Kamoso: The breaker of rules

During my time in Bukavu I had the pleasure to interview Douce Namwezi, activist and creator of Uwezo- a local Ngo that fights for women rights. Douce started her career working as a journalist and she remarqued how this experience provided her with a first hand understanding of people’s most present issues in Bukavu; and in what it was a clear attack to top-down policy programming, she remarqued how these differed- largely- from those set as priorities ‘to be fixed’ by international NGO’s. Her reflection was based around one particular issue: fighting sexual violence instead of fighting gender inequality, treating the cause rather than the root of the problem; and somehow, very sadly, treating a global issue as a local one.

Due to her renowned position within international developmental circles, Douce has had many chances to leave the DRC and settle in Europe, however her commitment to social justice does not allow her to do so. In fact, her commitment to bring forth social change in her country is such that when I asked Douce about her idea of a good life, she answered:

 ‘Seeing my environment fighting against the everyday’

Douce’s words do not only speak of her determination to change things for the better in her country, they also point us towards the fact that warscape inhabitants most present occupations and preocupations are located in the realm of the everyday and thus beyond the acute and dramatic instances of violence that international media and NGO’s insist on talking about.

Kamoso, ‘A fille qui sort de l’eau’ / A girl who leaves the water-

Kamoso's lived experience confirms Douce's wisdom, while also highlighting how personal projects of becoming can shape processes of social transformation from the bottom, and for the better- call it vernacular peace if you will.

Despite being 21 years young, Kamoso has succeeded to find meaning and purpose in life, and she has done so by becoming a spoken word artist, in her own words:

‘Through slam I have created a life, I am not a girl, nor a student, I am a spoken word artist’.

All in all, Kamoso is in search of freedom, freedom from certain social rules and ways of thinking that complicate her path to self-realisation: being an independent woman and making a life as an artist. In fact, when I asked Kamoso how did the conflict in Congo had affected her life, she answered that:  

‘In Congo there is many conflicts; to me, if I can speak of affecting my life, it has affected the mentality of those around me- it has affected the way parents always want to protect their children, you cannot go there, you cannot do that, because they have fear, the insecurity… the insecurity has driven my parents to cut some of my liberties’

These constrained liberties were at the core of our interactions, which more than a life-story interview it seemed to be a conversation about fighting the man: gender roles, societal constrains and obligations, the intersectional difficulties of being a female artist, her search for independence, and above all her determination to break a few gender rules in order to open doors not only for herself but for all those women who will come after. 

A Tingu girl among guys -

Kamoso was born in the commune of Kadutu in 2001. She described herself as a Tingu, a local term in Bukavu to refer to those children of calm and quiet nature who do good in school and stay home doing the homework instead of spending their time playing outside. From an early age she remembers taking studies so seriously to the point of getting annoyed if she was the second best grade of the class. A bright and applied girl who found an early passion for reading and writing,

Taking up on challenges seems to be one of Kamoso’s personality traits and so, our protagonist decided to pursue secondary studies at the ITFM, the technical school of Bukavu, which she pointed up: 

 'We say is a school for guys, because there is many more guys than girls, is a technical school, and we say that the technic is only for guys not the girls, but I find it pretty interesting, I have always been of one of those who leaves the water- not doing the same than everybody else, I wanted to try that thing that everybody said it was so hard’.

She remarked that while in first year there was a fair amount of girls, towards the end there was hardly any, and those few who continued until last year would pick secretariat as their specialisation:

‘We have grown up like that, a girl that does studies techniques does not work, a girl that fixes cars does not work, a girl that works wood does not work, a girl that does mechanics does no work, is not work for a girl.. on the contrary the things of a girl are the house, the children, the kitchen’

Kamoso specialised in electronics and from the entire duration of secondary school she did not only ranked top of the class, but she also found a new activity in which distinguish herself- scientific debates. Kamoso’s affinity for poetry mixed with that of public speaking leading her to join a group of spoken word artists, where she found herself again surrounded only by men:

‘ It was intimating to be a girl between so many guys, the younger one too.. but apparently I was not the worst…but at certain point I failed to go because I found myself in a circle of men, the girls came, saw the level of difficulty, left and did not come back, I nearly dropped , but I came back, very little girls have continued there’

Breaking the rules -

Through her participation in debates and slam competitions Kamoso has developed a liking for ‘traveling with her art’, however this has created some frictions with her family and close surroundings: 

‘My dad is practically the only one that supports that which I do at home.. he was also an artist… he did poetry, comedy and theatre… until today everybody else tells me that is a distraction, but my dad when I tell him what I do he tells me to keep going, I am proud of you, and he goes even further and tells me not to stop there and to do everything I feel I can do.. so is usually him that supports me and allows me to do lots of things…

…My mum does not agree, she tells herself that a girl does not have the right to do that… when I tell her I want to do something, she tells me you are a girl, you cannot do this and that, is like it touches your reputation, your dignity, she sees it as a danger for me… she has grown up in an environment that says that a women cannot get close to men, because all men want is to take your dignity… and if you get pregnant it becomes difficult to find a husband.. in our language we say Shindikana- it means a girl, well we use the term specially for girls for man we do not know, we use it for girls who give themselves all the liberties….

…When we are artists here is nearly that word that people end up giving you because you leave the water, you do things that other girls do not usually do, because since always we see art as a thing for men, is just for man, there is always that law that says that women can do all those things but in real life when you decide to do something like that, means that you have first decided to be in conflict with your parents… it is truly to go against all the rules.. so if you are not determined, the majority of the girls end up quitting- I think that is the reason why there is not many female artis here..

…I think the decision for parents to support you or nor has to do with society.. parents have fear that others call you a shindikana, they fear that your reputation is broken, here society tell us that art is for men, if you are a girl everybody is going to say- what are you doing there? And everybody expects you to fail.. but if we listen to them and we let it go I find that is like proving them right, by showing them that we cannot do it, is a bit discouraging, but I tell myself I am going to prove them wrong, if I get to do something big and I do it well I will end up changing mentalities’

Despite all the social barriers she is facing, Kamoso is extremely proud of having accustomed her family to it. In slam, Kamoso has achieved a freedom that is restricted  for many others:

‘When you are a girl in Bukavu there is more prohibitions than permissions, that which women are allowed to do is very little compared to men. Today a girl that has succeed makes men fear her, in the moment you choose to take another path that the one marked for you…that will create conflict with society and family, they will call you Shidikana…

..I am a spoken word artist and I have accustomed my mum to it… I could now easily travel even to Europe with my art if I wanted to, and she will let me go…. despite being in a society with lots of stereotypes, prejudices, and prohibitions for a woman, I have put myself among those women who leave the water, that fights against these prejudices, that breaks certain rules…. Today I follow certain objectives that I have fixed myself… I evolve very differently to other women-  I am a little red point between all those blue dots’.

We need to talk about marriage - 

Kamoso is now at university and she intends to take both, her art and her studies to the further possible level. Yet, this puts her in a delicate situation for this entitles prioritizing her projects of becoming over her socially imposed duties, to find a man and to get married:

‘A women is marriage, if is not getting married is nothing else, if you don’t marry you have failed in your life, you have done nothing with it, and is because of this that a women when reaches the age of 28, 29, 30  they start seeing you like someone who is cursed, why are you not married? It start becoming a heavy pressure at home.. but in the contrary if you are an independent women, who has her own means, you cannot leave the house and go live alone, the word there comes again (shindikana) we call that a free women.. and that in the eyes of society is not good, is immoral, but if you are a man who lives alone, you are a man, he is responsible, he is somebody- is that a man- but if you do it, you are a free women, and that is not a women to marry…

… school for a women here, that does not really have any importance, yes, we all go to school, but in school they do not tell you to succeed, only to find a husband, she must go to school and learn how to read and write, but they say to themselves- that is enough, there is no need to go further, you need to be the somebody’s wife, school is of no use, I have no need to work, my husband will do everything.. is that the problem, girls think that studying until arriving to be a doctor is not important, they see it as a waste of time, those that continue studying is precisely because they have not found a husband….. once you are finished with studies they don’t talk to you about finding a job, but about finding a husband, that is the problem… is like it was the final objective of  a woman, her accomplishment, if you have not married you have failed in life.. she grows old and has not find a husband she is cursed, the unfortunate, even if you have a job and are self-sufficient and independent’

Although Kamoso has not ruled out getting married, she pointed up both, the difficulties  and potential consequences for a female artist that wishes to be independent to do so:

‘Today when you are an artist they show you that you have less chances to get married, when you are a women, when you are an artist, there is less men that will get close to you because they say to themselves that you are a girl that comes out of the water.. I have remarqued that is like if men fear of you, the majority of men find difficult to talk to you about love when you are a female artist, is the word we use- a difficult one- and when you have less chances of marriage  you parents don’t want you to do it …

…I ask myself, if I don’t marry what exactly would it change? But on the contrary, if I marry there would be a lot of thing that will change for me, I will have other priorities I will need to abandon certain things that I do as an artist. When we female artists are with a man that may talk to you about marriage, there is something there that does not quite work.. after marriage it will become what?...

...I tell myself with that which I do, if I don’t marry, I will not feel less, I think freedom is not something to be given but is something to be taken, we don’t wait for others to give it to you… I can easily end up working for years, finish for being a free women, an independent one, even if that means disobeying my mother… is hard for a female artist like me, with all these ideas in my head to find someone in this society that will easily understand that’

Who are you? -

While Kamoso felt very strongly about the idea of marriage as an imposed social duty and the consequences for young women, her reflections where not a simple one-sided attack to patriarchy, but rather a buzz-wordless and yet highly elaborated discussion about gender roles: the need to earn money and provide by man, and that of women to marry and dedicate her life singularly to the household;  and she clearly attributed at least part of the culpability to a conformist mentality across her peers and highlighted how this in many instances leaves to precarious life conditions by depending on one single household salary. In fact, Kamoso’s last solo spectacle titled ‘who are you?’ aims, among other things, to encourage other girls to follow their personal projects of becoming, and to search for autonomy rather than giving up to social pressures and obligations.

‘I tell myself, getting married is good, but that cannot be the final objective.. you, for yourself don’t have any other accomplishment from the personal point of view? What are you going to do to be if you don’t marry?...you as a human being, if you do not marry- who will you be?  You are going to be unhappy, you are going to abandon things that you could have done and will make you feel complete at a personal level, and I tell myself, a person that is not realised, satisfied of whom you are, how would you feel? …

… I ask myself, do you have other objectives in life despite all this, beyond marriage? .. I will love to do a lot of things before getting married.. in the personal field I have a desire to realise things that are big for me, something which they will not say I have accomplish because there was a man behind, but that I have achieved due to my intelligence and my talent, I want to do something that will speak of me as a woman, I want people to think: she was a woman that leaves the water.. I want to do those things which the majority of the girls do not dear to do.. the slam today is still a thing of boys.. I would love to travel with it, bring it somewhere and do something, leave a base for other spoken word artists especially the girls that will come after..

…I would like to create something that will pay for women, to give them certain independence, we have the idea that if a women succeed is because she has used her body for it, I will love to change this mentality for the next generations’

In Slam, Kamoso has found not only meaning and purpose, but also a tool to fight the man. In fact, the young spoken word artist dreams to open a cultural centre that acts as a safe space for female artists to reach their full potential while providing them with means to increase their autonomy through art.

Mwanamuke Nguvu –

In the local Swahili of Bukavu, Mwanamuke translates as woman, and the word Nguvu/ Ngufu translates as both: strong and hard/difficult. Accordingly, the vernacular meaning of ‘Mwanamuke Ngufu’ is two-sided: it means both, a strong and difficult woman; and this translation goes beyond semantics. In Bukavu being a strong women, means that you are considered a ‘Shindikana’- an impossible one. In her search for self-realisation Kamoso is basically breaking every gender rule in the book one by one, and this will certainly complicate her adult social life, particularly by creating conflict with her family due to her diminishing chances for marriage and consequently by neglecting certain kindship obligations. She is well aware of it, and nevertheless plans to stick to it until the end.

Beyond being an incredible tale of courage and agency, Kamoso’s lived experience goes a long way in highlighting that warscape inhabitants most present struggles and preoccupations- the conflict(s) that they need to navigate in their quests for wellbeing- are situated away from the armed conflict. Thus, highlighting the necessity to go beyond the dramatic and the fundamental when investigating warscape inhabitants social existence.

In the particular case of Kamoso, this deviation from the dramatic towards the everyday, from the fundamental into the existential, and from the assumed to the experienced, reveals a larger issue: Gender inequality

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You say War, I say Gender-

Sexual violence, particularly rape as a weapon of war has received much attention by both academics and humanitarians (Meger, 2010). However, as Kamoso’s lived experience shows: reducing the spectrum of gender-based-violence(s) to either ‘the physical’ or ‘the war’ is narrow thinking.

While Dr. Denis Mukwege’s cause is a noble and rightful one, the idea of rape as a weapon of war frames sexual violence as a security issue (Crawford, 2013), hence assuming it to be a direct consequence of the armed struggle, and somehow, also a local problem. One only needs to look at global sexual violence statistics to notice that this is far from the truth (WHO, 2021). Still, within the DRC, Eriksson Bazz and Maria Stern’s large study on the subject suggests that sexual violence is not restricted to places with high conflict incidence (2013), and Justine Brabant notes how a large amount of these abuses were committed by others than those on arms (2016). So, although there is a corelation between sexual violence and the war in the DRC, there is no evidence of causality. As Crawford notes: “Sexual violence has occurred and continues to occur before, during and after a great number of wars” (2013:508).

Secondly, and most importantly: framing sexual violence within the realm of the armed conflict disassociates the issue from the larger, and global, context of gender inequality in which it takes place. As argued by Crowford “Sexual violence cannot be separated from the larger spectrum of gender based violence and the societal factors that foster gender inequality” (2013:515). In fact, in their study, Bazz and Stern, suggested that rape among soldiers in the DRC was commonly referred as originating from the ‘need of men to have sex even in the battlefield’ (2013);  thus revealing how the issue operates within the broader context of genderised social violence rather than simply as a consequence of the war.

As Douce Namwezi, Justine Brabant and many others have pointed up- the problem is much bigger, and going to the root of the issue will entail looking at other factors such as inequal access to education, lack of political representation, opportunities to enter the marketplace, dismantling certain social norms and a long etc (Brabant, 2016; Freedman, 2016).

All in all, a narrow focus on sexual violence and the war, does not only detract attention from the root of the problem- the global issue that gender inequality is, but it also neglects other forms of violence which represent the everyday insecurities and struggles of women in the DRC (Mugoli, 2019) and beyond. For instance, gendered social norms fuel the normalisation of ‘sexually transmitted points’ at university' (Maroy, 2021), the normalised sex-work ‘careers’ of bartenders (Vianney, 2020), and the normalisation of transactional sex and prostitution as forms of agency (Mwapu, et al, 2016).

    La Femme Cargo-

“La femme supporte toujours les poids les plus lourds,

Et autours d’elle on reste lourd,

Parce qu’il n’y a personne  vers qui crier secours,

Ou faire recours…

Leurs larmes débordent et inondent á chaque seconde,

Cet monde immonde.

Toujours avec un gros fardeau,

Dans le ventre, sur la tête ou sur le dos,

Qu’elle transporte comme un escargot,

Mais avec cette cargaison, elle nourrit toute la maison,

Quelle que soit la saison,

Quels que soient les horizons,

Une femme vit comme en prison sans raison…

Mais on lui donne toujours le premier rôle,

Seulement avec les casseroles,

Accompagne de mauvaises paroles,

Sorties sans contrôle et qui collent

….

Accusée du pêche originel,

Responsable de la mort d’Abel,

De la haine fraternelle et des conflits éternels ;

Et même ceux qui ont suce ses mamelles,

Arrivent à la chasser de la parcelle, après la mort du paternel,

C’est alors qu’elle subit une déception dans son cœur maternelle,

Et que même pour elle, le ciel devient superficiel ;

Et l’amour artificiel…

La femme-cargo,

La femme-cargo du Congo…”                                                                                                                    

(Le Juif, 2021)

The extract of the above poem by le Juif describes very accurately the weight of the cargos which those women I interviewed carry. Their choices are highly restricted not only by patriarchal dynamics but also the necessity and willingness to adhere to the idea of success within broader social norms. Luckily for me, I believe in the power of agency, and I have met enough Kamosos to know that change is coming.

Bibliography

Baaz, M., E., and Stern, M. (2013)  Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond. London: Zed Books. 

Brabant, J., (2016) Qu’on nous laisse combattre, et la guerre finira, avec les combattants du Kivu. Paris : La Découverte.

Crawford, K., F., (2013) ‘From spoils to weapons: framing wartime sexual violence’,  Gender and Development,21(3) pp 505-517.

Freedman, J., (2016) Gender, Violence and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo. New York: Routledge.

‘Le Juif’ Nkinzo, T.,  (2021) ‘La Femme Cargo’ in Les Passions finies, by Le Juif, Nkinzo, T., (2021). France : CoolLibri.

Maroy, L., (2021), Rien ne vous oblige à faire de ma peine une chanson,  Accessible at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvcc79w23Lk&t=1837s.

Meger, S., (2010) ‘Rape of the Congo: Understanding sexual violence in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’,  Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 28(2), pp 119-135.

Mugoli, A., (2019) “Vendre à perte? L’insécurité des femmes vendeuses de Bukavu”, Rift Valley Institute, Usalama blog

Mwapu, I., Hilhorst, D., Mashanda, M., Bahananga, M., and Mugenzi, R., (2016) ‘Women engaging in transactional sex and working in prostitution: practices and underlying factors of the sex trade in South Kivu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, Secure Livelihoods Consortium, Overseas Development Institute

Vianney, C. M. (2020) 'TOI ET TA BIÈRE C’EST COMBIEN ? » – LES SERVEUSES DE BARS DANS LA VILLE DE BUKAVU, GEC-SH, Bukavu.

WHO, World Health Organisation, (2021), Violence Against Women Prevalence Estimates, 2018 Global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and global and regional prevalence estimates for non-partner sexual violence against women. Geneva: World Health Organization, on behalf of the United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on Violence Against Women Estimation and Data (VAW-IAWGED).

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