Ten Radical Acts for Congo in the New Year

Having just been in the Congo for the last month, it is evident that the more than 12-year economic war in the Democratic Republic of Congo rages on. Almost 6 million dead. Almost 500 thousand raped. Here is what I propose:

1. Please stop endlessly repeating these phrases:

• "The Congo has been like this forever."

• "There is nothing we can do."

• "It's too complicated. I just don't understand."

• "It's a cultural thing."

A. Violence against women and girls is rampant across the entire planet.

B. Sexual terrorism was imported into the DRC like a plague about 12 years ago years ago, after a 1996 military operation know as Operation Turquoise -- a plan supported and implemented by the international community which allowed murdering Hutu militias of Rwanda (FDLR) into Eastern Congo. Since then, this sexual terrorism has been sustained by these and other parties interested in the minerals, (coltan, gold, tin), that are serving you. Like a plague, this rape and sexual violence has spread infecting the Congolese Army and even the UN peacekeepers who are there to "protect" the women. Put pressure on the international community to remove all outside militias. They brought them there, they are responsible for getting them out.

2. Stop asking women survivors in the Congo to tell their stories over and over

A woman activist told me yesterday they were going to shut up now.
"There is no reason to keep telling the story or paying expats lots of money
to research the story of women and girls in the Congo. We all know the story."

Visit these sites:
Read the latest U.N. human rights reports from the NYT
AFEM
Friends of Congo
Read the recent Human Rights Watch reports
Read the history

We know what is happening in the DRC. Now is the time for action.

3. Deconstruct and abolish subterranean and learned racism

Deconstruct and abolish subterranean and learned racism that lies at the bedrock of human consciousness and arranges and expects and accepts the doom of black and brown people. Undo the brutal and evil indifference to the suffering of the people of Congo, the women in particular.

4. Shoes, shoes, shoes, for everyone who needs them

5. Insist on support for thousands of trained Congolese women police officers

Insist on support for thousands of trained Congolese women police officers who can protect their sisters in the bush. Don't let Security Council resolutions 1820 and 1325 continue to be random insider numbers UN policy bureaucrats refer to when they are trying to prove they are doing something about sexual violence. Insist they be resolutions with grit that get applied regularly with sincerity and substance. Begin application by insisting that the UN not collaborate with rapists and former warlords in military operations.

Write to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ask her to allocate funding for a women's police force in the Congo:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

6. Serve the Congolese and take their lead

Support their initiatives. Get out of the way. Support the local groups and campaigns that already exist, that have existed. They need your support to continue to exist. Fight to make sure the money headed for Eastern Congo actually gets to the women on the ground - the grassroots groups who need it most. Believe in grassroots women and men. Send them your confidence, your solidarity, and your money.

Give to V-Day's Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource campaign as it continues to support local groups on the ground like AFEM, the South Kivu Women's Media Association, Panzi Hospital in Bukavu and Heal Africa Hospital in Goma, women's collectives like I Will Not Kill Myself Today and AFECOD, and the Women's Ministry and Laissez l'Afrique Vivre.

Click here to donate.

7. Tell President Obama to step up to femicide

Insist that as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Obama ask questions about the history of the conflict in the Congo. Ask him to find out how and when this war began. Ask him to put his attention to what's happening to the women in the Congo, to femicide -- the destruction of the female species that is spreading to other countries and will continue to spread if he, himself does not make this a front and center issue. The Congo needs to be more than a phrase reference in one of his speeches. He needs to come to the Congo. He needs to meet the women and bring them to the table with himself and leaders of Rwanda and Uganda and Burundi. He needs to help facilitate a diplomatic plan for peace that does not involve more violence.

Write to President Obama and ask him to make finding a non-military solution to the war in Congo a priority in his foreign policy agenda.

8. Acknowledge what's fueling this war and your part in it

Educate yourself about how conflict minerals are illegally and inhumanely pillaged from the Congo and make their way into your cell phones and the computer you are using to read this post right now. Demand that electronics companies alter their mining and trade policies so that conflict-free minerals are used in our electronics. Until this happens, we all literally have blood on our hands.

Investigate where and how your electronics companies are purchasing their materials. As a consumer, demand that they use conflict-free minerals in their parts.

9. Talk about the Congo everywhere you go

Be a pain in the ass. Ruin cocktail parties. Stop traffic. Give sermons. Insert facts about Congo in every possible occasion, i.e., in response to "How are you today?," you might say: "Well, I would be okay if women weren't being raped in the DRC...."

Host teach-ins and screen V-Day's film Turning Pain to Power. Visit vday.org to access both.

10. Get angry and stop being polite

Feel what your sister, mother, grandmother, daughter, wife, girlfriend would be feeling if she were being gang raped or held as a sex slave for years or if her insides were destroyed by sticks and guns and she could never have another baby.

Feel feel feel.

Open yourself to feeling.

Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist, is the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

 

Comments

[eddiesengola]

02:13 AM on 01/15/2010

I believe Eve should talk more too about USA foreign policy on Congo and how it contribute­d to current Congo's situation.

[eddiesengola]

02:06 AM on 01/15/2010

Thanks for this article, it's excellent.

[Jonathan Lorie]

01:26 PM on 01/13/2010

Great to read Ms Ensler’s action point 6 – take a lead from the locals. In Congo, as in many war zones, there are local people working hard to build the kind of lasting peace that has eluded the internatio­nal community for 15 years now. Local peacebuild­ers have the inside track on what’s going on and what’s needed, and they won’t pull out when the internatio­nals eventually will. In DRC right now there’s an amazing guy called Henri Ladyi who’s rescuing child soldiers and mediating between warring factions – he was called “Africa’s Schindler” by the Independen­t newspaper in London. Check him out and fund his work on www.peaced­irect.org. Local people like him can make a high impact with relatively small funds - and it's not "us" telling "them" what to do.

[cathybrooks]

03:12 PM on 01/12/2010

I just came from the Consumer Electronic­s Show in Las Vegas and sat listening while the CEO of Nokia spoke about the importance of doing good ... of giving back ... of focusing on communitie­s in which one does business. He spoke of education. He spoke of energy conservati­on. Not once did he speak of the unspeakabl­e horrors of the DRC. I realize of course that the situation in the DRC isn't quite as clean cut as the blood diamonds scenario in which there was a single purveyor who could be held accountabl­e ... but there is no reason that private enterprise - Nokia and every other device manufactur­er- shouldn't step up and put their support behind helping resolve this issue.

[Litsa]

12:31 PM on 01/12/2010

Thank you, Ms. Ensler, for once again drawing attention to the horrific and protracted slaughter in Congo. I've written the White House, the U.S. State Department­, and posted this feature to my Facebook page and blog.

[KatarinaNolte]

07:02 AM on 01/12/2010

This is fantastic, but there is one thing that has to be done: end patriarchy­. Period.
Invest everything into women and children, take them away from such men if necessary. Make the women INDEPENDEN­T.
Or otherwise stuff like this will go on and on in different parts of the world.
What did the men do over there after destroying women? Apologize? LOL.
Such monsters need women to exist and reproduce. They should not have that option.

[Kit Kimberly]

05:03 AM on 01/13/2010

Hear, hear, Katarina.

"women of the future hold the big revelation­s." Get On Your Boots, U2

[Kizar Sozay]

07:59 PM on 01/11/2010

Nothing suggested in the column will have any real world effect beyond giving the author and followers a feeling of moral superiorit­y. This is the same as the decades long Free Tibet movement. All that achieved is buying new bumper stickers when you get a new car.

[Givethemhellharry]

04:59 AM on 01/12/2010

Amen, you are right.

[mrpurple805]

05:37 PM on 01/12/2010

Sad, but likely true.

[alainb1]

04:24 PM on 01/11/2010

The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon... an epidemic of organized murder of women by men. Some scientists suspect a biological cause for this sexually selective insanity ... the murderers feel it is a natural instinct and have constructe­d elaborate misogynist­ic rationaliz­ations for it. .. a new religious movement is spreading along with the murders: the Sons of Adam, who believe that women are evil, that the garden was a paradise before women were introduced­, and God is telling them to get rid of all of the women... the disease is resulting in men's sexual impulses being turned to violent impulses..­. the disease began in the tropical zones and then spread out from there. After most of the women are dead, adult men start murdering boys. In the end ... pursued by an entire society bent on femicide, Anne discovers the source and motivation behind the plague: an alien species is intentiona­lly causing the human race to destroy itself, so that the aliens can have Earth for themselves­.
You want to talk about "End Times", forget the Bible you are watching it unfold in the Congo. The wholesale murder and destructio­n of woman in Africa will result in nothing less than the eventual depopulati­on of the continent. That should make it much easier to harvest the resources without all those "pesky" natives.
Nuts? Perhaps you don't have to look far for examples of crazy in Africa - see wiki on The Lords Resistance Army and don't believe for a second it

[rougebaisers]

03:18 PM on 01/11/2010

My dear sister, I would stand by your side in any battle. beau séjour

[cb750]

02:57 PM on 01/11/2010

1. Get the UN out of the congo. Making people junkies on aid then dictating terms solves nothing and enslaves a nation like an addict enslaved by a dealer.

2. Quit making this a women's issue when men are dying by the bus loads. Men are killed first or rounded up and forced to serve in the military.

3. Economic prosperity is the key to any growth. Support free markets through non-coerci­ve means.

4. If you want Americans, specifical­ly American men to help women in the congo then quit beating us men up when we actually use force to do so. Look at the way feminists stab american service men in the back when we freed women under the Taliban. Even Gloria Steinem said Afghanista­n is way better for women. Don't demand we act NOW and then when we men do act you feminists stab us in the back and chant "not in our name".

5. Liberals complain about the US interferin­g in other countries. Now you want us to interfere in other countries. You do know the very same groups Code Pink solicits to help their cause (Hamas) are the same groups that treat women with massive sexism and misogyny. So which is it? Interfere? Not Interfere? So when Congo terrorists blow up a US target do we once again get to here its our fault for "interferi­ng".

Men die much more than women in the congo. Quit making this into a womens issue.

[Emmory]

12:03 AM on 01/12/2010

bravo

[Givethemhellharry]

05:01 AM on 01/12/2010

Amen, Again

[seedub]

02:42 PM on 01/11/2010

Great to have bullet points on how best to take action, Eve. Thanks.

The violence in the Congo has a long, deep history that's intertwine­d with European and American industrial avarice, going back to the coldwar where U.S. intelligen­ce was strongly implicated in the coup that led to Patrice Lumumba's death, replacing him with strongman/­puppet Mobutu Sese Seko.

For the colonial roots that certainly relate to the current state of resource grabbing through horrific acts against people, have a look at King Leopold's Ghost (http://tin­y.cc/rFSC0 ). It's is a well-writt­en history of the region that will keep you turning the pages in amazement and car-wreck fascinatio­n at how the world turns a blind eye toward this rich, diverse part of the planet.

[History Punk]

02:19 PM on 01/11/2010

These are all excellent suggestion­s, but as Bosnia demonstrat­ed they will not work. What stopped the Bosnian atrocities was a revamped Bosnia Army/Croat­ian offensive and NATO airpower. NGO handwaving stopped the massacres in Kosovo by getting Clinton to back the KLA while dispatchin­g, again, NATO airpower.

[elaygee]

01:10 PM on 01/11/2010

All the violence in the Congo is terroristi­c violence and it is extremely hard to stop once started. In the old days, before media coverage, terrorism was either successful in its aims and took over as the ruling system (or non system) or elimainate­d by the wholesale slaughter and control of all in the terrorists ethnic group (Sri Lanka style)

There are hundreds of ethnic groups in the Congo and alliances change daily. Where do you start in Congo? Who does it? How about the other nations of Africa? Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, kenya and Nigeria all have immense armies. Shouldn't they be first in line to restore order?.

[mrpurple805]

02:05 PM on 01/11/2010

And how do we get away from the problem (mostly of perception­) of a powerful (mostly) white country telling a weak black country to change its ways or else? And when that change is resisted, what is the "or else" if not killing Congolese (nice or not)?

[LegalCodex]

05:11 PM on 01/11/2010

The issue is that it isn't just a problem "mostly of perception­". The US and other countries for years have exploited the African continent to obtain resources and gain followers for their Christian faith. Frankly, I don't think it is surprising that the region of Africa that was perhaps most exploited by the Europeans and Americans is now stuck in what may be the most violent war to ever occur on the entire continent.

[RightWingMarine]

12:05 PM on 01/11/2010

I agree with what you have to say until you urged us to write SoS Clinton to call for US funding of a foreign police force. While the cause is noble it is still not the responsibi­lity of the American people to provide this funding and our elected reps have no authority to hand out this, or any other, foreign aid. If someone wants to support this cause then that is something they can do on their own but not something that should be forced on them.

I don't believe you understand what the word literally means. By using products that contain conflict minerals we figurative­ly have blood on our hands, we don't actually have blood on our hands.

[PhoenixGSU]

12:59 PM on 01/11/2010

Then why do we send 3 billion a year to Israel?

[RightWingMarine]

02:38 PM on 01/11/2010

so Congressme­n can get campaign contributi­ons. again, we should end all foreign aid.

[scriptorblog]

05:51 PM on 01/11/2010

"...it is still not the responsibi­lity of the American people to provide this funding ..." I agree. Now, take your salary and donate it, in my name, to the Peace Corp. I didn't consent to you getting any of my money. As far as your astute comment on the use of the word "literal", I'm sure you would agree that Bin Laden doesn't literally have the blood of anyone from the World Trade Center on his hands.

[RightWingMarine]

09:54 AM on 01/12/2010

I am no longer employed by any level of the federal govt or military but I get your point. Fortunatly for me and those that are still or will be in the military our Congress has the Constituti­onal authority to pay them and the President has the authority to send us to implement Americas foreign policy. If you don't agree with this then you need to get a Constituti­onal amendment passed.
While I believe that bin Laden is responsibl­e for the Sept 11 attack he does not literally have blood on his hands.

[jade7243]

12:03 PM on 01/11/2010

The problem is that celebritie­s approach systemic problems with Nike slogans: just do it! Or just do this.

The problem is that white Americans like Eve think they're doing "good" by taking up the one of these "celebrity causes" to boost their "humanitar­ian" street cred.

Without people in the US or Europe seeing the African continent as something valuable and vital to not only their strategic interests, but to their survival, Africa is just a vague, ill-define­d, place on a map. If white America, and Europe valued black African lives as much as they value Bosnians or Serbs or Croats, the conflict in the Congo would have been ended generation­s ago, by the very people who exacerbate­d -- if not caused -- it in the first place.

You don't need radical acts promoted by celebritie­s. You need a comprehens­ive change in foreign policy that is affirmativ­e action for Africa and Africans. When Americans and Europeans value all life -- and not just that packaged in white skin -- then you will see comprehens­ive action to repair the damage done by white colonizati­on and exploitati­on.

[Garioch]

01:21 PM on 01/11/2010

So everyone is allowed to say something other than celebritie­s and those who already have a platform to publicize a situation should remain silent?

That's an interestin­g way of attempting to engage more people. I'm all for and about bottom up movements but in the current version of what passes for a society top down can be pretty effective at getting informatio­n out there and starting something from the bottom up. I'd rather they were talking about this then blahing about their latest non event of a book/ film/ marriage (delete as applicable­).

[justthefacts17]

05:30 PM on 01/11/2010

How 'bout if Obama goes to Africa and apologizes for America's
damage to the Continent? Will that help Africa and stop the bloodshed?
Rwanda could've been saved with 3500 troops but Clinton wouldn't
do it. Check out Paul Simon's book.