One of the first assignments that we had in this class was to watch a documentary Crisis in the Congo, on the DNC. We were told to consider the ways that the DNC is classified as a fragile state according to our Africa in World politics book and compare it to the documentary. The Democratic Republic of Congo I learned, is classified as a weak state. Although they have been making strides to help their struggling country, “territorial control is limited, private taxation continues, and illegal exploitation and the smuggling of natural resources goes on”(Africa in World Politics 271). The film explained their shifting alliances with Rwanda and Uganda, and that these countries have been invading the DRC for years in order to steal their natural resources and have raped their women, killed their children and burned their villages to the ground in the process. Uganda and Rwanda have been able to do this with United States Aid through troops weapons and influence. The DRC has no ability to stop this because their government has been fluctuating from private rule, colonial rule, and corrupt dictatorship since the 1800s. Resulting in the lack of establishing a strong central state to protect their border and citizens.

This documentary was the first engagement that I had with African Countries, I had no prior academic background in studying these countries and their struggling nations. Thus, my idea of African nations and aid began to take shape. The United States was giving aid to Uganda and Rwanda, and this aid was backfiring and hurting the DRC and the people that were living there. But, the headlines in America never suggested any of the sort, especially that our aid was by default impacting these humanitarian crisis, in the DRC.