🔗 Share this article

During the first hours of the morning, Baraka strolls through the roads of Goma. He makes a mistaken turn and encounters bandits. In his household, his father flicks through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Words are absent. The stillness is broken only by static on the radio.

When dusk arrives, Baraka is positioned on the shore of Lake Kivu, looking south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, discovering no optimism in either direction.

This is the beginning to Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, the initial comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, published earlier this year. The story depicts everyday struggles in Goma through the perspective of a child.

Prominent Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who captured the public’s attention in comic strips in the past, mostly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city significantly distant from Goma. But there are scarce contemporary comics set in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.

Art gives hope. It’s something to start with.

“I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his evolution as an artist. He began to follow the craft professionally only after finishing high school, joining at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were cut short by economic challenges.

His first individual showcase was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It stood as a major display. And it was impressive how everyone engaged to it,” says Musavuli.

But just a year later, the ruthless M23 militia, backed by Rwanda, reemerged in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s delicate art scene.

“Creatives in the city are really reliant on foreign exhibitions like that,” he says. “In their absence, it will seem like we don’t exist. That is the current situation right now.”

When M23 took over Goma in January this year, the city’s cultural hubs faltered alongside its economy. “Creativity inspires, it's a foundation, but our circumstances here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really invested any more,” says Musavuli.

Creators and expression have long been relegated to the edges of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government values,” he says.

Using Instagram, he began posting private and public experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, describing his childhood, he labeled an interactive story: “I’m from where you learn to run before you walk.”

In one reel, which has since attracted more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an incomplete painting, while explosions are heard in the background.

Within this environment that the comic narrative was created. The story is filled with social commentary, emphasizing how ordinary routines have been removed and replaced with constant uncertainty.

Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as overt political commentary: “I’m not really a political artist or activist though I say what people around me are thinking. This is the way I do my art.”

We might not have power but not doing anything is so much worse. When someone hears you, it’s something.

Asked whether he feels able to express himself freely under control, he says: “There is freedom of speech in Congo, but are you truly safe after you speak?”

Making art that appears too negative of M23 or the government can be risky, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s common to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s normal to not do that because it’s not protected for you.

“Politically, we are cut off 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.

As stated by Musavuli, some artists have come under coercion to create favorable content out of apprehension for their lives. “For those with talent with a voice in Goma, the M23 can utilize you, sometimes by force, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It's not straightforward to judge. But I cannot permit myself to do something like that.”

While danger is one challenge, surviving financially through the arts is another hurdle. “A challenge exists in Congo that people don’t buy art. The majority of the artists here have to do other things to get by.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a blog site.

But he adds: “I don't solely doing art to generate income.”

Despite the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue making work that gives expression to the marginalized people of Goma. “Our community is strong – this is not the first time we have been through this.

“We might not have power but not doing anything is so much worse. Although your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

In the conclusion of Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, Baraka walks alone down an deserted road, his head held high. “Next day may seem exactly the same,” he says, “but I will continue. Holding on to hope is already pushing against.”