Author: Tim Butcher
Vintage, £7.99
IN BLOOD River, Tim Butcher, chief war correspondent for The Telegraph, journeys down the Congo River following the route of the explorer and cartographer Henry Morton Stanley. This book is both an historical account of the Congo and an example of exciting, perilous travel writing; indeed Butcher himself refers to it as “ordeal writing”.
Stanley’s account of the Congo described a hostile environment where disease, starvation and violence were rife, and over one hundred years later, Butcher’s own description is alarmingly similar. AIDS has now been added to the cocktail of diseases seen in Stanley’s day. The people live on Cassava, a plant so lacking in nutrients that many of the Congo’s inhabitants are more malnourished than famine victims, and the tribal violence Stanley encountered on his journey has been replaced by the horrific, brutal violence of the Mai Mai rebels.
What makes Butcher’s account so shocking is the contrast between his description of the modern day Congo and the Congo under Belgian Colonial rule that lasted until 1960. There is no doubt that the period of Belgian rule was one of immense inequality, racism and not inconsiderable violence for the Africans native to the Congo. However, under this rule, cities were founded, roads and railways were built to connect them, and a system of law was established. Tourism also flourished and it is not without some irony that Butcher describes his own mother’s holiday in the Congo during the 1950’s, complete with steam boats, parties and jungle excursions.
Today there is no legal system, the roads and railways have long since been reclaimed by the jungle and the towns are little more than façades of civilisation. Butcher compares them to Hollywood film sets which, as these towns are often used as a stage for the brutal demonstrations of the Mai Mai, is an apt allusion.
Blood River is gripping and hugely informative. Butcher manages to relate the history of the Congo whilst not losing the personal details that make this book so interesting. The various stories of the people Butcher meets are heartbreaking; in particular that of Oggi, a fisherman and sailor, who begs Butcher to smuggle his four year old son to South Africa so that he may escape a life of hunger and disease. The uncertain ending of the book suggests that Butcher can offer no answer for the situation in the Congo, and indeed if there is to be a lasting solution it must come not from outsiders, but from the Congo itself. Only when that happens can Africa’s broken heart truly be healed.
7/10
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