The Devil Wears Leopardskin
This weekend I began reading Jeffrey Tayler’s travel adventure Facing The Congo. It’s a gripping tale of his attempt to navigate up the Congo River in a pirogue. At the time of his trip (1995), the Congo (Zaire) is awash in corruption and Mr. Tayler can’t seem to complete a single paragraph without handing out a bribe to some soldier who demands an “American present”.
In the book’s prologue, Mr. Tayler gives a brief outline of Zaire circa 1995, which was then being ruled by the king of corruption, the godfather of kleptocracies, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.
Now Mobutu was a very bad guy but witness Mobutu’s poetic flair for a new epithet:
He forced all Zaireans to adopt African names and created a new Lingala title for himself – Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu wa za Banga (which usually translates as “The All-Conquering Warrior Who, Because of His Endurance and Inflexible Will to Win, Will Go from Conquest to Conquest Leaving Fire in His Wake,” but which literally means “The Cock Who Jumps on Anything That Moves”
I’m sure with that name he was officially crossed off the Nobel Peace Prize short list.
Naturally, Mobutu proved one of America’s strongest African allies.
