« Let’s pray for the martyred Ukraine, for Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Burma, Sudan, Kivu ». One detail of Pope Francis’s tweet published March 2 is puzzling: why didn’t the Pontiff speak outright about the « war in the DRC »? Not all of Ukraine is affected by the Russian onslaught. Nor has the war hit all of Lebanon, Sudan or Burma.
There’s no need to be harsh with the head of the Catholic Church if we ourselves, in our lexicon of war, are not rigorous. But words have their own meaning, depending on the context. When institutions, journalists and other apprentice communicators of the « digital army » for the defense of the fatherland repeat the refrain « war in the East » every day, we have to ask ourselves some good questions: is it relevant? Is it unifying? Since the fall of Goma and Bukavu, it’s not uncommon to see a certain amount of bickering on social networks between Congolese from the east of the country and those from the west. While the former feel that the « revellers of Kinshasa » have little concern for their fate, the latter condemn the latter for having reserved a « warm welcome » for the rebels. « Insouciance » versus « treachery »: the Congolese are tearing each other apart where they should be showing solidarity. Indeed, it’s a far cry from solidarity to suggest, certainly unconsciously, that the Congolese people are not in solidarity.
Indeed, it’s a far cry from solidarity to suggest, certainly unconsciously, that only the eastern part of the country is affected by the war. And yet, isn’t it said that when a limb is sick, the whole body is sick?
Advantage: it won’t take long to change the narrative? No longer speak of the « war in the east », but of the « war in the DRC ». Infos.cd has been making this commitment in its articles for several weeks now, and wouldn’t want to be alone in this dynamic among the local media.
Another bad habit to banish is the distinction between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) on the one hand, and the Wazalendos resistance fighters on the other. Yet the country has only one official army. And if a group of Congolese volunteers to defend their country in danger, the right thing to do would be to dissolve them into the loyalist army.
The FARDC is not the first army in wartime to rely on the contribution of volunteers or reservists. To make this distinction would be to denigrate the Rwandan digital army, which would not hesitate to portray the DRC as a state that relies on negative forces to secure its territory. If the devil is in the details, the media front is also made up of details.
Infos.cd
