TV

A few weeks ago we were alerted to the fact that The Head of State, as he’s typically called here (rather than President, which allegedly doesn’t sound so impressive) was going to make an important announcement at 4 p.m. Some people joked that he would announce that he had resigned; or maybe he was seeking political asylum in Britain so that he could see the rest of the Olympic games. Presumably it would be about the war in the East which is beginning to look increasingly unwinnable. Does he have a Syria on his hands?

Anyway, not unusually, he didn’t appear at four o’clock and we gave up watching after five. To this day I don’t know whether he ever did appear. But while we were waiting, the TV station (the state broadcaster, of course) filled in the time with the standard fare: dancing.

Dancing is very useful in this country because everyone likes music, and the theory is that if you ever have a message to convey it should be accompanied by dancing. Since 99% of all the music here has a particular beat, then you can be sure that the dancing will be more or less the same no matter what.

This message was not lost on election candidates, most of whom included dancing crowds in their videos. Nor is it lost on advertisers. Need to sell shampoo?  Show people dancing with happiness with their new hair.  Need to inspire people to worship? Show them dancing inside the church. Want to advertise the latest instant soup? Why not have everyone dancing with joy because it tastes so good.

This is not hi-octane dancing. The norm is for people to simply stand, hands at the side, wiggling their hips and smiling inanely. Feet are allowed to shuffle a little, but one must not fling them around: that’s much too western.

The big advantage is that, as TV material, it’s cheap. It requires no special “Strictly Come Dancing” floor or other props. We saw someone setting up a shoot recently by the river. They had a cheap boombox with a CD in it, a home-movie style video camera, and a team of eight girls dressed in identical kit. And that was that. After half an hour it was in the can.

It is so loved that some people will even prefer it to the daily soaps. So TV stations know that they don’t have to worry that people will turn off if they fill available time with dancing, and they have almost limitless supplies to do so.

But there comes a time when the standard model doesn’t seem quite right, so while waiting for the President to come on, the station decided to screen something different.

Scene: an operating theatre, with a bloodied almost dead girl on the table. Someone is trying, in rhythm with the music, to resuscitate her with periodic but delicate shoves to the chest. They put an oxygen mask on her. Getting bored with the helpless case in the operating theatre, the scene changes to the ward where nurses are dancing around more horribly wounded patients. A doctor comes in (we know he is, because he has a stethoscope round his neck) and with a beatific grin sashays through the ward, his chorus line following him, ignoring the poor patients. And so it continues, for a good fifteen minutes, crossing between mutilated bodies and jolly dancing nurses all to the relentless beat of happy music.

I was mocking it, much to the consternation of my politically sensitive Congolese colleague. “They,” he said, very seriously, and without any sense of irony, “are expressing the national outrage at the conditions in the East.”

Cleanliness 101

Kinshasa is getting really excited because the Francophonie Conference is to be held here. That doesn’t sound like much, but in fact it is quite a big thing. It’s not just a language conference, but more like a Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference for the family of French-speaking countries. It’s held every two years, and normally attended by Heads of State by over 50 countries. Like the commonwealth it has its own secretariat and acts as a cultural and developmental organisation.

Tradition has it that the conference is chaired by the host nation. President Kabila is naturally very excited to have this role, but less than thrilled to hear that Francois Hollande is probably not coming. Like many people, he (Hollande) is said to be reluctant to legitimise Kabila after last year’s dodgy election.

So what’s Kinshasa doing to prepare itself? It is said that Kabila has managed to get a Chinese billionaire to refurbish an office block, the one-time Zaire Chamber of Commerce, (a 23 storey white elephant of the Mobutu period that has lain unused for decades), as a conference hotel and venue. It’s certainly got a magnificent position, right on the river, but whether they will be able to make the interior suitably presidential is not so sure.

And . . . wait for it: they are sweeping the streets. One of the problems of this town is that the soil is very sandy and somehow the streets are always edged with sand. Someone from on high has recently decreed that this sand is unsightly, so an army of street sweepers have been consigned to do the necessary. Wherever they work large signs are erected on stands in the centre of the road proclaiming “Cleansing of Kinshasa”. We were astonished last week, coming back from a restaurant after 10.00 on a Friday night, to see them still at it. The same on Saturday and Sunday. 

It’s a laborious task. First the sand is swept into little heaps, then the heaps are collected in a wheelbarrow and put onto a bigger heap, then shovelled into large bags, and finally the bags are taken somewhere in little trailers pulled by a motorbike. It’s only done in the posh areas, of course. As part of the cosmetics, grass verges are also being trimmed, and leaves being swept up too. The only thing which doesn’t seem right is that we are about two months away from the Conference, so what’s it all for? A dry run, to see how long it takes?

Meanwhile, a mere block away from the immaculately swept streets and trimmed verges, the litter along the river spreads like an evil pox. In spite of the fact that litter bins are available, the scene is disgusting.

There’s something else which isn’t so savoury along the river. That’s the dog poo. There are a few – mainly American, it must be said – owners who carry around little plastic bags and dutifully pick it up. For most of us, it doesn’t seem that important unless the dog is insensitive enough to do it on the footpath. In that case it’s shameful and must be covered up by soil or otherwise made harmless. But we tell ourselves that in this climate within a day or two it’ll be washed away, or else sterilised by the sun, so it doesn’t really matter. In reality, of course, the excuse is just a cover for our laziness. Obviously, unlike the city fathers, we haven’t learned that cleanliness is next to godliness.

One block away they are sweeping up the sand and leaves: here, it's someone else's job
(It's not all as bad as this: there are parts of the river bank which are pristine)

African grey parrots, imparting their wisdom

But then, to help everyone forget the squalor, the parrots in the trees above make a noisy contribution to the debate. They tell us not to fret so much. It’s been like this for years, they say, just chill.

Turning over a new leaf

It’s been a mantra, since our project started almost three years ago, that the government doesn’t want to decentralise, even though the Constitution says that it has to. It was clear that the big fish in Kinshasa want to hang on to power and are no more likely to share it, or the money that goes with it, than they are to take a cut in salary in solidarity with the starving poor. Since one of the objectives of the project is to assist decentralisation it was getting pretty frustrating.

Kabila’s not got a very good reputation for decisive action, but one thing he has done right is to appoint a cabinet of younger people who want to make a difference. One such is the Minister of the Interior . . . and Decentralisation.

So, taking the bull by the horns we decided to hold a big conference about how to get the process moving. The Prime Minister agreed to open and close the proceedings, and the Minister of the Interior would give the opening keynote speech.

We had over three hundred delegates including the top brass from many provinces.

But what was amazing was that the Minister himself spent time in the working groups thrashing out details of a new strategy. One of them was chaired by another minister – Education.

On the last day three other Ministers came to give their ideas about what needed doing, and subjected themselves to some very critical questions from the floor. What was funny was that when the Ministers started speaking people from the floor would shout “Who are you?” and he would have to introduce himself, giving a CV just like a candidate in an interview. This was such a contrast with the pompous “I’m above all that” behaviour of the previous cabinet.

But refreshing as it was to see Ministers engaging with the real issues, it was even more refreshing to hear them talk about their problems. The Minister of the Civil Service talked very frankly about the problem with pensions. In a word they simply don’t have the money to pay the pensions due, so allow staff beyond pensionable age have to continue working. Not that the pensions are huge: $1000 is as much as some people might get as their full and final pay out. They may have been paying into pension funds, but all that was wiped out by successive bouts of massive inflation. The situation, he said, “is ridiculous”.

The Minister of Agriculture complained bitterly about the situation he had inherited. There is a staff of 16,000 in his Ministry in Kinshasa, and only 8,000 in the rest of the country – which is, of course, where they are needed. Even that is too many because all the Ministry’s budget is absorbed by salaries, so they don’t have money to do anything else. But the fact that he’s talking frankly about the problem was like a breath of fresh air, and he received enthusiastic applause.

They were actually enjoying themselves . . .

So we’re optimistic. But confident? That’s another story.