In the name of Christ

Christianity is strong in the Congo. The Catholics have about 60% of the cake, with protestants 25% and other local sects and muslims the rest.

As befits their status and network, Catholics had the biggest electoral observer team by far, with about 60,000 observers. They came out loud and clear in criticism against the conduct of the elections and called a peaceful march on 16^th February, the anniversary of the day when Mobutu’s forces mowed down Christian demonstrators against his government many years before. In keeping with Mobutu’s tactics, the march this year was crushed mercilessly. Since then the church has kept disappointingly quiet.

Besides their tentative criticisms of the government, the Catholic church plays a huge role in terms of running schools and hospitals. They own and operate about 60% of all schools and a substantial number of hospitals. So, in brief, within the context of the Congo they can fairly be described as the good guys.

But they are under attack from the evangelical and charismatic churches and the multitude of one-man churches started more for profit than faith. These, with their promises of riches for the faithful, faith healing and eternal salvation, are growing fast.

A particularly nasty part of these evangelical sects is their obsession with the devil. The fire and brimstone sermons don’t go far enough: what they need is real evidence of evil. So they specialise in identifying witches.

All this was brought home by a recent case in London of a Congolese boy who was murdered by his sister and boyfriend in their flat in the East End of London on Christmas day. They systematically beat and tortured him to death in the (honest, we are told) belief that they HAD to do it to get rid of the devil occupying the poor boy’s body.

This case raised not an eyebrow in Kinshasa. Everybody knows about witches, and whenever you have bad luck you look for a witch to blame. In the old days the accused were always adults, but in the last decade or so (probably linked to the fact that there are too many of them) children are increasingly blamed.

So the scenario goes like this. Your pastor hears about some bad luck – you loose your job, your child dies etc – and asks to meet your family. He picks out one or more of the children and announces that they are a witch, and the bad things must be exorcised from them. For a small fee the poor children are then subjected to a variety of rituals which range from elaborate conjuring tricks whereby offending objects are pulled from from their bodies, to various forms of bodily abuse, including tying up, hitting, cutting, and even killing. Sometimes it’s done in public, sometimes in private; sometimes once is enough, and on other occasions repeat performances are required.

As a direct result of this torture many children run away from home, and end up living a marginal life in the streets. Their only compensation is that they no longer have to fear their parents and other authority figures such as the pastor.

All this in the name of Christ.

But there’s more. If you are a cat, keep clear from Kinshasa: they are also supposed to be linked to witchcraft and if a “witch cat” is caught what is its fate? It is crucified. Seriously: they make a cat-sized cross and nail the poor animal to it in a disgusting parody of the crucifixion.

In the name of Christ . . .