Congolese Cultural values

In the chapter on: “People that I have met”, you have read that, there were very few women occupying top positions in all walks of life in Congo. And throughout my stay, I did try to find out the reason why, while equally comparing Congolese women, in particular the young, with those of neighbouring Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The age bracket of Congolese girls/women that attracted my attention was between 18 and 35 and my conclusion, which will be developed below is grim. This chapter also focuses on Congolese men who are governing the country and their “special thirst”, which has given birth to a “unique culture” that has destroyed the country: socially, politically and economically. How has the current political and business elite almost all belonging to the ruling PCT, ruined Congo? An attempt to respond to the latter question will be given below.

The ideologue of destruction

   

According to one Congolese diplomat that I met in Washington DC: “Marien Ngouabi is the ideologue of the destruction of the Congolese state, no matter how venerated he has become today, in particular, since his assassination in 1977, he is responsible for the demise of the system: Socially, Politically and economically”.  How? He went on: “Marien Ngouabi was the man who masterminded the 1967 and 1968 coup d’états that overthrew Alphonse Massamba-Debat. Everything changed negatively from the Marien Ngouabi ethnic or tribal oriented coup d’état. That coup d’état was repackaged as an ideological rectification, but in reality, it was a tribal based coup, engineered by northern officers who felt among other grievances that, they were being down-looked by the well educated southerners”. He added: “The other unacknowledged truth behind the Marien Ngouabi coup d’état was that, it was also a political hangover from a pre-independence dispute: pitting a southern elite and politician, Reverend Father Fulbert Youlou against a northern elite and politician, Jacques Opangault”. He concluded: “Northern elite have never accepted the fact that, the first president of Congo came from the south. They think that, they were short changed by Fulbert Youlou. Hence, Congo began its independence, with a tribal war, which has divided the country since 1959”. 

Causes of the first civil war

Still according to the same former Congolese diplomat who now resides in Washington DC as a political refugee: “if Congo is not only destroyed socially, politically and economically as it currently is, but also  polarized along two supra-tribes: Lingala and Kikongo it is because of Marien Ngouabi.” He insisted: “the cause of the civil war of 1959 was because Jacques Opangault, who was the prime minister at that time with a small majority, could not accept the lost of his post to Fulbert Youlou”. He went on: “Jacques Opangault, lost because an MP from Mosendjo carpet crossed to opposition leader, Fulbert Youlou. This simple move made Fulbert Youlou to become Congo’s first president at independence from France in 1960”.