Do we exist?

I was more than a little amused when I received my first airline tickets from the US which referred to Kinshasa as being in “Zaire”. Zaire, as readers will know, was Mobutu’s name for the Congo when he launched his indigenisation campaign (apparently loosely modelled on Mao’s Cultural Revolution). It was at that time that he also renamed all the towns, so that, for example Leopoldville became Kinshasa. However, in 1997, when Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu, one of his first acts was to rename the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

So when you get an official document locating Kinshasa in Zaire you begin to wonder. At first I thought it was a once-off aberration, but no, right until late 2011, it was there – see picture (don’t be confused by the Ethiopian Airlines reference – the airline used made no difference). Since then, someone in authority must have asked a question “Where is Zaire?”  When she didn’t get a satisfactory response, no doubt after much head scratching, she must have decided to omit it altogether. Because now all the tickets simply state Kinshasa, with no clue as to which country it’s in. Just as all UN maps state that the boundaries on their maps do not represent the official position of the United Nations, the airline ticketing system in the US obviously preferred to avoid official endorsement of the name change made in 1997 by omitting it altogether.

This was all triggered by a recent internet incident. I am pestered by a web-site called Booking.com which obtains cheap deals at hotels. Since we regularly book visitors into hotels in Kinshasa, and I know the going rates, I thought I would play a trick on it and see what offers it had for our hotels. (If you are wondering whether any hotels in Kinshasa might show up on a standard internet site, let me confirm that at least two, the ex-Intercontinental Hotel, now called The Grand Hotel, and operated by Lonrho Hotels; and the Memling Hotel, which is operated by Sabena Hotels, are part of international chains).

So, after taking quite a while, here’s what the site found:

    Kinshasa

    We think you are looking for one of these five options:

    Cities:              Las Vegas

    Airports:          North Las Vegas

                            McCarran

    Hotels:             Kinshasa Hotel, Dubai

                            Kinshasa Hotel Branch, Dubai

That proves it, doesn’t it? We don’t exist. Quite a nice feeling.