Mega City Study: Kinshasa

Kinshasa

Kinshasa is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is a huge city in Central Africa. Located in the west of DRC and is the Capital City. The country speaks French and has some regional languages like Lingala. Kinshasa has around 17 million residents which classifies it as a megacity.

In the past the city was under the control of Belgium after they acquire the territory from there king at the time Leopold the second who is now known for the mass murder of innocent Congolese. Leopold handed the territory to the Belgians who at first were reluctant to annex the territory but took over the governing of the territory in 1908. They were known for being the most caring European power this was because they allowed some amount of independence. The DRC was part of the free France movement and fought the Nazis in Africa. The country gained independence in 1960 under a democratic leader until his assassination.

Source 1:The map shows Kinshasa on a map of Africa. Operationworld n.d., Pray for: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Map, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://operationworld.org/locations/congo-democratic-republic-of/>.

Historical Introduction

The Original name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was the Belgian Congo then when independent was name after the dictator of the country Mobutu, then in 1971 was renamed Zaire which in 1997 was changed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Leopoldville was the original name of Kinshasa it was renamed in 1966, the reason why it was renamed was so that the name no longer remembered King Leopold the second.

Leopoldville was named after King Leopold the second, the man that when Africa was being divided up, claimed that he alone should control the territory of the DRC. He claimed that he was there to save and help the natives learn to be more educated and civil which was the idea that the people were uneducated and savage. This was the excuse used by most European colonisers of that time and was just a justification to coloniser and steal.

Leopold committed genocide by forcing the men to find him rubber from vines in the forests of the local village. Leopold sent his men to capture the women and children of the villages and claimed he would only give them back when he had enough rubber. The jungle was destroyed and then when the rubber supplies began running low Leopold’s men started becoming more violent towards the villagers. Millions died in the forests, the men would searchers for week and still found nothing, they died from a lack of food and water. In the villages women and children died of starvation, without the father to hunter there was no food. Leopold was pressured to give up the territory due to the genocide, this was partly to hide the fact that many other countries did the same disgusting tactic as Leopold to gain Rubber. (Hochschild, A n.d., Leopold II, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium).

Intro to Topics

The poverty rate in Kinshasa is terrible, kids scavenge through rubbish on the streets, and as the capital of one of the biggest countries in Africa. The poverty rate is decreasing in amount and the newly elected president has put major efforts in place to decrease the amount of poverty in the Country and Capital city. The topics I choose are Poverty and Rubbish Destruction this paragraph was a small piece outlining my depth study.

Rubbish Problem

According to the German News outlet DW there are 9000 tonnes of rubbish accumulates in Kinshasa ever day in 2018. The Kinshasians are affected everyday with children rummaging through rubbish every day to find useful items such as bottles, cans, and other types of useful rubbish this is decreasing the health of children in the city. Plastic clogs the river in Kinshasa and even drains are filling up with plastic. The government has not set up a proper rubbish collection system this is probably because the European union used to deal with the rubbish but now their aid has slowed down. (Tiassou, K 2018, Kinshasa is drowning in waste, Kinshasa, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/kinshasa-is-drowning-in-waste/a-46550313)

The rubbish collection could be fixed by following the European way of rubbish disposal through placing the rubbish into a pit where it could then be buried and recycled. There are industries where people pay to have rubbish removed and stored then the useful trash is sold. This is a great start to recycle and built a more sustainable future. At this point if there isn’t instant action on rubbish removal the environmental impacts will be almost unreversible.

Some suggestions are that they should just incinerate the rubbish, but this would put millions of lives at stake, through burning plastic. When plastic is burned to creates greenhouse gases, when inhaled can cause cancer and other nasty diseases. This technic would make the problem worse and that a rubbish dumping ground would be better. There are problems with the garbage dump tactic the number of unwanted pests could infect the population with horrible diseases.

The systems of the countries are outdated and in need of a fix up which is seeming like this will happen, one of the first publicly elected president now leads the DRC’s government. Felix Tshisekedi is the president and is focused on fix the problems of poverty, diseases, and many other important issues. Hopefully soon he will deal with the Rubbish issues.

After the System of rubbish collection is set up, they should then set up a Recycle system to make them a sustainable powerhouse in the world. Some in the country already recycle and they are well rounded aware citizens. A man in the DRC’s east in the city Goma has been to many international events for his hard work in rubbish collection and is trying to drum up funds for a proper waste plant to sort and store rubbish. (Raupp, J 2015, Recycling garbage in DR Congo crisis city, Goma, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/recycling-garbage-in-dr-congo-crisis-city/a-18204651).

Poverty

The buses in Kinshasa are very unreliable because of the huge amount of people that use them, so taxis are used as another form of public transport. Taxis are still very limited with only a few available for huge crowds of people. Taxis can also be expense and a small trip from work to home is really not affordable because the average DRC citizen lives on less than 2 US dollars a day which puts the people as some of the worse living conditions in the world. The idea that the average civilian is so poor really explains why there is some much waste and rubbish everywhere. Because as Jordan Peterson(Canadian Clinical Psychologist) says when you give people an option for development, they become more aware of their environment and if the Kinshasians were given more resources and money they could start to care about their environment.

Poverty is terrible in Kinshasa with a huge divide between classes where the rich are extremely rich which means that the poor are poor. It’s terrible when a huge amount of the population lives under the poverty line which in the DRC is very low already. There is a fisherman that makes 1.70 Euros a day who lives across from some of the DRC’s richest people. They are only kilometres away and yet live completely different lives. Luckily for some of the fishers there are good people such as Fally Ipupa who would give the fishermen working money. On one occasion he gave the group of fishermen 50 Congolese franc which rounded out to about 7 Euros each which was about one week worth of work. (DW, D 2021, The life of the super-rich in Central Africa | DW Documentary, online video, 4 April, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPLylJk89w).

In Kinshasa many people are trying to build industries around women and attempting to bring more women out of poverty. Part of trying to get women out of poverty is that women in the country want a slice of the wealth. This can get complicated in a country where even most men don’t have a slice of the wealth. I think that the best way to build there out of poverty is to build on men and women desires of wealth, this would really motivate them to work hard, which is such a western way of looking at the problem since there is many more things in the way of progress. (DW, D 2021, The life of the super-rich in Central Africa | DW Documentary, online video, 4 April, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPLylJk89w).

The media’s coverage of the congo is about rape and war most of the time but maybe it’s time for the coverage of the DRC to go from destruction to the new young generation that are trying to make real change. With a change of attitude towards the country, more people will hopefully start investing in the country although with investment you’d hope that the investing won’t just be done by china. For a country to grow relationships, neutrally is important so that if two countries are angry at each other, then the country could intervene and stop the angry by setting up peace talks. Peace talks helps to build a good neutral reputation for a country making them seem reasonable and fair. (DW, D 2021, The life of the super-rich in Central Africa | DW Documentary, online video, 4 April, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPLylJk89w).

Kinshasa number of millionaires is growing every year with new people finding their riches in all sorts of industries, like mining, music, and many others but with more millions comes more problems. The more that some move up the more other are pushed down. In western countries when people have lots of money they quickly rise in power and wealth. The poorer citizens lose access to that money. The difference is that western countries the government’s forced to support their poorer citizens in theory this doesn’t happen in some western countries, but most do. The pay is low In Kinshasa. As an example, the country Canada there is lots of poor residents, but they are funded through welfare and by having a high minimum wage. Kinshasa should increase their minimum wage to higher so that their people have move access to money this would decrease the rich and poor wealth divide.

Other Problems

Kinshasa and the rest of the congo were exploited for cheap labour this has left a lasting scar and because of this the country has only just really started to grow. Mobutu was a huge reason to why I say this he controlled the country for 30 years and he was a ruthless dictator who amassed a huge 30 billion dollars in riches. Mobutu was given power by the United States because he was hard on communism, this was during “The Red Scare” era.

The red scare era was when communism was at it’s highest point of control and because the Republic of Congo was communist until the 1990’s.

The country of the DRC has had 6 million civilian/soldiers killed over a few decades and there is still ongoing conflicts in the country’s east. Kinshasa is never in conflict because the real fighting happens in the east because that where all the important resources are while Kinshasa is move of a trading port and government centre. (Beat, M 2020, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo Compared, online video, 1 August, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j51bOGvjl0).

Conclusion

Inconclusion Kinshasa is a developing country with many problems such as rubbish collection, poverty and by having a sightly negative media image. If these problems are dealt with the megacity could be a beacon of development in Central Africa. Kinshasa is a very diversity and interesting city and I am glad to have done it as a project, for the problems are unique and coming up with solutions is fun but then when finding out about Leopold’s destruction of the native people and then Mobutu’s terrible reign it was a good reminder of the terrible actions of people throughout history.

Bibliography

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j51bOGvjl0 Beat, M 2020, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo Compared, online video, 1 August, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j51bOGvjl0>.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA4uvWhvmHw Wonder Why 2018, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo Compared, online video, 7 March, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j51bOGvjl0>.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPLylJk89w (DW, D 2021, The life of the super-rich in Central Africa | DW Documentary, online video, 4 April, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPLylJk89w).

https://www.dw.com/en/recycling-garbage-in-dr-congo-crisis-city/a-18204651 (Raupp, J 2015, Recycling garbage in DR Congo crisis city, Goma, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/recycling-garbage-in-dr-congo-crisis-city/a-18204651).

https://www.dw.com/en/kinshasa-is-drowning-in-waste/a-46550313 (Tiassou, K 2018, Kinshasa is drowning in waste, Kinshasa, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/kinshasa-is-drowning-in-waste/a-46550313)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51220974 Kowene, G 2020, Has Felix Tshisekedi tackled DR Congo's six biggest problems?, Kinshasa, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51220974>.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium Hochschild, A n.d., Leopold II, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium>

https://operationworld.org/locations/congo-democratic-republic-of/ Operationworld n.d., Pray for: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Map, viewed 7 June 2021, <https://operationworld.org/locations/congo-democratic-republic-of/>.