A member of the Democratic Republic of Congo has tabled a bill in his country's National Assembly which, if adopted, would reserve the posts of President of the Republic and several other high sovereign functions only for Congolese with both Congolese parents. This bill was tabled by a member of the ruling party. Some believe that it is specifically aimed at the opponent Moïse Katumbi, the former governor of Katanga and president of the legendary football team "Tout-Puissant Mazembe" (“Almighty Mazembe”), whose father is Greek. Does it remind you of anything? Thirty years ago, we created a concept called Ivoirité (Ivority) and adopted such a text in Ivory Coast which reserved the post of President of the Republic only to Ivorians born to fathers and mothers who were themselves Ivorians. And we have seen where that has taken us. For those who have lost their memory or who are too young to remember, it broke our national unity, divided our people, and generated a rebellion that occupied part of the country for eight years and led us to a war which is said to have caused more than three thousand deaths.
It is in such an adventure that the Congolese want to embark. The bill is already dividing Congolese society. Thus, on the occasion of Easter, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo denounced this bill in these terms: “We already have conflicts in the East, in the West and all over the country. I am convinced that this law on "congolity" will add a great conflict to what we already know. The consequences: we may only have our eyes to cry on. Instead of focusing on the examination of such a law which divides us, we would do better to stick together to detect the disastrous game of the enemies of our homeland with their attempts to balkanize our country”. Of course, as in the good old days of our Ivoirité, the concept has its supporters in the intelligentsia, including Mr. Michel Lutumbwe, researcher on governance at the center for research on peace and security in Brussels, who refuses to establish a parallel between "Congolity" and "Ivoirité": "this project is partly inspired by the recent history of the DRC, especially the difficult neighborhood relations with certain neighboring countries in which we have found Congolese nationals with double membership in destabilizing, let's say, institutional roles."
The debate is raging right now in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each country has its own history, specificities and realities. But the history of peoples has its constants. And it's good to take inspiration from the stories of others from time to time. That of our country has shown that each time we try by tricks to exclude an adversary from the political game, we divide the country, we stigmatize part of the population and we are heading towards disaster. It is good to know that patriotism is not measured by the nationality of origin of the parents, nor by the different degrees of blood that one has in the body, if indeed one can distinguish a foreign blood from native blood. One can perfectly well have all his ancestry originating from his country and be a traitor to it, just as one can simply be naturalized and loyally serve his new country. In Ivory Coast, history is showing us that the stone that we wanted to reject has become the cornerstone that holds the whole building together. It took us a crisis of more than twenty years and several thousand deaths for us to understand this. Let our Congolese brothers think twice before voting their new law. Let them be inspired by our history. Today the Congo is bruised by a long war of more than twenty years which has caused millions of deaths. I believe that beyond winning or retaining power, ending this war should be the unifying element for all Congolese people. And to put an end to it, the union of all the sons of the country is necessary. Whoever made this bill believes he is targeting a single person. He will realize, perhaps too late, that he is actually affecting millions of his compatriots.
By Venance Konan
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
