Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

by Siddharth Kara

According to a mid-level manager at Congo DongFang Mining (CDM) who goes by the name of Hu, the people of the Congo, and Africa more generally, suffer exploitation because they are lazy. “If the Africans worked harder, they would not be so poor. Chinese people have discipline. African people do not. They drink and gamble. They allow their leaders to exploit them. This is why they are poor.” I met Hu at the Royal Casino, one of the private Chinese clubs in Lubumbashi. We sat poolside in the open air. Chinese men drank and smoked as heavy-beat club music thumped through the speakers. Congolese people were not allowed inside the club, except when the strippers arrived around 9:00 p.m. As he drank his beers, Hu from Chengdu let his opinions fly. “The Africans will always be poor because they do not want to learn. In China, we have the best education in the world. Chinese people study very hard, and look how quickly our country has become a world power.” Hu lit a cigarette and waved his hands in scattershot motions as he continued. “Also, the Africans lack management ability. They do not take interest in details. This is why they can only be laborers. Even as laborers, they do not perform well. They only want to have fun.” Hu continued by offering his thoughts on poverty in Africa. “I think they like being poor because they receive foreign aid and do not have to work. If they did not like being poor, why do they spend all day on Sunday in church instead of working?”