Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart [Paperback]

As a fan of writers like Jonathan Raban and Simon Winchester, who weave historical narrative into their own personal quests and journeys, I sent for Blood River after catching the tail end of a radio interview in which Tim Butcher described the various strands which run in parallel through his book.

I found it a compelling and satisfying read. There is the central account of the author's apparently impulsive decision to travel, against all advice, through the Republic of Congo in the first place, while it is in an on/off state of civil war; the lives of the equally intrepid Victorian adventurers who went before him; and as backdrop, the grindingly bleak and heartbreaking history of colonial, post colonial and present-day Congo. Three stories for the price of one - four if you count the heavy-hearted journey through the Congo in the late 1950's, after disappointment in love, of the author's mother.

Butcher's prose style, as you'd expect from a seasoned journalist, is crisp, economical and forward-flowing; but he is not afraid to share his vulnerabilities and his (abundantly justified) fear of what might easily have lain ahead at any point on the journey - `objective dangers', as he calls them, over which he had little control. I warmed to him for that, and for his empathy towards the ordinary Congolese he encounters: for me, they are the heroes of the story, helpless victims of an endless cycle of exploitation, violence and political bankruptcy.

Blood River is a gripping story well told; but beyond that, unlike some have-the-adventure-to-write-the-book yarns, it is highly relevant and by rights should tweak the conscience of those of us in the developed world who looked the other way.

I didn't like the sound of this book at first, thinking it was an example of macho adventure tourism but I am pleased to say that I was mistaken.

It's true that the author at the outset is driven by a seemingly hubristic ambition: to be the first man (or white man at any rate) to traverse the length of the Congo River since the Victorian explorer Henry Morton Stanley's 1876-77 expedition, which sounds like the sort of thing only a egomaniac with a death wish would undertake. But Butcher is a sober character who carefully assessed and measured the risks beforehand. He could not ultimately have accomplished his feat without the assistance of Congolese on the ground and he accords them the credit due. The snide uttered by one reviewer that the author used dollars the way Stanley used brute force to secure compliance from the locals is ridiculous. Apart from the fact that the author never carried any weapons during the trip, the remark omits to mention that his motorcycle drivers who assisted the author with the first leg refused payment, out of professional pride. Otherwise he did what all journalists do if they want to get close to the ground, using local guides and fixers, entirely legitimate means to go about their trade. There is nothing amiss about that.

By Butcher's own admission, this was an example of ordeal rather than adventure travel but the details of the hardship he experienced are not overdone. They offer you a vivid sense of what it was actually like to do the trip. We don't just get a lucid impression of the hardships of the journey but also the land in which he travels and of the people he meets there. The DRC is the heart of Africa and the Congo River is at the heart of the DRC. And what the river could do for the DRC - stimulating trade commerce and wealth creation - the rest of the DRC could likewise do for Africa. The DRC however is not the beating heart of Africa because the river is the DRC's lifeless heart. This is more than just figurative. Much of the fauna along the river's route has been killed and eaten by desperate locals. There is an eerie silence along the many tracks and paths near the river on which humans travel.

What the author discovers along his travels on the river is the baleful legacy of decades of colonialism, followed by the misrule of corrupt, violent and rapacious local elites since independence in 1960, with the interference of outsiders thrown in for good measure. The author writes, on discovering a railway track that has almost been engulfed by the jungle, that he realised that he was travelling in a country with more of a past than a future, `a place where the hands of the clock spin not forwards, but backwards' (p. 249). The DRC is in free fall to year zero.

There is no light pollution among the Congolese villages. No coke cans or plastic bags litter the banks of the Congo's shore. But this is no idyll. Life is not just hard but hellish. It is hellish not because of the lack of basic facilities but the absence of a proper functioning state. This is what anarchy looks like. Not so much the war of all against all but the war of the strong against the weak, a one-sided conflict if there ever was one. The DRC is for all intents and purposes a country in name only. It is an arena for various warlords and strongmen and their armed retinues to kill, rob and loot. Not only are the people of Congo helpless before their own predatory compatriots, they are also helpless to withstand the assaults of neighboring countries. Until the underlying problems of a lack of accountability and the rule of law are resolved, no amount of money can solve the country's problems. This does not mean that the human spirit is extinguished in the DRC. He salutes the numerous examples of people he meets who have to undertake extraordinary feats just to survive. But they cannot thrive in such circumstances. Those in rich countries who gripe about government ought to read this book and see what the alternative looks like.

But why have such institutions failed to take root? Colonialism cannot be the full answer. It is true that Congo suffered particularly badly from an especially rapacious form of colonial asset stripping in the first decades of Belgian rule. Perhaps 3 million died in conditions of slave labour during the time the then Congo was the personal property of King Leopold. But Asian nations such as South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Vietnam have managed to thrive or at least progress in the decades since throwing off colonial rule. But Africa by and large has regressed.

This is a disturbing truth for which there is no easy answer - it is in part the essence of the mystery that is the dark heart of the continent. Butcher offers no easy answers either but this book, combining travelogue with political and social analysis, is to be commended for bringing the reality of tens of millions of Congolese to the attention of a broad readership, a reality that we in the West, at least in part, have helped to create.

After reading this, my over-riding impression was why bother? I came away thinking that he unneccesarily put people's lives in danger so that he could write a book. It starts off very slowly and then just when it gets going stops abruptly.

I live in Africa near the Congo border and was disappointed in the lack of historical detail and background research. The first chapter of Africa by Blaine Harden on his Congo river journey, to me, was far more interesting.