The above image is taken from Lonely Planet, a British travel website with self-proclaimed non-commercial interests. However, a look at their ‘About Us” page yields a slightly different conclusion. The page states:
“At Lonely Planet we tell it like it is, without fear or favour. There's a whole world of amazing sights, hotels, travel companies and gear manufacturers out there - and we want to tell you which ones we think are best. But we never compromise our opinions for commercial gain. If you read something written by a Lonely Planet author, you can guarantee they've been there, had a look for themselves and are telling you what they really think. It's trusted advice from a trusted source.”
They continue, explaining:
“Lonely Planet has gone on to become the world’s most successful travel publisher, printing over 120 million books in eleven different languages. Along with guidebooks and eBooks to almost every destination on the planet, Lonely Planet also produces a range of gift and reference titles, an award-winning website and magazine and a range of digital travel products and apps.”
While this denial of capitalist motivations is troubling enough, for the purpose of this blog post, I chose to focus on their offensive description of Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo. For a travel website aimed at a ‘telling it like it is’ philosophy, this featured highlight on the city of Brazzaville displays a large degree of Western innocence and perpetration of first world privilege.
Beginning with the opening lines, the site is attempting to establish a history of the town, but is instead establishing a comparative dynamic between The Republic of the Congo and The Democratic Republic of the Congo. This begins with the mention of the two names for this place on the Congo River, depending upon which country you are visiting, establishing the dichotomy between the two locations. Brazzaville is the capital of the Congo Republic, and the website contrasts it with the capital of the DRC, Kinshasa. They claim that Brazzaville is the “junior partner economically” which is an interesting point of comparison to focus upon. While Kinshasa is the larger, more populous city, Lonely Planet only chooses to highlight the economic disparity between the two. They also both sexualize and assign an aggression to Kinshasa, describing it as ‘tempting and taunting’. While these are not necessarily sites of militourism, this is certainly a place at which the factors of capitalism, miltarism, and tourism are at play. However, while the allure of Kinshasa has been elucidated, the line ends by asserting that Brazzaville is the “safer” town. What does this information mean to the tourist, to be “safer”? This implies a danger in both cities, a captivating sense of darkness meant to draw in visitors that borders on thanatourism.
I believe this establishment of a comparative, competitive dynamic between these two cities, and by extension the two countries, is based upon the western world’s relationship with the previous colonial occupants of the two nations. As we have read, the DRC was previously occupied by Belgium and the Congo Republic was occupied by the French. I find it interesting that Belgium and King Leopold were used as the scape goats for the atrocities of African imperialism, and this is reflected in the DRC and Kinshasa being portrayed as the more dangerous of the two travel destinations. There is competition inherent in the capitalist motivations for imperialism and colonialism. I am reminded of the passage on the map from Heart of Darkness:
“On one end a large shining map marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of red—good to see at any time because one knows that some real work is done there—a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and on the East Coast, a purple patch…” (Conrad 10)
The description of this map is indicative of the colonial power balance within Africa during that historical moment. However, I believe this same representation of the power balance is present within this travel review. The British website is offering their ‘honest’ and ‘truthful’ opinions on the economic status and tourist appeal of the two countries, which is tied to a colonial history.
The highlight on Brazzaville ends on an even more disturbing note, however, by claiming that, “with most evidence of the war years washed away,” Brazzaville is perhaps “the most pleasant city in Central Africa”. This flippant, brief comment on the status of this historically war torn country entirely ignores any culpability on behalf of the western world in that violence. Instead, that history is merely an inconvenient blip in the past, meant to be washed away and ignored. There is this assumed attitude that tourists should not have to be subjected to the ‘dirtiness’ of a history of war.
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