Bill Moyers, Hope in the Congo

Bill Moyer's Journal covered the rebuilding efforts in The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Southern Sudan faces many of the same challenges--lack of infrastructure, few jobs, no reliable food source, etc. What really stood out for me, and something that I have heard from Joseph and others in southern Sudan, is that life was good before the wars. People had enough food, kids were going to school, progress was being made and it was being made by the people of Sudan and the DRC. Joseph remembers a good life before the Sudanese Civil war of 1983-2005. Valentino Deng in What is the What describes a good life in his Sudanese village before the war. My Congolese friend Martin says life was good for him, he was going to school, his father had earned a Master's degree and was gainfully employed before the family was forced out of the Congo in 1999. I fear that many in the west assume these African countries are always at war within and among themselves; I fear that many in the west assume life has always been and will always be difficult in Africa, but that isn't an accurate perception. The wars disrupt everything, they destroy everything.