Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

Despite a decade's passing since ‘Africa's Great War’, Western engagement with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains transitory, and largely confined to humanitarian and economic concerns. As ‘an exhortation to raise the bar and try harder to understand’ the confused mechanisms behind the conflict and its after-effects (p. 336), Jason Stearns's Dancing in the Glory of Monsters challenges this apoliticism. Though it succeeds in making such complexity accessible, the study fails to deliver much beyond this narrow remit. Separating this project from the numerous volumes analysing the Congolese war are Stearns's infinitely readable prose and unending reservoir of personal accounts and anecdotes. Running through the interwoven historical arguments of state weakness and ethnic rivalries since colonization are a host of such tales. Refugee crises are made personal by the suffering of a friend, Beatrice, while the rationale for participation in killing squads is enunciated by Papy, who served in four separate militias. Unlike similar studies of the conflict, these stories are central to the thesis: decisions to inflict, avoid, or submit to violence, Stearns argues, can be comprehended only through the experiences of individuals making the calculations or living the consequences. Throughout this narrative, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is aided by the author's finely tuned barometer of Congolese public opinion. His discussion of Mobutu Sese Seko's demise forcefully reminds the reader of the old dinosaur's magisterial ability to manipulate Zairian political space, and his lingering (if greatly diminished) popularity. Later, Joseph Kabila's presidency is nimbly balanced as a unifying force that nevertheless tends toward centralized power exercised through informal, often brutal, means. In short, Stearns depicts contentious Congolese politics frankly while bringing its intricacies to heel. Non-specialists will find few volumes that incorporate such an expanse of material into as engrossing a narrative.