A hoo-ha broke out in the streets of Kinshasa this Friday shortly
after the speech delivered by Côte d'Ivoire National Assembly Speaker
Guillaume Soro, the guest of DRC National Assembly Aubin Minaku, at
the ceremony of the reopening of the Congolese parliament.
Soro said that "Democratic Republic of Congo has a major role to play
in the development of Africa in the fashion of its musical culture."
Adding that he wished to see the day when "Congolese politics would
rejoin Congolese music in a marvelous rumba."
All of which seems perfectly reasonable to me however it would seem that the Congolese didn't quite see it that way.
" As a great fan of Congolese soukous, Soro no doubt thought that
Congolese would appreciate very much those remarks.
Well, he was mistaken, for those comments rubbed thin-skinned Kinois
( residents of Kinshasa ) the wrong way.
What Kinois retained from the speech was something completely
different, summed up by what a man was telling commuters on a bus this
evening:
"Soro dissed the Congo today. He told Parliament, If only Congolese
politics was as sophisticated as Congolese music, Congo would be far
ahead on its path to development, instead of being at the bottom of
UNDP human development index!"
It is a very harsh interpretation of Soro's comments and I for one do not dispute its accuracy. Soro said exactly what he should have said to the people who needed to hear it. It is a shame the Kinois chose to be offended rather than to listen.
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