In the early hours of the morning, a young boy roams through the streets of Goma. He takes a wrong turn and encounters thieves. In his household, his father scrolls through TV channels while his mother counts bags of flour. No one speaks. The stillness is interrupted only by noises on the radio.
By evening, Baraka is sitting on the shore of Lake Kivu, looking south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, finding no hope in either direction.
This is the opening to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the first comic by a emerging visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story portrays common hardships in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.
Influential 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 significantly distant from Goma. But there are few contemporary comics set in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo produced by Congolese artists.
Creativity offers optimism. It represents a foundation.
“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his path as an artist. He began to follow the craft seriously only after finishing high school, registering at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were halted by financial difficulties.
His first individual showcase was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It stood as a major display. The response was remarkable how everyone engaged to it,” says Musavuli.
But just a year later, the brutal M23 militia, aided by Rwanda, resurfaced in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s fragile art scene.
“Artists in Goma are really dependent on international exhibitions like that,” he says. “Without them, 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 weakened alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it’s something to start with, 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 consigned to the periphery of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government focuses on,” he says.
Using Instagram, he began posting personal and collective experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “Where I'm from, sprinting precedes stepping.”
In one reel, which has since received more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an unfinished painting, while explosions are heard in the background.
Within this environment that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is charged with underlying messages, highlighting how ordinary routines have been eroded and replaced with perpetual insecurity.
Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as overt 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.”
Even without authority but inaction is so much worse. Should even a few listen, it’s something.
Inquired about he feels able to express himself freely under rule, he says: “People can speak openly in Congo, but will you be free after you speak?”
Making art that appears too oppositional of M23 or the government can be dangerous, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s common to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s standard to not do that because it’s not secure for you.
“Politically, we are divided 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.
According to Musavuli, some artists have come under duress to create supportive content out of apprehension for their lives. “If you are an artist with a voice in Goma, the M23 can leverage you, sometimes by intimidation, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “The situation is complex to judge. But I cannot permit myself to do something like that.”
If insecurity is one challenge, earning an income through the arts is another obstacle. “A challenge exists in Congo that people don’t buy art. Many of the artists here have to do other things to survive.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a online platform.
But he adds: “It isn't just about doing art to generate income.”
Regardless of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue making work that gives representation to the overlooked people of Goma. “We are a resilient population – this is not the first time we have been through this.
“We might not have power but inaction 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 deserted road, his head held high. “The future could appear exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Maintaining optimism is already fighting back.”
