develop the land, and the lack of wealth has contributed to Congo’s poor standing in the world today. Lastly, the human rights abuses in the Congo Free State contributed to economic and political troubles during the colonial period and has continued into the present day, as human rights abuses are still prevalent in that region of Africa. Due to the lack of international attention, economic exploitation, and human rights abuses, the Congo Free State was harmful to the Congo region of Africa and its legacy continues to harm that region of Africa.
In Lynn Nottage’s playwright Ruined, some would argue that having been previously raped and sexually tortured, the women working for Mama Nadi are comparatively more sexually empowered when working in the brothel, as they consent to sex with the men; unfortunately, that is not the case. The situation is the same, the women are still being sexually objectified and exploited, only by a different perpetrator—Mama Nadi. Thereby, Mama Nadi is the only character that embodies sexual empowerment in the play. Her sexual empowerment is derived from her ability to take active ownership over her decisions, which are ultimately self-serving. Therefore, by placing Mama Nadi in a position to benefit by treating other women as commodities without regard to their personality or dignity, Nottage creates a unique dynamic in both power relations and conventional gender roles. More specifically, Mama Nadi is advantaged despite the gender norm of women being oppressed in her society. Compared to the other girls, Mama Nadi is substantially well off,
In the 1800’s, western countries such as the Belgians also took away the natural resources of the Congo such as ivory and rubber in the 1800’s. In modern times, western countries not only take away minerals such as coltan to produce technology, but they also take away other precious minerals such as cassiterite, gold, tantalum, and tourmaline. These instances are similar in that the materials that are being taken from the Congo are being used to make consumer goods that are sold to the public to profit the western
Over a period from 1960-1965, the first Republic of the Congo experienced a period of serious crisis. There was a terrible war for power that displayed senseless violence and the desperation to rule. There were many internal conflicts among the people. The country eventually gained independence from Belgium. For many countries this would be a time for celebration. Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest of the country out of fear of the mutinous army that was out of control looting and killing.
Civil wars have been a part of world history since before 130 BC when the Crisis of the Roman Republic took place. The Crisis of the Roman public was a extended period of social unrest in Rome that lasted from 133 BC to 30 BC. Civil wars happened back in 133 BC and still happen today. Many studies have been conducted on how wars and conflict affect the social outcomes and ideals, but few have been conducted on how they can and do effect the environment and the animals that live in it. This research paper will take a close look at the Sierra Leone civil war, the “blood diamonds” that funded the rebels, and how they effected the environment and its inhabitants.
As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo, it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.
Located in the heart of the continent of Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a diverse nation with rich, intricate history. Despite political, economic, and social struggles, the large African country has continued to endure and develop against adversity. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is abundant in natural resources and is home to many different cultural and ethnic groups of people. The geographic, demographic, economic, and governmental history and conditions have helped shape the territory into the developing state it is today.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has had a long history of bloody conflict, civil war, and western exploitation dating back to 1885 when King Leopold II of Belgium brutally exploited the country for rubber. Agents of King Leopold II would storm a village, hold the women hostage until the men reached a quota of rubber. When the men left in search of the material, often for days or weeks, dying of exhaustion in the process, the women were raped and starved (Adam Hochschild, 161). Since that time the DRC has been caught in a cycle of continuous exploitation of natural resources by more developed countries. The DRC is caught in the political science theory called resource curse. Resource curse states that a developing country with a high amount of natural resources is at an increased risk for civil war and doomed to slower development because of political corruption, lack of economic diversification, and failure to invest in human capital (Nadira Lalji,