TRIBUNE-Those who are today propagating the false information that Swahili-speakers are being hunted down in Kinshasa are actually seeking to shatter national unity so that the population in the east of the country develops a feeling of rejection and exclusion towards the Congolese nation, which could sociologically justify the balkanization of this part of the country.
They realize that they can win armed battles, but are incapable of winning the battle of the heart.
Our enemies are communitarians who see a country only in terms of ethnic groups and tribes, not as a nation.
Don’t fall into their trap. There is no people who love each other as much as we do. Otherwise, they would have succeeded long ago in their disastrous project to balkanize the DRC.
How to be tribalist in Kinshasa! A city where the favorite dish is “nsaka madesu”, a dish from Kongo-Central, the people’s drink is Aghene, a local wine from Ecuador, a city where the favorite singer is Fally Ipupa, a Mongo from Tshuapa, a city where a child has a Mutetela father, an Ngbandi mother, a Lokole grandmother and a Mushi great-grandfather, a mother Ngbandi, a grandmother Lokole, and a great-grandfather Mushi, a city where your best friend is never a guy from your province, where the most beautiful women are those from the Eastern Province, a city where intertribal marriages are the rule. A city where we love the national team more than Barça. A city where we’ve all danced to the cries of atalaku lengendaire Bill Clinton, a muluba.
This city has its faults, many of them, but not tribalism. We love each other too much, and they can’t take that away from us.
The DRC remains one and indivisible, and Kinshasa is the finest illustration of this.
ENGUNDA IKALA