The Congolese Line

I finished off the last of the routine, daily turkey sandwich and the last sentence of the article, surrounded by Americana - pictures of Reagan, Brezhnev, King, the Kennedys, and cowboys. Suspended in the brash guitar music and the loud laughter of Americans chewing on meat, the article stared back at me, accusing.

Everybody was blamed: The Belgians historically plundered the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congolese political class - terribly corrupt - worshipped money and did little for their people to bring development, including critical schools and clinics. The international community - the French, the Americans, and others - manipulated the Congolese to obtain the best contracts for their national companies. The World Bank - itself lending the Congo billions that slipped through the drains of corruption - invested heavily in logging companies that were in the process of destroying the second largest forest region on the planet without regard to sustainable logging practices.

The Congolese forests are considered the planet's second lung, next to the dwindling Amazon rain forests, absorbing carbon dioxide that otherwise would flood the atmosphere and trap heat, raising world temperatures with disastrous results around the globe.

In faraway Africa, the cries of the villagers of Baloulambila, are not heard amid the laughter cutting the air in between slurps of old-fashioned American milkshakes. Powerless, the villagers of Baloulambila watch as the American logging company Safbois levels the forest, taking sacred trees, causing the wild beasts that were once part of the village diet to disappear. The schools and clinics that the company had promised are revealed for the lies that they are.

Somewhere, deep in the heart of darkness, a line emerged, connecting Baloulambila, the World Bank, Safbois, milkshakes, turkey sandwiches, laughing Americans, and ancient trees floating down a choked river . . .

I felt the cold of the line start to grip me so I hurried home in the neon night.