During the early period of the morning, the protagonist roams through the streets of Goma. He makes a mistaken turn and encounters thieves. Back home, his father scrolls through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Words are absent. The stillness is interrupted only by static on the radio.
When dusk arrives, Baraka is sitting on the shore of Lake Kivu, gazing south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, seeing no promise in either direction.
This is the introduction to a visual story set in turbulent Goma, the debut comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story illustrates daily challenges in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.
Prominent Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who grasped the public’s imagination in comic strips in the past, mostly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city more than a thousand miles from Goma. But there are few contemporary comics based in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo written by Congolese artists.
Creativity offers optimism. It's a beginning.
“I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli says of his evolution as an artist. He began to follow the craft seriously only after finishing high school, joining at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were cut short by economic challenges.
His first personal display was in January 2020, arranged 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, supported by Rwanda, resurfaced in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s delicate art scene.
“Artists in Goma are really dependent on international exhibitions like that,” he says. “In their absence, it will appear like we don’t exist. This is the reality right now.”
When M23 seized Goma in January this year, the city’s cultural hubs weakened alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it offers a beginning, but our reality here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really interested any more,” says Musavuli.
Artists and creativity have long been pushed to the margins of the state agenda. “We are not something the government values,” he says.
Using Instagram, he began posting individual and shared experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, narrating his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “Where I'm from, sprinting precedes stepping.”
In one video, which has since generated more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an unfinished 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 eroded and replaced with perpetual insecurity.
Yet Musavuli states the short comic was not meant as overt political commentary: “I am not a political artist or activist though I say what people around me are thinking. That’s how I do my art.”
Even without authority but staying silent is so much worse. Should even a few listen, it’s something.
Questioned if he feels able to express himself freely under rule, he says: “There is freedom of speech in Congo, but can you remain unharmed after you speak?”
Making art that appears too critical of M23 or the government can be perilous, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s acceptable to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s typical to not do that because it’s not safe 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 dominance by the M23.
Based on Musavuli, some artists have come under duress to create favorable content out of concern for their lives. “For those with talent with a voice in Goma, the M23 can leverage you, sometimes by compulsion, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It’s complicated to judge. But I cannot permit myself to do something like that.”
While danger is one challenge, making a living through the arts is another difficulty. “There's an issue in Congo that people don’t buy art. Most of the artists here have to do other things to get by.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a digital outlet.
But he adds: “I don't solely doing art to generate income.”
In spite of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue making work that gives representation to the disenfranchised people of Goma. “We are a resilient population – this is not the first time we have been through this.
“Although influence is limited but staying passive is so much worse. Even if your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”
In the conclusion of this visual narrative, Baraka walks alone down an quiet road, his head held high. “Next day may seem exactly the same,” he says, “but I will continue. Maintaining optimism is already resisting.”
