Anjan Sundaram

Anjan Sundaram’s “Stringer” (2013) is not very interesting. Subtitled ‘A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo’, it is at least as much about Mr Sundaram’s own personal journey as it is about the Congo. Written in three parts, the first and longest deals with his arrival and stay in Kinshasa, with a local family rather than in a five star hotel. Quite interesting, the local scene, but not interesting enough for over a hundred pages. The second part is the most interesting one, when he travels upcountry, first by barge and motor canoe on a failed trip to visit a friend’s expropriated piece of land, then by UN aircraft to Bunia, to ‘visit the war’. But here again, it is too much about the author, too little about Congo, let alone about ‘the war’. In the third part, Sundaram is back in Kinshasa, where he lives through the election and the subsequent unrest, consisting of fighting in the streets between several political factions. But it is not that he is ‘reporting from anarchy’ as the book cover wants us to believe; Sundaram is holed up in a factory of an Indian contact, cut off from the outside world, until things calm down again after three days. Uncomfortable, for sure, but we are not talking about a hero, here. Altogether, quite disappointing.… (plus d'informations)

A whole slew of words can be used to describe how I felt on the completion of this book: appalled, angry, misled, misinformed and uninformed and just generally devastated. Hired to run a class in Rwanda for journalists, the author whom had reported on the situation in the Congo, finds journalists who are afraid for their lives. Seems things are not a democratically rosy in the Kagome regime as have been reported. After the genocide rocked the country, Kagame seized power and has ruled by intimidation, threats, fear and murder. Journalists must use word games timescale the attention of this regime because criticism carries grave consequences not only for the journalist but for his family. And many countries, including my own, give this government millions of dollars in aid and hold his country up as the epitome of reform. Seriously? How screwed up is that? What is the matter with this world?

Reading this book one learns not only the problems of the journalists but of regular people swept away by what is going on and just trying to survive. The memorials of those victims of the genocide are run by the coup try are used more as a fear factor than a dedication. The United Nations is an ineffective body that generally looks the other way or chooses to not see so they do not have to confront the truth. A small book in pages but large in content, written clearly and concisely. Eventually the author's program is shut down because there are no more journalists to train. The right of reporting and the need for intensive reporting can not be overstated but is often the first thing to be threatened and taken away in these dictatorships. The appendix lists the reporters whom have been killed, threatened or who have left, naming them and what happened to them. An important book, I think but a devastating one.… (plus d'informations)