This is the first tiny sliver of potentially good news to come out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in longer than I can remember:
From the crumbling riverside capital Kinshasa through to the thick jungles of the Congo river basin and the mist-shrouded peaks of the east, Democratic Republic of Congo was holding its first democratic polls in more than 40 years.
Over 4 million people have been killed in the DRC in the last decade alone in the deadliest war since World War II, amidst chaos and horrors unimaginable to most of us. It’s the world’s most criminally underreported mess, and is symptomatic of the Western press’s tendency to “write off” some regions of the world while focusing excessively on others.
Nobody who has been paying even cursory attention to the DRC lately will be naive enough to think that today’s elections will magically solve everything and usher in stability, peace and prosperity. But it’s a first step.