Blood River - Tim Butcher

ISBN 978-0-099-49428-7
The book is sub-titled A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart.  It is the story of one man's obsession.  Tim Butcher was obsessed with the Congo.  I knew next to nothing about it, and bought the book because it looked like an interesting story.  His obsession is not just with the Congo River, but also with the question "What is wrong with Africa?"  The Congo has gone from a Belgium colony, made famous by the film "The African Queen", to probably the most failed state in the world today.  It is a huge country in the middle of Africa, and the river flows across it from east to west.  Tim decides to re-create Stanley's (Sir Henry Morton) journey across Africa, down river from the source on lake Tanganyika to the Atlantic ocean.  The current state of the Congo meant that the journey is even more dangerous than it was when Stanley tried, and (just) succeeded, and claimed the Country for the Belgian King.  There are any number of groupings of 'rebels' - we'd call them terrorists anywhere else.  The government is only in control of a small part of the country and to do anything there are government officials to get approval from, and to pay bribes to.  Bribes are the only wages many of them get.  The only real 'authority' lies with the U.N. peace keepers and aid workers - who seem to spend most of their time behind closed doors - or better concrete walls.
The book is split into chapters with sketch maps of the parts of the river that each chapter deals with.  Tim sounds like a real expert on Congo history - he may possibly be the only non-resident in the world with such a knowledge. In each chapter we get not only the story of the people who he meets but also some of the history of the area.  Almost all the histories involve massacres of some kind.  It has to be said that they do rather merge into one as you read through the book.  There are one or two that stand out as being unusually horrific even by Congo standards.  There are time when he has weapons pointed at him, and when he is in fear for his life.  The contrasts between these people, the aid workers, and some remaining missionaries, and a few locals is one of the great high lights of the book.  There are many people struggling to make their own and other peoples lives work better in a situation that can rightly be described as hell on earth.  Their stories are fascinating and leave you wondering why they bother and how they can stand the strain.  Then there are those who are there for power and money.  Some of those are even helpful to Tim.

Perhaps the most telling passage for me is a few paragraphs on a conversation with a peace keeper from Malaysia. His country was colonised and brutalised, but after independence it is now developing - "we even have a Grand Prix".  While Africa, and in particular the Congo is going backwards. So you cannot put all the blame on the European colonists.  No solution is offered, but paths are suggested in the last chapters.  If you think you have a solution then after reading the book you may well change your mind. 

It is not a page turner, not for me anyway.  I had to stop a number of times - just to think a little about the horror and the squandering of human life.

Did he succeed in recreating Stanley's journey - you'll have to read it to find out ...