Throughout the early period of the morning, Baraka roams through the streets of Goma. He chooses an incorrect path and meets outlaws. In his household, his father scrolls through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Silence prevails. The silence is interrupted only by static on the radio.
By evening, Baraka is sitting on the shore of Lake Kivu, staring south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, discovering no optimism in either direction.
That marks the opening to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the initial comic by a young visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, released earlier this year. The story portrays daily challenges in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.
Influential Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who seized 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 scarce contemporary comics set in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.
Expression provides light. It’s something to start with.
“I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli explains of his path as an artist. He began to follow the craft dedicatedly only after finishing high school, enrolling at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were halted by economic challenges.
His first individual showcase was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It was a really big exhibition. The response was remarkable how everyone engaged to it,” says Musavuli.
But just a year later, the ruthless M23 militia, aided by Rwanda, reemerged in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s fragile art scene.
“Creatives in the city are really reliant on external exhibitions like that,” he says. “If they’re not around, it will seem like we don’t exist. This is the reality right now.”
When M23 captured Goma in January this year, the city’s creative spaces weakened alongside its economy. “Creativity inspires, it's a foundation, but our circumstances here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really interested any more,” says Musavuli.
Creators and expression 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 disseminating private and public experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, narrating his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “I’m from where you learn to run before you walk.”
In one video, which has since received more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an unfinished painting, while gunshots are heard in the background.
It was against this backdrop that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is loaded with social commentary, emphasizing how ordinary routines have been removed and replaced with constant uncertainty.
Yet Musavuli states the short comic was not meant as explicit political commentary: “I’m not really a political artist or activist however I say what people around me are thinking. That’s how 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 occupation, he says: “Free expression exists in Congo, but can you remain unharmed after you speak?”
Producing art that appears too oppositional 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 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 control 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 use you, sometimes by compulsion, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It’s complicated to judge. But I cannot let 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 make ends meet.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a digital outlet.
But he adds: “It isn't just about doing art to sell it.”
Despite the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue making work that gives voice to the disenfranchised people of Goma. “People here endure – this is not the first time we have been through this.
“Even without control but inaction is so much worse. Although your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”
In the conclusion of the comic story, Baraka walks alone down an deserted road, his head held high. “The future could appear exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Believing in better days is already resisting.”