Heart of darkness

Africa, the continent.
"Isn't there just always one horrific thing or another going on?"
Yes, I suppose there is, most of the time. Which explains our ongoing wish to write about it.

Because it sickens us. Or frightens us.
Or otherwise just because we are flooded by the desperate powerlessness one feels when hearing or reading reports from Africa.
In which people tell about events that make you think of a horror movie of very poor quality or -to use a broader perspective-
of the insanity or absurdity during for example World War I.

Last year we saw the documentary Heart of darkness by Ilse en Femke van Velzen,
in which perpetrators of mass rape in Congo talk about what happened and why.
The historical context of these events is the following:
For the past years, tens of thousands of women have been raped and mutilated in Congo's civil war.
The perpetrators, in many cases soldiers, wanted to traumatise the victims and the local population
in such a way that they would lose all resistance during the civil war.
In other words, mass rape as a strategic or military weapon.

We have tried to describe one of these events:
the event is told from the perspective of a young girl who herself is victim to the military policy mentioned before.
She tells us how the raid on her village took place and tries to convince herself that the things that happened "outside" of her,
can never change her inner self.
Although the horror took place in the village where she has lived all of her life,
for her this is still the same land after all the horror has gone;
there is still the same river that flows and the same hills surrounding the village.
She refuses to be enslaved by this single event.

So in fact, what we mainly have tried to capture is hope.

*
heart of darkness

Men came down from the hills
with torches and songs
They were dragging the spoil of a murderous thrill
Men came down from the hills,
surrounding our walls
Then they started killing at random and will

River, river of blood still is the same water I used to bathe in
Sky, sky so dark still holds the same moon I used to dream of

They rape all they can

Men came down from the hills,
haunted by the ghosts
of children and fathers from previous kills

Men came down from the hills,
clouding every move
Then they started raping at random and will

River, river of blood still is the same water I used to bathe in
Sky, sky so dark still holds the same moon I used to dream of

They rape all they can