Throughout the early hours of the morning, the protagonist wanders through the roads of Goma. He makes a mistaken turn and runs into thieves. In his household, his father flicks through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Silence prevails. The quiet is interrupted only by crackles on the radio.
When dusk arrives, Baraka is resting on the shore of Lake Kivu, staring south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, discovering no optimism in either direction.
This is the beginning to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the initial comic by a emerging visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, published earlier this year. The story depicts daily challenges in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.
Influential Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who captured the public’s attention in comic strips in the past, primarily worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city significantly distant from Goma. But there are limited contemporary comics located in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo written by Congolese artists.
Art gives hope. It's a beginning.
“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli explains of his journey as an artist. He began to engage in the craft professionally only after finishing high school, registering at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were cut short by economic challenges.
His first solo exhibition was in January 2020, arranged with a cultural institute in Goma. “It stood as a major display. And it was impressive how everyone responded to it,” says Musavuli.
But just a year later, the brutal M23 militia, aided by Rwanda, reemerged in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s delicate art scene.
“Artists in Goma are really reliant on foreign exhibitions like that,” he says. “If they’re not around, it will seem like we don’t exist. That is the current situation right now.”
When M23 captured Goma in January this year, the city’s creative spaces faltered alongside its economy. “Creativity inspires, it offers a beginning, but our reality here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really engaged any more,” says Musavuli.
Talented individuals and art have long been pushed to the edges of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government focuses on,” he says.
Turning to Instagram, he began sharing personal and collective experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he labeled an interactive story: “My homeland teaches running before walking.”
In one video, which has since attracted more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an ongoing painting, while explosions are heard in the background.
It was against this backdrop that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is filled with underlying messages, showing how ordinary routines have been removed and replaced with perpetual insecurity.
Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as direct political commentary: “I don't consider myself a political artist or activist but I say what people around me are thinking. This is the way I do my art.”
Although we lack influence but not doing anything is so much worse. Should even a few listen, it’s something.
Questioned if he feels able to express himself freely under control, he says: “People can speak openly in Congo, but are you truly safe after you speak?”
Creating art that appears too oppositional of M23 or the government can be perilous, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s normal to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s normal to not do that because it’s not secure for you.
“In terms of governance, we are separated from the ‘actual’ Congo,” he says. Unlike other cities in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, Goma remains under full occupation by the M23.
Based on Musavuli, some artists have come under duress to create supportive content out of concern for their lives. “For those with talent with a voice in Goma, the M23 can use you, sometimes by compulsion, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “The situation is complex to judge. But I cannot allow myself to do something like that.”
While danger is one challenge, earning an income through the arts is another obstacle. “A challenge exists in Congo that people don’t buy art. Most of the artists here have to do other things to make ends meet.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a online platform.
But he adds: “I’m also not doing art to sell it.”
Regardless of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue making work that gives voice to the overlooked people of Goma. “We are a resilient population – this is not the first time we have been through this.
“Even without control but inaction is so much worse. Though your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”
At the end of Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “The future could appear exactly the same,” he says, “but I’ll keep walking. Maintaining optimism is already pushing against.”
