King Capital’s plunder of the Congo
The brutal conflict in the ‘Democratic Republic’ of Congo is not an ethnic struggle, a failure of governance, or an unfortunate accident. It is the direct consequence of capitalism’s relentless pursuit for profit. The plunder of the Congo’s vast mineral wealth is not a by-product of war, but the reason for it.
Despite being endowed with vast natural resources, the Congo remains one of the most impoverished and most exploited countries in the world. The cause of this paradox lies in the legacy of colonialism combined with modern rulers of capital and the ongoing plunder facilitated by the master class.
‘The colonised can see right away that the coloniser is a thief, a liar, a fraud, a murderer, a torturer, and a hypocrite…’ (Frantz Fanon, the well-known psychiatrist and revolutionary, on the Congo).
Towards the end of the 19th century, King Leopold II of Belgium transformed the Congo into his personal property. He subjected millions of Congolese to forced labour in the extraction of rubber and other resources. Under Leopold’s rule, appalling atrocities were committed with millions dying from violence, starvation, and disease. After international condemnation, Belgium formally took control of the Congo in 1908, continuing the exploitation of its resources while not investing in the country’s infrastructure or development.
Eventually Congo gained independence in 1960, under a rigged system that ensured foreign control over its wealth. Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected Prime Minister, sought to assert national sovereignty. For this affront to King Capital, Lumumba was overthrown and assassinated by Belgian and US interests. The installation of the dictator Mobutu ensured that the Congo’s resources would continue to be funnelled to corporations while the population withered.
Today, Congo remains trapped in a cycle of exploitation. Minerals like coltan, cobalt, and copper, essential to Tesla, iPhones and solar panels continue to benefit capital rather than the Congolese. Neighbouring Rwanda has become a key exploiter.
The European Union’s special representative for Africa’s Great Lakes region, Johan Borgstram, accused Rwanda of violating Congolese territory. Borgstram urged a political solution to the conflict in eastern Congo, noting that Rwanda’s support for the M23 (March 23) rebel group and the presence of its military on Congolese territory constituted a violation of Congolese sovereignty. The M23 movement, which has seized key territories in eastern Congo, claims to be defending the interests of Congolese Tutsis. It has committed horrendous acts including mass killings, sexual violence, and the displacement of civilians, particularly in eastern Congo.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has cited security concerns, pointing to the Congolese government’s alleged lack of political will. M23’s territorial control has caused nearly 80,000 people to flee, many seeking refuge in neighbouring countries like Burundi.
This ongoing cycle of extraction and conflict is not an accident; it is the result of the global capitalist system that continues to exploit Congo’s resources for the benefit of foreign elites, whether they are in the West or in Rwanda. The wealth generated from Congo’s vast resources is largely funnelled to multinational corporations, with little benefit to the local population.
Don’t imagine this is some accidental lapse on capitalism’s part. It is exactly how capitalism functions. The Socialist Party has always argued that capitalism cannot be reformed to serve the majority. It is a system built on exploitation, where wealth is continually extracted, and power remains concentrated in the hands of few. The wars in Congo, like the wars before them, are not by accident or the result of mismanagement; they are the natural outcome of the economic system that demands the subjugation of entire nations for the benefit of King Capital.
Digital book burnings in Trump’s America
When viewing history through the lens of analysis socialists understand that attacks on marginalised groups are likely an early indication of rising authoritarianism. A century ago, the Nazi party of Germany targeted transgender people and the scientists who were pioneers of sexual research, raiding Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, one of the world’s first centres dedicated to the study and care of queer and trans people. The Nazi Party raided the clinic, terrorised the workers, and burned thousands of books, papers and research materials in a public spectacle of hate that foreshadowed the grim horrors to come. Now, today, a modern version of this erasure is also underway. This time, the flames are in the form of a trash folder, as it is a digital erasure, and this horror is unfolding in the United States under the directorship of Donald Trump.
Since his return to political power, the Marmalade Mussolini and his collaborators have systematically erased the existence of trans people from official records. Under his administration, the term ‘transgender’ is being removed from government websites, crucial health data scrubbed, and even references to historical trans activists such as Marsha P Johnson at the Stonewall National Monument eradicated.
Charities and institutions that receive federal funding are being overtly pressured to follow suit, ensuring that the trans community is transported out of public life. The speed and efficiency of this erasure would have made the Nazis envious.
These moves are not happening in isolation. They come after a build up over years of false moral panic stoked by the capitalist press, where trans people are being unjustly smeared as a threat to children, just as Hirschfeld was accused of ‘grooming’ youth in the pages of the Nazi propaganda organ Der Stürmer. The narrative is chillingly familiar: demonisation, exclusion, and then elimination.
The implications however extend beyond just trans rights. Fascist parties who seized the reins of democracy under the gaze of capital would test the boundaries by attacking the most vulnerable, seeing how much liberals of all shades would tolerate. As they succeed today in digitally erasing trans people, they will move on to the next targets. Already, Trump and his axis of tech billionaires have floated the idea of defying court rulings, openly challenging judicial authority in their efforts to strip rights from minorities. The broader working class must recognise that an attack on one group’s liberties is an attack on all.
Just as socialists oppose divisions and discriminations over race and colour, so we commit to solidarity with those workers under the LGBTQIA banner being victimised by this explicitly nasty face of capital.
Socialists are keenly aware that oppression is the tool of the master class, used to divide and distract workers while capitalists consolidate capital. The erasure of transgender people is not only a symptom of this alt-right culture war but is a warning sign of the increasingly authoritarian aspect of the capitalist political order. Socialists that seek to build a truly free, wholly democratic and equal society will not accept these digital book burnings and Trump’s wider assault on humanity. Marx teaches us to look on history scientifically to understand the present condition and in doing so what we are witnessing unfolding under raw capitalism in the US must concern us all.
A.T.
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