Customer Reviews

All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Bryan Mealer brought to life a place that, sadly, most of us know little or care even less about. He takes far off characters in a far off war and gives them an easy familiarity. This book is not for the faint of heart--the war in Congo has killed millions through combat and disease, and Mealer does not shy away from its most brutal details. And yet, he does not revel in them either, as so many war correspondents haphazardly do. He simply writes what he sees. And what he sees is pretty amazing stuff. Highly recommended.

Bryan Mealer has attempted to do the impossible: represent the suffering of a nation in the midst of war and for that I give him credit. However, as a White, Ameican middle class woman who lived in Eastern Congo in 2005-06, I find much of his book to be deeply problematic. This is not a historic account of the war; nor is it an attmept to unpack and examine the myriad factors that instigated the conflict and continue to cause unrest even now; rather, it seems to be one man's biased and often aggrandized account of his willingness to "risk his life" to bring us a litany of disconnected stories from "the heart of darkness." As a book, it is little more than a re-construction of Europeans as noble and technologcally-advanced and Congolese as savage and backward. This is an extremely dangerous myth to perpetuate via mainstream American media, a medium already saturated in representations of Africans as starving, disease-ridden and hopelessly corrupt. While the horror of the war is certainly a reality, Mealer ignores the complex political underpinnings which, if exposed in depth, would serve as a scathing indictment of countless Western governments, including our own. Gerard Prunier's seminal text on the Rwandan genocide is an example of what good war reporting can be. This book, on the other hand,is a sad reminder that the war in Congo DOES deserve press coverage. Just not the kind delivered here.

Bryan Mealer has penned a brutal memoir of his three years as a reporter in the Congo, three years when teenage gunboys roamed the countryside and city streets, when UN peacekeeping forces faced mystical leaders operating from jungle mountaintops, when rebel militias and government forces alike pillaged their own nation. It was a horrible time in the history of a country that has seen little else for the last hundred years.

While Mealer writes about the bloody atrocities he witnessed, the real story he tells is about himself. He's drawn back to the Congo three times, apparently addicted to the extreme discomfort and random violence he endures. His travels cover nearly the entire country from the capital of Kinshasa to the mineral-rich southern provinces to the guerilla-infested eastern region where an alphabet-soup of militias, foreign armies, and UN forces fight a never-ending war of terror, rape, and mutilation. He rides a newly-reconstructed rail line and even follows Conrad's trail up the Congo River via barge. At one point, he and his adventure-junkie buddies take off through the jungle on bicycles.

While Mealer tells us the names and stories of many Congolese he meets along the way, he never really gives much insight into them as anything other than victims. He says as much when he reflects on his bicycle journey:

"...once in the jungle, my own basic needs and level of comfort had stood in the way of learning anything. I didn't even know my riders' last names or anything about their families. I'd simply been too exhausted and hungry to care. It wasn't my proudest moment, and even now, those last days on the trail leave a sting of regret."

Still, All Things Must Fight To Live puts the reader close to the action and accurately reflects the aftermath of war and colonialism in one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo

I had to put the book down several times because I felt sick. Bryan's writing was so real that I felt every terrifying and treacherous moment along the way. Just when a dangerous jouney ended, another began. I am so overwhelmed with what Bryan experienced in the Congo. I know him personally as well as his family, and I can't imagine what they all went through at their own levels.
I applaud Bryan Mealer for the excellent portrayal of a dire situation. I admire his wife, Ann Marie, and family for living through all of the reports, emails and contacts from Bryan throughout his entire journey.
BRAVO, Bryan, for the intensity, honesty, and real depiction of the situation in the Congo that we should all be aware of and concerned about.

I recommend this book for many reasons--Mealer's lyrical, colorful prose, insight into some of the most magnificent and heartbreaking events and places in the DRC, and finally, for a first hand account of how, why, and when news reaches us out of Africa. I'll recommend this book to my colleagues who study Congo, but also to family members who would like a window into this fiercely captivating and complicated place.

I've been reading articles and stories by Bryan Mealer for several years. In the early years, Bryan wrote some hilarious and interesting articles about bizarre subjects like the west Texas Rattlesnake Round-up. I really enjoyed his voice and continued to read his articles in Harper's and Esquire. I was thrilled to see he had written a book, and after reading All Things Must Fight to Live, I realize I owe a debt of gratitude to Bryan for sacrificing his own naivetee to bring this eloquent, gritty and painfully honest account of the horrors and beauty to me so that I may become less myopic. In my personal quest to uncover and grasp that common thread that binds us all, Bryan's stories give me something solid to hold onto. It is a must read for anyone seeking to broaden their view of the world and to understand conflicts and wars that are more than soundbites.

Mealer has written a testament to the importance of truth in reporting. Whether he planned at the beginning of his journey to become the eyes for Westerners like me on this struggle or not, he did and did it with the bravado that many of us have never had to summons in ourselves. His ability to document both the horrors and beauty of his experience and that of the Congolese he encountered is rare.

If you want a very recent book telling what's happening in all the corners of Congo, from a journalist's eyewitness perspective from 2003 to 2007, this is the book for you. Chapter 1 covers the war going on in the East, particularly in the Bunia area. It tells in chilling detail the factions involved, the fighting, and the suffering. The gold near Bunia is of course a major factor in bringing in a host of militias led by warlords who use the gold to purchase arms to control more territory to control more resources. You get the picture. The efforts of the UN forces there are also detailed.

Chapter 2 brings us to Kinshasa, although Mealer spends much of his time (on his own testimony) bar-hopping, getting drunk and boxing while also trying to get information on the eastern wars from the UN offices in Kinshasa. The tensions around the national elections, oft postponed, are described, as are the riots of June 2006 and the final vote. He also went back to Bunia to interview refugees--a source of information throughout the book.

Chapter 3 concerns mainly the battles in Uturi, the attempts by the UN to get rebel leaders like "Cobra" to surrender, and the massacres such as that horrible one in Nyankunde that we all learned about when it happened. Chapter 4 takes us on the inevitable riverboat trip (remember Conrad?), described in colorful detail. He and his two companions, one foreigner and one Congolese, had a luxury boat up to Mbandaka, rough life atop a barge to Ndobo, and an ordeal by bicycle from Bumba to Kisangani.

The final chapter begins at Lubumbashi, with an eventful and challenging train trip to Kongolo, then Kalemi, again beginning in a relatively luxurious living situation, then a declining one as time went by.

Mealer gives the historical background to the geographical locations he is narrating, so there is a lot of chronological forwarding and backtracking, sometimes a bit confusing, but in general accurate. He ends with good policy recommendations, and his prose is stylish and creative. In general he gives an accurate picture of the situation in Congo today, and had courageously lived outside the protective cocoon most foreigners live in, suffering the tough situations that most Congolese endure.

I have enjoyed Bryan's writing especially his non-idealized view of the cowboys and conflict junkies in Congo. Those who have read his taut, breathless, palpitating articles in Harpers will miss that immediacy in this book which is a bit more mellowed. He is a remarkable person who had made a journey that brought us important news. He gave himself to this story and to us in describing without embellishment or excuse his behaviors, reactions, and coping strategies. While he lamented he did not change the world's uncaring deafness to the cries of Congo, he has made a record of the savagery we all are responsible for creating, ignoring, and allowing to continue. Every time there is a report on the news of a single death or two in the continuing Israeli-Palestinian saga, i think of the millions dead in Congo that Bryan tried at least to witness. Thank you for that. I hope Ann Marie is taking good care of him!

[...]

Bryan Mealer, an editor and journalist for Harper's and Esquire takes us on a journey through the last seven years of the Congo, the nearly unknown and underreported but bloodiest civil war in recent history, where over 4 million people died. The first half of the book nearly breaks your heart as it describes a war of unprecedented savagery that imposed terrible suffering on civilians. The second half describes two journeys of hope against all odds, one up the fabled Congo River and one on the last operating rail line in the Congo. In turns lyrical and profoundly moving, All Things Must Fight to Live is a must-read if you care about Africa, peace and the dignity of each human being. Mealer proves a worthy successor to Joseph Conrad in his beautiful non-fiction narrative. Highly recommended.