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Jason Stearns. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. New York: PublicAffairs, 2012. 417 pp. $16.99, paper, ISBN 978-1-61039-107-8. Reviewed by Matthew G. Stanard Published on H-Empire (June, 2012) Commissioned by Charles V. Reed (Elizabeth City State University) For many who grew up during the Cold War, the African National Congress on a path toward the competition between capitalism and commu‐ one-party dominance. Japanese economic growth nism seemed to determine the unfolding of histo‐ was followed by a crash and the so-called lost ry. Then 1989 happened, and communism col‐ decade. India and Pakistan both tested nuclear lapsed spectacularly. Francis Fukuyama famously weapons. Multiple terrorist strikes in and outside proclaimed the end of history, that is, the end of the United States presaged the 2001 attacks. ideological competition and the triumph of West‐ Considering all this, it is unsurprising that ern liberal democracy.[1] Of course history did anyone who lived through the 1990s had trouble not end, ideological battles continued, and the keeping track of the multitude of developments decade that followed witnessed a dizzying array also unfolding in Rwanda and Zaire (later rebap‐ of complex developments. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq tized the Democratic Republic of the Congo). A invaded Kuwait and was expelled. Mengistu Haile century earlier, during the 1890s, news about Mariam’s regime collapsed in Ethiopia and Eritrea atrocities in the Congo were hard to come by and gained its independence, which led to an extraor‐ it took dedicated efforts by individuals like E. D. dinarily rare border change in postindependence Morel and Roger Casement to bring the violence Africa. Sierra Leone and Liberia plunged into civil affecting millions under Leopold II’s abusive colo‐ conflicts without apparent end. Somalia failed nial regime to the attention of the wider world. By and Yugoslavia disintegrated. Russia both fulfilled comparison, information was much easier to and dashed hopes in its transmogrification into a come by in the 1990s. Across the globe people political and economic system that defies catego‐ knew a genocide had begun in Rwanda within rization. The Maastricht Treaty created another days of its start. Diplomats at UN headquarters in sui generis entity, the European Union. South New York City, such as U.S. Secretary of State Africa held its frst democratic elections, setting Madeleine Albright, publicly debated the geno‐ H-Net Reviews cide, even if to their shame they refused to use the the leadership of the aged Congolese rebel Lau‐ term itself for fear that doing so would commit rent Kabila. The successful assault on Kinshasa them to actually do something about it. Scenes of was a campaign of distances rivaling those of immense refugee camps in central Africa hit the Napoleon’s 1812 march on Moscow, with different airwaves repeatedly, and journalists at the New results of course. York Times and elsewhere regularly informed the Just months in power, Kabila was at war world of the ongoing conflicts in the area: child again. Although sparked by Rwandan military ac‐ soldiers, mass rapes, disease, humanitarian mis‐ tion, the ultimate causes of the second Congo con‐ sions, exploitation of natural resources, foreign flict are much less clear. Perhaps it was that incursions, and attempts at peace. Such reporting Kagame and his allies in Rwanda had become per‐ has continued. But with all the information came suaded that Kabila was no longer trustworthy, or little explanation. To redress this lack--to explain-- they simply had grown tired of him. Rwandan is the task that Jason Stearns sets for himself in hubris, which built up after the successes of 1994 Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, his captivating at home and 1997 in the Congo, also played a role. if dreadful account of the wars in central Africa Divisions among the Congolese undoubtedly con‐ since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. tributed to the renewed fghting, as did the stun‐ Stearns begins with the genocide, an event ning weaknesses of Kabila’s government, which similar to the Holocaust in the sense that we now had been left no choice but to establish itself on know quite a bit about its causes even if it ulti‐ the sometimes literally charred ruins of Mobutu’s mately defies comprehension. For decades, Rwan‐ failed kleptocracy. On the ropes, Kabila’s Demo‐ da had witnessed competition for both resources cratic Republic of the Congo fought back with sup‐ and control over the state with competing sides port from Angola, Zimbabwe, and others. Al‐ divided along ethnic lines. As Tutsi insurgents ad‐ though the initial threat to Kabila’s hold on power vanced on Kigali in 1994, people inside and out‐ receded, the fghting did not. The expansive can‐ side the Hutu-dominated government fought back vas Stearns paints of the second Congo conflict, and also attacked civilians, both Tutsis and Hutu where months of battles turned into years of moderates. Rebel leader Paul Kagame’s victory, fighting, is flled with portraits of all sorts of char‐ which also ended the genocide, thrust hundreds acters, from would-be revolutionary professor of thousands of refugees out of the country, most Ernest Wamba dia Wamba to the “millionaire- over the border into Zaire. In the months after‐ turned-rebel leader” Jean-Pierre Bemba, today on ward, Kagame and others came to see Rwanda’s trial before the International Criminal Court (p. security as dependent on the defeat of Hutu and 217). The war degenerated into smaller, some‐ other refugees in camps across the country’s west‐ times sporadic but vicious offensives and counter‐ ern frontier. Some neighboring governments, attacks between proxy forces in various corners such as the one in Uganda, became involved to of the capacious Congo. A murky picture grew eliminate their own enemy rebel groups that had even darker following Kabila’s 2001 assassination, set up bases within Zaire during the late period of the causes of which remain unclear to this day. Mobutu Sese Seko’s rule. In Zaire itself, people The longer the war continued, the less sense struggled under Mobutu’s deteriorating rule. This it seemed to make. Stearns suggests a parallel led to the 1996-97 Congo war in which Congolese with the Thirty Years’ War: starting out as a local rebels took up arms against Mobutu’s dictator‐ conflict, the war spiraled out of control as more ship, supported and at times led by Rwandan, and more outside powers got involved, each seek‐ Ugandan, and other armed powers. They fought ing to advance its own interests while the civilian across the country to Kinshasa, ostensibly under 2 H-Net Reviews population suffered all along. As Stearns heard who committed unspeakable acts against their fel‐ from people several times during his multiple low humans. stays in the region, “Where elephants fght the Many people today think of Africa as a back‐ grass is trampled.” The picture improved signifi‐ ward place of ethnic hatred, violence, warfare, cantly after Kabila’s son Joseph Kabila succeeded and military coups d’état. The Rwandan genocide him. Following peace talks, direct foreign inter‐ and wars in the Congo only feed those stereo‐ vention drew to a close in 2003, although fghting types. But as I tell students in my modern African and atrocities continued, especially in the eastern history class, Africa compares favorably with part of the country where the wars had frst be‐ twentieth-century Europe when considering the gun. Balkan Wars, World War I, the Russian Civil War, These conflicts taken together have been the Polish-Soviet War, Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia, called Africa’s Great War, but Stearns is clear that Stalin’s Great Terror, the Spanish Civil War, World his book’s title is not an analogy to World War I (p. War II, France’s colonial wars from 1946 to 1962, 273). Consider one devastating Ugandan offensive Hungary in 1956, Prague in 1968, European ter‐ on Kisangani in June 2000 that dropped 6,000 rorism, and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Per‐ shells on the city over six days. By comparison, haps historians ought to concern themselves less the Battle of Verdun saw, on average, some with why people become killers and more with 125,000 artillery shells land every day for ten what drives people not to kill. Although an admit‐ months. Whereas the various armed forces in‐ tedly bleak starting point, some have adopted a volved in the two Congo wars could at times be similar approach when considering the root caus‐ counted in the thousands, the armies that faced es of such conflicts as World War I: don’t explain off during World War I numbered in the millions. war, explain peace.[2] The effects of Spanish influenza aside, most casu‐ One example of European cruelty not men‐ alties of Europe’s Great War were soldiers. The tioned above is the turn-of-the-century violence overwhelming majority of people who died as a caused by Leopoldian imperialism in central result of the Congo wars were civilians. Africa. Some might be surprised at the very small One comparison Stearns does make is be‐ role played either by the legacy of the Belgian Em‐ tween the killings of millions in central Africa and pire or Belgium itself in the Great War of Africa. the deaths of millions in central Europe little There were hangovers of the colonial era to be more than half a century earlier. By contrasting sure, and Stearns does look back to the colonial events in Africa with those of twentieth-century past, although not in any systematic way.
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