Ben Heine Visiting the European Parliament to do a Report for Stand Up For Europe

Ballpoint Pen Sketch On Paper

Quick ballpoint pen sketch on paper. I have made hundreds of small ballpoint pen sketches like that. I'll scan some more shortly. View some other works here and here. Contact me if you want to buy some original illustrations (info@benheine.com)

© 2013 Ben Heine

Powerful People
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Even the most powerful ones are just primates

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© 2009 - Ben Heine

World Cartoon Poll

5 Questions - 5 Answers
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(Source: Don Quichotte Cartoon Association)

Dear Cartoonists,

We think that "World Cartoon" is not developing well. Considering the cartoon contests ''with themes'', it is possible to come across a lot of images with similar ideas. Beside the fact that several cartoon contests have launched awards for similar works, we are also frequently facing criticisms on the very fundamentals of political cartoonism. We have prepared some questions focussing on these concerns and aiming to discuss on some important issues for cartoonists. Would you be so kind to write down some short answers to these questions so that we may do something to solve some problems we encounter today, and go ahead in our political views and artistic discipline.


5 questions:

1) How do you think we can solve the problem of "similar cartoons"? What can be done?

2) According to us, the biggest responsibles of ''similar cartoons" are jurors of the contests. We have an idea to avoid similarities in cartoons: exhibit all the entries for a contest in online galleries. This should maintain healthy results and a better variety in final cartoons. ''Don Quichotte'' has already launched this method since a long time. Do you have any different suggestions about that?

3) What is your opinion on ''Censorship"?' Should it be applied to cartoons? If yes, then what are the borders?

4) We find more and more images reaching the perfection technically speaking, we think they are almost close to the ''illustration'' process and it seems they are more dealing with plastic arts rather than with the traditional cartoon discipline which is based on very simple lines with a powerful message. What's your opinion about that?

5) What kind of structures do the cartoonists need to act in solidarity, organized as a whole against lawsuits for instance? We need your alternative suggestions in order to create a much stronger and international cartoon unity, shoulder to shoulder. Do you have any bright ideas about that?

Dear Cartoonists, as we have mentioned, your responses to these questions can greatly contribute to solve future problems among the "World Cartoon Community". We appreciate your efforts and thank you for sharing your thoughts and time for this poll.

Please send your answers at
donquichotte@donquichotte.at

Read all the answers already
sent by worldwide cartoonists

Here below are my own answers/suggestions:

1) There are often similar sources of inspiration for artists in a globalized world, but the graphic carrying out and stylized personal interpretations will always be different. I think originality and intelligence must be crucial points when it comes to judge/rate/assess a cartoon or a cartoonist.

2) Good idea to show publicly all the received submissions, so that the participating artists are aware of what has already be done for a specific contest. I think that's the best solution indeed.

3) Untill recently, I had the illusion that the web was a democratic area where people could share their ideas and exchange their views. This was an ideal of total and healthy freedom of expression's spirit. But I was quite wrong. There is a strong global "code of conduct" on the web like in the reality. It's a difficult question, because norms and dogmas are linked to culture in general. And there are as many cultures as there are coutries, languages, religions, etc... In other words, we're all shocked by different things. Before the revolution of the information and communication technologies, it wasn't a big deal, but now that everyone can access anything in just a few clicks, it makes everything more complicated.

4) I think there is a huge confusion between cartoons and illustrations even among the artists themselves. Yes, a cartoon should be simple, just a few lines with a powerful semantics/meaning. An illustration should also deliver an important message but the realization process is different, more texture, more details, more shades... close to traditional painting. May be we should make a distinction at DonQuichotte between cartoons and illustrations...?

5) I think our "DonQuichotte Cartoon Association" already represents a sort of solidarity community, but there should be a judicial branch/body to it. There should be one big international structure. There is already the FECO (at national and international levels) but in my view, it lacks of unity and popularity.

Interview with

Talal Nayer

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"The Time of
Laughter is Over"

By Musa Hamid

The cartoonist Talal Nayer is one of the creators of modern lines in caricature, his cartoons exceeded laughter and entertainment in this area. Nayer does have visions and views in this matter. In this interview, we discussed with him the nature and usefulness of art

Tell us about your beginnings and who had the significant impact on you to practice caricature, especially at private and public level?

My first beginnings were very modest and normal, the ideas were simple and very superficial, when I go back to see it from time to time, I have discovered it was saturated with childishness and absurdity, and the lines are swaying confusedly. In fact, I was the one shaking and confused, I do not know how and from where to begin?

>>> Read the full interview
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Geoffroy Coomans
de Brachène and I

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© 2009 - Ben Heine

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Geoffroy Coomans de Brachène and I met some time ago during an exhibition of my "erotico-fantastico-burlesque" paintings in the centre of Brussels, Belgium. Geoffroy is a great friend and a very promising Belgian liberal politician.
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Find the Solution
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© 2008 - Ben Heine

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China and the
2008 Olympics
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By Mike Wootton

The leader in this week’s Economist magazine addresses the “Chinese rage” over the disruption caused to the world-wide tour of the Olympic flame. It cites the rage as being “out of all proportion to the alleged offenses”, an opinion with which I agree.

During the initial demons-trations over Chinese rule in Tibet (Xizang), the Chinese authorities undertook to educate (or re-educate) Tibetan monks in national patriotism. This statement begs the question as to why it should be thought necessary to educate people in national patriotism? An Orwellian idea. What appears to have happened over the few weeks between the torch’s departure from Olympia in March and its arrival in San Francisco is that there has been a worldwide mobilization of Chinese nationalist sentiment, to the point where in Australia the pro-Chinese spectators outnumbered the anti-Chinese spectators. Is this because the Chinese people, as Xinhua would have us believe have been “righteously indignant” about criticism by much of the world over their human rights record and have decided to go out and show public support for China centered nominally around the flame tour, or is it something deeper than that?

I was living in Beijing at the time of the rocketing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Although warned against it, I went out to watch the Chinese laobaixing (ordinary people) expressing their “righteous indignation” over the event at the US and British Embassies. The demonstrators had been brought by numbered buses from the various universities in Beijing to the diplomatic quarters, they were led off the buses by people carrying flags, to positions outside the relevant Embassies and then, on a signal, started their demonstrations. After a while at the blow of a whistle, the students all returned to their numbered buses and were driven away whence they had come. TV and newspaper coverage showed wild looking crowds of demonstrators outside the Embassies throwing rotten eggs and other missiles—the wrath of the Chinese people.

The power of Xinhua news-agency is not to be underrated. It is the national propaganda agency of China and has astonishing influence on Chinese opinion and Chinese thought, not only in China but worldwide. There are over 2,000 daily newspapers produced in China and with very few exceptions, they all say the same thing and contain the same opinions and views! There are also countless TV stations giving the same opinions and views—woe betide any journalist who writes something counter to the best interests of the Party.

The Chinese government has for many years tried very hard through educational curricula and the media to instill correct political thinking and behavior into its subjects. Pride in national identity (and xenophobia) is a key element of this, and these bits seem to stick ("one nation one family") when every TV station closes down for the day. Any Chinese can tell you about the awfulness of the Opium Wars and the sacking of the Summer Palace. To sustainably instill correct political thinking is more difficult it seems, laobaixing do not have too much time for political dogma and as China’s economy develops further in its skewed looking unequal way, then about 80 percent of the population (involved in agriculture) will have even less time for politics and will need to spend more time on worrying where the next meal is going to come from.

China desperately wants to be seen as a world power after so many years of isolation and so many perceived historic slights to its national pride at the hands of “evil and rapacious” foreigners. It demands respect from the rest of the world, yet in today’s world respect has to be earned, it must not be demanded, that turns people against you. Despite the undoubted and growing economic clout of the nation (supported by the multilaterals who continue to pour in development aid to the World’s biggest foreign exchange reserve country), it will not be earned by mobilization of the “righteous indignation of the Chinese people” at every incident of external criticism. Is there any other country in the World which would exhibit the same widespread level of national fervor over a perceived slight which damaged the public relations surrounding China hosting the Olympics ? Do they really want the world to tremble at China’s wrath? I hope not.

It’s time to mature and to start to integrate with the developed world, not to shout at it and vilify winners of the Nobel Peace Prize and respected international media whilst at the same time exhibiting a distinct lack of transparency over human rights ("internal matters, not anybody else’s business"). Who is it that is politicizing the Olympics?

The laobaixing are no doubt pleased and proud that the Olympics are to be held in China and those who can afford the tickets and the travel costs are looking forward to seeing an extravaganza of an event and much good sportsmanship. Let’s hope there is not too much loud trumpeting about the number of gold medals that the Chinese athletes win beating the foreigners. Turn down the volume China please, it’s unbecoming.

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--> this opinion appeared on manilatimes.net

Aimé Césaire
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© 2008 - Ben Heine

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Martinican politician, intellectual and
poet who was a founding father
of the négritude movement

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By James Ferguson
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Aimé Césaire, the Martinican intellectual and politician who has died aged 94, left his mark in two separate, seemingly contradictory, fields. As a poet, dramatist and essayist, he coined the term "négritude" to define the revolutionary black aesthetic that rallied French-speaking intellectuals in the Caribbean and Africa in the 1930s. His Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Return to My Native Land), first published in 1939, is considered the undisputed masterpiece of négritude and a poetic milestone of militant anti-colonialism and metaphorical inventiveness.

At the same time, Césaire was a leading architect of departmentalisation, the process that transformed four French colonies - Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane (French Guiana) and Réunion - into fully fledged departments of France. While Césaire the poet inveighed against the cultural arrogance of Europe and celebrated a mythic African identity, Césaire the politician tied the mostly African-descended people of Martinique to the assimilationist structure of the French republic.

Césaire was born at Basse-Pointe, a small town on Martinique's north coast. Although in his Cahier he evoked his childhood as poverty-stricken and squalid, his family was part of the island's small, black middle class, with his father employed as a tax inspector. The family moved to the capital, Fort-de-France, where Césaire went to the Lycée Schoelcher. He was a prize-winning student, easily adapting to the elitist French education system which was entirely alien to the great majority of Creole-speaking rural Martinicans. In 1931 he won a place at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Four years later, he was admitted to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, where he studied literature and philosophy.

Amid the ideological and cultural ferment of 1930s Paris, Césaire discovered a wide range of influences. In the company of African students such as Léopold Senghor (later president of Senegal), he familiarised himself with African culture and the continent's anti-colonialist movement.

He became interested in Marxism (although he was never an orthodox Marxist), read Harlem renaissance writers such as Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, and immersed himself in the various ephemeral journals and movements which proliferated during the inter-war years. In one such journal, L'Étudiant noir, he wrote an article attacking the cultural assimilation of blacks and counterposing négritude as a positive revaluation of African aesthetic values. Yet while Césaire was championing what he saw as a primitivist antidote to stultifying western rationalism, he was also on the treadmill of France's most elite academic institution, studying the classics of the official culture.

After eight years in Paris, Césaire returned to Martinique in August 1939, married to Suzanne Roussi, a fellow Martinican student and enthusiastic exponent of négritude. That same month, the first version of the Cahier appeared in an obscure Parisian journal, Volontés, eliciting no reaction whatsoever. For five years Césaire taught at the Lycée Schoelcher, inspiring a generation of students, among them the revolutionary psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon. He also edited a literary review, Tropiques, which popularised négritude themes of African culture and anti-colonialism among the island's intellectuals.

When André Breton, the high priest of the French surrealist movement, visited Martinique in 1941, he was impressed by Césaire's stature and poetry. According to Breton's own recollection, he found a copy of the Cahier in a Fort-de-France haberdashery, recognised it as a work of genius and relaunched the poet's career. In surrealism, moreover, Césaire found an aesthetic of irrationalism which coincided neatly with the anti-Cartesian precepts of négritude.

The war years were particularly harsh for Martinique, which was blockaded by the US navy in 1942-43, its white colonial rulers having sided with Pétain's Vichy regime. The enforced presence of thousands of French sailors encircled by a US fleet doubtless reinforced Césaire's hatred of racism. The emergence of the French Communist party (PCF) as the leading anti-Vichy force was another important development, and by 1942 Césaire was a member. In 1944, he escaped the claustrophobia of Fort-de-France and went on a lecture tour to Haiti. His exposure to the nation which had thrown off French colonial rule through revolution was a dramatic vindication of his négritude and reputedly cured his stammer. The heroic figures of Toussaint L'Ouverture and King Henri Christophe symbolised impoverished Haiti's grandeur and were later to feature prominently in Césaire's writing. He returned to a Martinique in political turmoil, where the PCF was capitalising on long pent-up aspirations for change in the colonial system. In rapid succession, in 1945, Césaire was elected mayor of Fort-de-France and a representative to the French constituent assembly, both on a PCF ticket. He was 32 years old; he held the mayoral office, with a brief interruption, for the next 56 years and, having been elected as deputy for Martinique to the national assembly in Paris in 1946, remained in post until 1993.

With the French colonies stagnating after decades of neglect and the privations of the war, Césaire and his colleagues on the left, both in Paris and the Caribbean, favoured political integration over independence, arguing that a "rational dependence" on France would quickly raise living standards through massive subsidies. The PCF-sponsored legislation creating the union was supported in a 1946 referendum, and Martinique and the other colonies became départements d'outre mer (Doms) or overseas departments of France, theoretically on a constitutional par with any French department.

But the rapid improvements anticipated by Césaire were slow to materialise. A highly centralised system of government from Paris gave too much power to a prefect; the subsidies from France were inadequate to rebuild the run-down island infrastructure. In 1958, Césaire voted in support of President de Gaulle's constitutional reforms which created the fifth republic and replaced the union with the "communauté française". These gave more political autonomy to the doms and also allowed Césaire to elaborate a political position which he held more or less consistently for the rest of his career: increased autonomy within a departmental relationship with France.

By then, moreover, he had shrugged off another form of centralising authority in the form of the PCF. In his Letter to Maurice Thorez (1956), he rejected Stalinism and the mechanistic downgrading of race and culture as diversions from class struggle. In 1958 he formed the Progressive Martinican party (PPM), an organisation which supported departmentalisation but demanded greater freedoms from metropolitan control. Re-elected mayor of Fort-de-France at every subsequent election and a deputy in Paris until his retirement in 1993, he was an efficient administrator and the personification of a status quo which most Martinicans found acceptable.

Despite his enduring electoral support, Césaire came under fire from both advocates of closer assimilation and supporters of independence. For the former, his demands for greater autonomy made Martinique an unjustified "special case" and threatened French goodwill. For the latter, departmentalisation had created a second-class citizenship and an artificial economy, held together only by French subsidies. President François Mitterrand's decentralisation measures in 1983 provided the PPM with some breathing space, allowing Césaire to claim that the doms would have a greater say in their development within a more regional framework of government. However, during the 1980s and 1990s advocates of independence made steady progress among a younger generation of Martinicans, accustomed to the subsidised welfare state and bored with the PPM's official line.

Césaire's literary work has also faced increasing criticism in recent years from younger Martinican writers who see négritude, with its mythic associations of primitivism, as irrelevant to a modern, non-African society. Although the republication of the Cahier in 1947 confirmed his status as a major 20th-century poet, Césaire never really achieved the same international success with subsequent work such as Soleil Cou Coupé (1947), or Ferrements (1960). His plays, dealing with historical aspects of colonialism, are little known outside France. As new Martinican writers stressed the importance of Creole as the medium for exploring the island's real culture, they derided Césaire's attachment to classical French as further evidence of his own assimilation to neo-colonial metropolitan values. The most ambiguous canonisation, meanwhile, took the form of the Cahier being included in the first-year French syllabus at Oxford University in 1996.

The contradictions at the heart of Césaire's career remained unresolved. Despite the massive importation of French consumerism into Martinique, he continued to argue that cultural autonomy could co-exist with departmentalisation. And despite the development of Martinique as a distant outpost of the EU, he persisted in looking to Africa as the source of authenticity. In his last years, he became irascible and would abruptly terminate interviews if the names of his political and literary critics were even mentioned.

Césaire's reputation as a poet rests largely on one epic expression of anti-colonial wrath and surrealist delirium; the Cahier has achieved the immortality that the French literary establishment bestows on certain works. But Césaire's legacy is perhaps more significant in the existence of a French department 7,000km away from France, whose people, for the time being at least, wish it to stay that way. His wife predeceased him; they had four sons and two daughters.

· Aimé Fernand Césaire, poet, playwright and politician, born June 26 1913; died April 17 2008

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--> This obituary appeared on The Guardian

Dmitry Medvedev,
Vladimir Putin's Puppet?
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© 2008 - Ben Heine

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Change You Cannot Believe In

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Russia's new boss; same as the old boss

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By Reuben F. Johnson

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The election of a new Russian president should not be mistaken for a democratic transition. Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, ran almost unopposed, and there was little doubt as to the outcome. But Medvedev will now be the beneficiary of the most energetic Moscow PR campaign since KGB thug Yuri Andropov was reinvented as a Scotch-sipping, jazz-fancying liberal a quarter of a century ago. The goal will be to portray Medvedev as likely to make significant changes from the policies of the Putin years.

During the almost pantomime election campaign, Medvedev minimized interviews, taking only a token number of questions, and these only from a hand-picked pool of journalists who are, you might say, "in the tank-ski." They write tub-thumping stories about how Russia's future will be better and brighter under the new president.

For his part, Medvedev's statements have been laced with ambiguous platitudes and flowery rhetoric that make him sound like the ultimate civil libertarian. "We're talking about freedom in all its forms--personal freedom, economic freedom and, in the end, the freedom of self-expression," he said in a campaign speech. "One of the key elements in our work in the next four years will be ensuring the independence of the legal system from the executive and legislative branches of power."

This may earn Medvedev a fawning assessment from U.K. banks (looking to fill their coffers with the squirreledaway gains of senior Kremlin officials) and the Economist, but former Yukos Oil chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for one, is probably asking just what planet this freedom-spouting Russian president-elect has arrived from. The imprisoned Yukos boss sits rotting in a Siberian cell after a case in which it was clear to anyone not on the Kremlin payroll that the state controlled the judiciary's every move, dictated the verdict ahead of time, and engineered the rejection of his appeal in the fastest judicial decision in the history of Russia.

Independence of the legal system from the executive and legislative branches? This is like asking for a Moscow bureaucracy in which no one takes bribes and streets where drivers obey the traffic laws. To make a slight variation on the theme of Barack Obama's campaign, this is change that you cannot possibly believe in.

So the "Andropov is a closet liberal"-style charm offensive continues apace. "The university, with all its traditions, is his cradle," gushed Igor Bunin, the head of Moscow's Center for Political Technologies, in the Washington Post. Medvedev's "challenge is to lead Russia into the group of civilized countries. This idea is more important to Medvedev than the greatness of the country alone."

Other observers of Medvedev are a bit more objective. "After the campaign, I can say I know nothing about who he is," Georgy Bovt, the editor of Russia's Profil magazine was quoted in the Post as saying. "He is intelligent, well-bred, educated--that's all I can say. How is he going to manage the country? We don't know."

But the truth behind the selection of Medvedev by Putin and what to expect in the future can be heard from only a tiny handful of commentators. "Medvedev will be the glove on the hand of Putin's group," Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, told the Post's Peter Finn. "The parliament is loyal to Putin. The security services are loyal to Putin. The mass media is Putin's. Any independent step by Medvedev will be considered a declaration of war on the current elite, and they will strike back."

Underlying this institutional control by the siloviki--the cabal of intelligence, military, and law enforcement officials who are in charge of the Kremlin--are two aspects of Russian power that have not changed since the Soviet era, or since the czars for that matter. One is that the struggle to succeed the man in charge does not begin when he steps aside (as Boris Yeltsin did at the tail end of 1999) or dies (which was usually the case in Soviet times). The top dogs are constantly jockeying for position, building their alliances and determining how to position themselves to take over long before an actual resignation, death, or election. Once the new man has taken over, his adversaries continue trying to block his moves, frustrate his initiatives, and otherwise keep him from taking actions not in their interests.

The other tendency is the one that perhaps best explains why Putin went outside of the inner circle of the siloviki and picked Medvedev, a St. Petersburg lawyer with no known ties to the intelligence services. Sergei Ivanov, a long-term KGB colleague of Putin's, had been seen as the favorite to succeed Putin for some time. He and -others of the siloviki are not pleased with Medvedev's appointment. But this suits Putin just fine. By turning his back on his own and elevating Medvedev, he encourages strife and internecine warfare. Both sides will then ask him to intercede. Like any good dictator, he realizes that his unique power to broker settlements will keep him pulling strings in the background.

Besides, the soon-to-be-former president has telegraphed his intentions with his statement about what his role will be when Medvedev appoints him prime minister--a position with no term limitations. "The cabinet, headed by the prime minister, is the highest executive authority in the country," Putin stated, which makes it clear that he will still be the man in charge no matter who occupies the president's office. As all government offices in Russia have a photo of the president hanging on the wall, this prompted the half-joke/half-query in Moscow: "Will Putin have a portrait of Medvedev on the wall in his office?" The question was put to Putin at a press conference, who called it trivial but said, no, he wouldn't.

Whether Medvedev really is a closet liberal or closet civil libertarian does not appear to matter. His own plans for changing Russia, if they exist, are more than likely to remain in the closet as well.

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--> This opinion appeared on the Weeklystandard.com

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- Collapse On Your Palm -
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© 2007 - Ben Heine

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Die In His Fingers

By Kristine Buenavista (*)

If I was made to be destroyed, I want to collapse
on your palms, only yours
for they are the gateway to a better world
more responsible politics
more beautiful view of the Arts.

If I graced the Earth to be frozen, I wish to be
the woman on your caricatures.
You can draw me without a face, without a name
but I yearn for you to think of me as
you push that pencil and create
a masterpiece.

You, you are the Philippine sea
carrier of storms and cradle of the vast
where I always stand on its shores

where I soak my toes on its cold sand
where I dream of reaching places

without drowning
without drifting

If there is a need for me to experience
both

By all means, I am willing
as long as it brings me

on your
toes.

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(*) Kristine Buenavista is a poetess living in the Philippines. She recently sent me this lovely poem and this is how I wanted to illustrate her verses. Thank you Kristine. I'm very honored. You're truly talented.

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"In His Fingers"
.© 2007 - Ben Heine

Black/white version of a colored cartoon
that will be published here very soon.
The woman is Kristine Buenavista,
a poetess living in the Philippines.
I will also publish a beautiful poem
she wrote to illustrate this drawing.

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Anthony Katombe
.(Ben Heine © Cartoons)
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This is a close up of a soon to be published full portrait of Anthony Katombe, a Congolese peace activist. I also realized his interview and will publish it here as soon as it is translated from French to English... Below is a previous interview of him by Alice Backer that appeared on GlobalVoices.

Visit Anthony's Blog (in French)

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A Chat with a Blogger

By Alice Backer

Anthony Mica Katombe (Tony for short) is a blogger from the DRC who’ll “turn 39 April 13”. He has a degree in English and African Cultural Studies Education from a Congolese University. He owns Le Blog du Congolais and co-edits Le Prince du Fleuve Congo, a group blog. On the morning of our messenger chat, gunmen were surrounding his hometown of Kinshasa. And Kofi Annan was visiting in person to check in on a rocky electoral process. Oh and a brief blackout punctuated our messenger chat. But we carried on — in Tony’s native French.

AB: Vocal members of political parties are quite active in the DRC blogosphere. A Belgian chapter of opposition party UDPS has its own regularly updated blog, UDPS Liege, for example. Do you belong to a political party?

TK: I don’t and there are two reasons for that. One, I like to maintain my freedom of opinion and I have no intention of negotiating it with a party. Parties these days are based on their leaders’ personalities or on ethnico-tribal belonging… not on ideology. They only say they’re neo-liberal or socialist for show. Two, I’m a right-winger, a neo-liberal. But in the Congo all the neo-liberal parties are pro-Mobutu. Can you imagine being pro-Mobutu? For now I want to be close to all freedom fighters so I sometimes use my blog to relay UDPS’s struggle. I think they’re good, serious people. But they’re socialists and I’m a liberal.

AB: Why did you start blogging?

TK: I started blogging in August 2005 after visiting Renouveau Congolais, a [DRC] blog edited by Etienne Ngandu. I figured through a blog I could keep communicating my analyses that I had been publishing in a print publication called Le Phare but with a wider audience. I’d say my blog is more accessible to international readers while Le Phare remains most accessible locally, partly because they rarely update their website.

AB: Who reads your blog?

TK: Mainly Congolese from abroad.

AB: How do you like blogging so far?

TK: It’s actually been as exciting as it’s been demanding. I often get calls or emails from people who want to know all about the country. That forces me to stay tuned to the news 24/7 at a time when things are in constant flux. It’s a challenge and I like that.

AB: The DRC blogosphere is one of the most active of Francophone Africa. Why is that do you think?

TK: The Congolese are more and more aware of their responsibility for the country’s plight. I hear more and more people say that we couldn’t be who we are without our own participation. So everyone tries to express themselves, to influence things so as to save the Congo. And since freedom of expression is not quite yet a guarantee, people jump on the internet just to be involved. And why are we more vocal than other francophone Africans? Well, there is more suffering here than in Gabon or than in the other Congo. Here people can go 10 years without getting a paycheck. And when they do get a paycheck, it can be for as little as $10 a month. So he who aches the most screams the loudest.

AB: What is your blog’s mission?

TK: To analyze news and political affairs so as to guide the political involvement of the Congolese diaspora.

AB: Was there a defining moment in your life that may have influenced your decision to do what you do?

TK: Well, I developed a rebel spirit at age 17. A friend (Fabius Kalongo) was beaten up by some rich kids because he insisted on bathing in the river before them. This was in a rural setting and the custom was first come first serve when it came to bathing. The three rich kids insisted on braving the custom and beat him almost to death. When we found this out at school, I decided to start a fundraiser because he didn’t have any family close by. We went to the hospital to visit him but to our surprise he’d been jailed. We went to the police chief and asked that he be transferred to a hospital but when he refused we threatened to stone the police station’s windows. Our friend was freed but I was expelled from school. You see, someone pegged me wrongfully as the leader. My father, who was also a local bigwig, sided with them against me. I learned that power could be dangerous and I decided to denounce its trappings. There you go!
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