DRC: Film, the Human Condition, and Complex Dynamics

>> H.R. McMaster: America and other free and open societies, face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a better future.

I am H.R. McMaster. This is Battlegrounds.

>> Presenter: On today's episode of Battlegrounds, our focus is on the Democratic Republic of Congo, also known as the DRC. Our guest, Djo Tunda Wa Munga is an award winning director, producer, and screenwriter. Munga was born in the DRC's capital, Kinshasa. He pursued fine arts while attending boarding school in Belgium and a cinema workshop inspired him to attend the National Film School of Belgium insas.

Munga then returned to the Congo and established the country's first film and television production company, Suka Productions, as well as its first film and television school. His debut film, Viva Riva received widespread acclaim. Munga has produced documentary and historical films for the World Bank, BBC, and numerous international development agencies.

Roughly 3,000 years ago, agriculturalist communities migrated southward to the present day Democratic Republic of Congo, establishing powerful kingdoms including Congo, Luba and Lunda. The Atlantic slave trade was particularly devastating for the Congo kingdom from the 16th to 18th centuries. Over 5 million Africans were captured from its territories and sent to Brazil.

In 1885, Belgian monarch Leopold II seized personal control of the territory, which he called the Congo Free State. Leopold II exploited the region's natural resources, particularly rubber, through brutal forced labor that killed roughly half the Congolese population, an estimated 10 million people. In 1908, the Belgian government formally annexed the territory, renaming it the Belgian Congo, while continuing to exploit it for natural resources.

The Democratic Republic of Congo gained independence on June 30, 1960. Patrice Lumumba was elected prime minister and Joseph Kosavubu was elected President. However, stability was short lived. The government signed a treaty with Belgium that kept Belgian military officers at their post but limited Belgium's involvement in the DRC.

Days after independence, the Congolese army mutinied against its Belgian commanders. Many Belgians and other Europeans fled the country and Belgium intervened. The mineral rich Katanga province seceded on July 14. The United nations ordered Belgian troops to withdraw on September 5, President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba mutually dismissed each other on September 14th.

Then Colonel Joseph Mobutu organized a coup d'etat and the army took power alongside a caretaker government after five years of unrest. Then General Mobutu orchestrated another coup and declared himself dictator of the republic, which he renamed Zaire. He also renamed himself Mobutu Seseko as he initiated his brutal reign of 32 years.

Regional turmoil in the 1990s precipitated two conflicts known as the first and Second Congo Wars. In 1994, after the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenile Javier Imana was shot down, extremist Rwandan ethnic Hutus committed genocide against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The hundred day genocide that killed nearly 1 million Rwandans ended when the Tutsi led Rwandan Patriotic Front captured Kigali, winning the civil war that started in 1990.

Millions of Hutu refugees, including some extremists fled to Zaire. Under President Paul Kagame, Rwanda and a coalition of African states with security concerns about Mobutu invaded Zaire in 1996. Mobutu fled Kinshasa in 1997 and Kagame backed opposition leader Laurent Kabila became president. Kabila renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo and in 1998 demanded that previously welcomed Rwandan and Ugandan forces leave the drc.

Rwanda, joined by Uganda and Burundi then entered into conflict with the DRC a second time while Angola, Namibia, Sudan, Chad and Zimbabwe supported the DRC. The conflict, known as the Second Congo War or Africa's World War, resulted in over 3 million deaths from 1998 to 2003. In 2006, Joseph Kabila, who came to power when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001, won the country's first free election since independence.

However, his 2011 re election was disputed and youth led demonstrators called for him to relinquish power. In 2015 Kabila's government violently suppressed the protesters as he sought an unconstitutional third term, but he stepped down in 2016. Opposition candidate Felix Trisichetti became president in 2019 following disputed presidential elections and was re-elected in 2023.

The United States established diplomatic relations with the DRC in 1960. The DRC is the largest country in sub Saharan Africa holding an estimated $25 trillion in mineral reserves including cobalt and copper. The country has vast opportunities but faces intertwined problems of corruption, institutional weakness, humanitarian crises, widespread food insecurity and armed rebel violence.

Especially in its mineral rich eastern regions and the Great Lakes region where the M23 armed rebel group is expanding territory under its control and the so called Allied Democratic Forces are continuing attacks against civilians. Congo has the second largest population of displaced persons after Sudan and its civilian population is bearing the brunt of war, including death, displacement, sexual violence, health problems and malnutrition in displacement camps.

We welcome Mr Munga to discuss his films depicting life in the DRC. Central African Regional challenges and opportunities for unleashing the potential of this resource rich country in service of the long suffering population.

>> H.R. McMaster: Djo Munga, welcome, Mbote It's great to have you here. And I know you're gonna help us learn a lot about the DRC, but first I wanna ask you about how you were drawn to the arts as a way to illuminate the human condition.

And how you think the arts terms of film, and drama, and literature can help us understand some of the complex challenges we're facing, you know, from a, from a political, and economic, and a social perspective. Welcome.

>> Djo Munga: Thank you. Thank you for having me and also for my people from Kinshasa, Congo.

I will tell you, Mbote too, you know, meet someone. And so it's great to be here. Thank you, really, for the opportunity. So, as a filmmaker, as an artist, why is it so important to make movies? And especially the format of cinema is the art where you have the stories of people.

You have the big narrative, but you also have the individual. You have the little guy, and you have the bigger guy. And over, let's say, one hour and 30 minutes, you can give someone a perspective of the soul. Because that's what the audience gets. They watch a movie, action, love, and it's gone.

But the reason why a movie will stay for 30 years, you know, because it speaks straight to the memory. It speaks to that place where our childhood, where our dreams, you know, where the references of. I would say, in African terms, our ancestors or the grand grandparent. That's the mythology, right?

The film, what I really like about the film, I mean, I like reading, I like all kind of things, writing and everything. Theater is great, but the difference is that cinema is really that format where anybody in the world, you know, can have $5, $10, they go, watch a movie, two hours, it's great, and they're happy.

Theater is more expensive. Opera, all this other guy book you need to be able to read, right? All these other things. And so cinema doesn't have that. So when it comes to Congo, when it comes to my really formative years, I had. I mean, the reason why you become filmmakers is very individual.

You know, it's really linked to your personal history. And it's linked to all the things that happens to you. What I think young filmmakers, especially for their first film, when I have my international breakthrough, right? I have my first feature film doing well. And then I open in New York, I'm here at the Angelica.

You do the mythical cinema, and same here. And that's the movie I made with my guys in Kinshasa, right?

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: Who come from Congo, right? We made all this journey to Congo. That's when I thought about my mother. Because my mother born in 42 in Congo under colonialism.

And they could only study until the age of 14, 15 for a woman. So after independence, when she had the sixth child, which was me, she went back to school. And so she educated herself. So when I was kid, I watched a lot of movies because, well, I arrived in Europe, I was nine, because in those years, you sent someone to Europe to study.

>> H.R. McMaster: Sure.

>> Djo Munga: And so I had a mother. When I came back from the boarding school on the weekend, she sent me to cinema. I watched a lot of movies because, well, I have nothing else to do in Europe of those years and especially where study was not an open place.

So you went to boarding school, you went back home, but home we were Congolese, right? So you go out to the cinema. So I watched a lot of movies.

>> H.R. McMaster: Correct.

>> Djo Munga: And so I am a standard Congolese born into middle class families in the 70s. And then you had some means, but they saw the system wasn't working.

So you were sent to school in Europe, to boarding school. In the middle age, you're gonna send, you become a man, and you come back. So that's kind of like how it started. So from that classic, let's say system education. You remember 1985, when people talk about the IMF, you know, the drastic measures that have killed the south of the world.

It means that people, middle class who have some regular money, suddenly they became broke. So that's what happened to me, to friends, people of our generation is that suddenly, that measure that, we're gonna fix Africa. Which basically says, you're gonna cut the public services, you're gonna cut all these other things.

Teachers have no money anymore. There is no credit, there is no, let's say that Social Security that allows the society to work. So we changed social classes. So I came from a Congolese standard studying economy because there was only economy, law, and doctors. That was the vision of those years.

And I went back to my inner feeling, the inner story. And so I studied fine arts for five years. And then after that I had a second crisis because that's the thing about film, you have a personal calling. When I was in, I didn't see myself in the future when I studied art.

And that's when someone told me, whispered to me, you should go to a film school.

>> H.R. McMaster: Wow, it's a tremendous story. And you know, I think what you do in film too is you, you do get, you give people agency because, you know, when you look at broad problems, it's statistical, you don't understand the human dimension.

And then, then you don't understand people's ability to affect their, their future,, and, and your, your films depict the DRC as a really complex place and illuminate it in, I think, a brilliant way. And so what I'd like to do is ask you to share your just overall assessment of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Congo, which you depicted brilliantly in your 2010 crime thriller, Viva Riva.

But before we talk about the bad, the ugly, first, let's start with the positive. Can you help us understand the potential of the Congo? And I'm thinking in particular, the youth, its rich resources, especially in the minerals and so forth. But what are the opportunities and possibilities, do you think, for growth and education?

The country's got 110 million people, primarily very young people.

>> Djo Munga: Yes, absolutely, resilience, resilience. If there's one word about the Congo, resilience and wealth. So our positive story is that our history was ugly. We were that country which we had the worst colonizer with a friend of mine.

>> H.R. McMaster: Leopold II, yeah.

>> Djo Munga: Leopold II from Belgium, who was a frustrated person who didn't have an empire. He saw the British have a big empire. The French had one, the Portuguese. And he wanted something for himself. It was ugly. He was an ugly person. So he organized the looting.

So over 100 years, because the problem of Congo when he talks about geopolitics is that once you start an administration in a certain way, it takes a lot of time to change it. The philosophy of looting that Leopold implemented, that administration that is harming the country, well, it has continued after independence with Mobutu.

And it took another war in the 98, 2003 to stop. So now the Congo is at a place where they start to find themselves. That's where resilience comes in. That's where all these young people come. I talk about my feature films, right? We're talking about $2 million movies made in Congo.

But, you know, when I started my company seven years before, I had $20. So these are the guys, you know, the Congolese, the assistant, the guy, the taxi driver. All these guys made it possible. When I discuss with people, big investors say, yeah, your country is bad. It's out of darkness.

It is true. Okay, we had an ugly past, but our future is still there. We have a lot of young people. When we talk about education, is that the first thing I've done is I've put money into education. I put money into the belief of people. You lose at the beginning, for sure, but then after people are stabilized, education, what it does, it stabilizes people.

It starts to give them when they're young enough, right? After a certain age, it's too late. But when they're young enough, when you stabilize people, it gives them the belief to create a system of thinking where, I can make it. Yeah, that's the only thing and the proof of my movie.

Because when I was writing my first feature film, my worried was, okay, I'm gonna make a film where I'm sure that the Congolese get it, the Africans get it, not these intellectual theorists and all. I read a lot of philosophers. I watch these very special movies that nobody want.

That is me as an audience, but as a worker, I had the feeling that the Congolese, the African need to understand first. Actually, I use a genre film because it's crime, but it's also money. It's also capitalism and socialism, you know, things that don't work for us. We have been falling between the two and being enemy of everybody in the past, you know, and for me it was to show how, how ultra capitalism doesn't work.

Too much money, but too much aggression, too much everything driven by the profit, it doesn't work. The balance, the human balance is destructive. I made the movie in that sense and I was surprised that it actually got the international success. What I understood when I had the buzz at Toronto Film Festival, because you go there with your first film, you, you're just happy to be there.

Then, we country like, this is American. But in four days we sold in so many countries. And actually I understood that the genre film allowed people to understand us.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yes.

>> Djo Munga: And the Congolese, they also understood, the rest of the world is watching us. That's that dynamic.

That's where the business is. That's where the potential for the minerals is huge, is about education, is about the people. They are hardworking people. They do incredible things. They have hyper resilience, but they don't have the benefit of a system. They don't have the benefits to have their energy being monetized.

I'm going to give you a practical example. I'm a filmmaker. I'm a producer too. So when I was working in Kinshasa, one of the most hard working people were taxi drivers. They work countless hours. Kinshasa is an impossible city. And you know how much they earn? You know, for people doing like 14 hours, 16 hours a day, they earn like $100 a month.

>> H.R. McMaster: Wow.

>> Djo Munga: I said, are you serious? Yeah, this is like $100 because they have to pay the fuel here, they have to pay the policeman, the corruption. But then the owner of the car is like a bit like a slave owner a little bit. And so they would.

I said to those guys, if you produce, your logistic is the strongest part, the car, the people working. I say to those guys, look, if I hire you, okay, and I pay you $400 a month, will you work for me? Say 400 doing what? Say, you know in the morning you have to start early, you drive the actors, you pick them up, you bring them on set.

And after that you go buy a few things and you stay there and you wait until they finish and you go back, you bring them back. Four hundred, we're good, we're taking them. You see, those guys were really the key to my success because I could lower the cost of production.

Not going to earth, not bringing 50 Europeans like I've seen some other colleague, 100, actually. Then actually the great stories, like those guys, they bought their houses.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, right.

>> Djo Munga: They called the house at the Viva Riva houses.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: Because actually they see, we have an opportunity for four months.

That makes enough to buy a house or to buy another car and to become businessman themselves. That is my favorite story. The potential is there. People are there. The education has not been working until now. But you invest now, give people a bit of time, you stabilize them, they're going to deliver.

This works for the taxi driver. It will work for the mines as well.

>> H.R. McMaster: It gives people back agency and gives them back hope. Of course, there is so much potential. I mean, you mentioned how just a little investment sparks a business opportunity, allows a person to buy a home.

The U.S. State Department has called the Congo the largest country in sub–Saharan Africa, obviously home to an estimated $25 trillion in mineral reserves. The Congo Basin, rainforests and peatlands that serve as the world's. They call it the world's second lung. So tremendous natural resources. But your films demonstrate that mineral wealth has turned out to be as much of a curse.

As a blessing, maybe even more due to corruption, weak institutions, and the degree that avarice drives violence. I think since 1885, every conflict in the Congo has been driven by some extent by conflict over access to minerals. And in Viva Riva, your character Nora, she says, in this country, you think money is everything.

Money is like poison. In the end, it always kills you. So can you talk about how you use the film to understand the root causes of conflict in the drc? How you see the root causes of conflict today?

>> Djo Munga: Look, I agree the $25 trillion, all these great etc.

The U.S. State Department, they are right, but where is the program? You see, that's the problem. Viva Riva is really about the effect. It's not a movie about where it comes from, the ugly part. The problem with DRC and all its potential is that the relationship with America has not been at the best.

That is the main problem. Let's start with Belgium, he got that Congo. He had that big slice. First there was the rubber. He could deliver a lot of rubber for the Western industry. So he made a lot of money. Millions of people died, you know, and the violence, the brutality, this was terrible.

And then came the second World War. Belgium provided uranium for the bomb. The mine in Chicolombwe came from the Congo. You had the colonizer who could talk to the Americans. Yeah, we can provide you with uranium. They did okay. So, which made the Belgium the kind of like the super ally.

But the problem is they don't look at what the super ally does. At the same time, they can provide uranium, they can provide all type of services, but themselves, their behavior was terrible. What happened is that you have Patrice Lumumba, who is not seen as a hero on this side of the world for many misunderstanding, in 1957, when he goes to Ghana, and he sees the other Africans.

They came from England, from the French, they were educated, they were people of manners. They had studied, they went to university. He was shocked because the Congo was like a prison, you know, the colony was like a prison and continued a little bit after. A guy like Lumumba, who had a really short period, I don't think he thought about left or right because it didn't exist and still do not actually, most income.

Then you have a tragedy is that he wins the election, he's elected, but Lackey doesn't control the political landscape. He didn't know.

>> H.R. McMaster: The system is entrenched, very basically.

>> Djo Munga: The Cold war has started. The system were entrenched, but actually nobody knew. He said things from his heart that make them sense.

Then he was killed. And then we had the dictatorship, which was basically you. You take someone violent, very violent, he's sure to be, to provide the access, and with Belgium, and it's all that's it. And so all the potential that could have been built. 50 years, 70 years you talk about the institution, but it's also the school, it's also the people, it's also the security, it's also to let people create.

The business didn't happen. That's the trillion dollars. Yes, we want the business to grow. Yes, everybody wants to make money. Yes, but then, you know, people want to feel. Safe.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: You don't want to say something, the American don't like it, and there's some assassin that comes to you, you see.

That's the kind of that relationship, I hope it will change, and it is complicated because people make it complicated. Could be simpler we don't kill anybody. We play by the rules. Okay. And the rules are there people who come.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, right. And the sad part, I think, is in authoritarian regime like emerged in the DRC, of course, what they prioritize is staying in power.

>> Djo Munga: Of course.

>> H.R. McMaster: And the way they do that is not by making people's lives better, it's by controlling their life choices, right? Telling the people stories that only they can save them. They, they rob people of kind of their, their agency to build a better life and they need the cash flow, right?

They need the security forces and they, and then they become almost like a new form of oppression, a post colonial form of oppression that now DRC is struggling with. Kind of even a new form now with other actors involved.

>> Djo Munga: The first time we talked, we talked about, post-colonialism, what is the corruption, what's the relationship?

But that's that, the postcolonialism is basically some guys who are in power because they have access. Well, once you start with the first cross, let's say you steal power, you steal someone's wife, you threaten somebody else. Let's say your nightmare starts because you're always afraid of the next guy.

You're always afraid that something may happen. So you attack other people, you kill other people. But then actually, I think those guys, once they're in power, they don't know when they cross the line. There is a day where it's just too far. So I'd rather kill those guys.

I'd rather eliminate them. So you see, that's the kind of, that's that place where the corruption and this authoritarian regime and the sense of what they perceive as security, it's terrible. So the world of the dictatorship, the Zaire, was a world of psychopath.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, sure, yeah.

>> Djo Munga: I mean, when you were afraid of even people, member of your family, you were really scared because you didn't know who you were talking to.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, right, they use fear. They fear themselves, they're fearful of themselves.

>> Djo Munga: They fear themselves.

>> H.R. McMaster: And they use fear as a mechanism of control.

>> Djo Munga: Exactly.

>> H.R. McMaster: And it's this combination of fear and and avarice. Of course, Congo has internal issues to cope with in terms of governance and corruption and rule of law and so forth.

But also, it's in a difficult place right? I mean, DRC borders, nine different countries, right?

>> Djo Munga: Yes, yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: And there are many regional dynamics that are perpetuating violence. I'm thinking about the war in the East. Can you maybe share with our viewers your assessment of some of those regional dynamics and how they're affecting people in the DRC, which has a massive internally displaced population as a result of the violence in the Great Lakes region, for example.

>> Djo Munga: Well, look, the problem is that the nine borders are an opportunity. You could do great business with everybody. You have a great language, that's great wealth. But then the problem is that that wealth is not used properly. And in a sense, that well, the war in the east, we have a neighbor, Rwanda, who has a powerful army because sometimes history create people where he was in refugee camp himself.

That group that went to fight in Uganda, since they were kids, we're talking about people took arms at 12, 13. And then after there was the genocide and they took power in Kigali. And they were young, there were many of them. They had that mentality of being super military.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, in fact, we did a battlegrounds conversation with President Kigali, which you're going to give an opposing view to, I'm sure.

>> Djo Munga: Yes, but no, no, no, I'm not giving opposing view. I'm giving, let's say I'm a filmmaker, right.

>> H.R. McMaster: A different view, a different perspective.

>> Djo Munga: A general narrative, because that's the thing is that first they start, we're going to attack the refugee camp in Goma because the Hutu refugees were there.

They were threatened for an attack. But then you attack and then says, that army is not there anymore. And the population says, you come to free us? Then they walk to Kinshasa, they take power. But that's the thing. That's the moment when you discover wealth and then you have people, you have a movement.

Who do you control?

>> H.R. McMaster: That's right, and it becomes a wartime economy, right, because people are benefiting from the perpetuation of violence.

>> Djo Munga: Exactly, and then comes this thing, well, at some point, say, we have too many problems, guys, thank you. We're gonna start rebuilding. They go, and they don't go, say, well, we're gonna take that cake.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: That's the beginning of your war. And then you say, they come back and we're going to organize rebellion. We put your slogans as, we're going to defend the Tutsi. Okay, well, okay, that's the slogan. And that's the thing, is that you have a group of heros get transformed into a gang, let's say, and it becomes violent and becomes looting.

Where the international market comes in, okay, you have the cell phone, okay, around the 2000, and then you have Colton, you know, in Congo, a lot of them. Well, and then the market says, you know, bring us the goods. We're gonna pay you. But you see, that's how you fuel the war, say, I'm gonna send a few thousand.

You organize a rebellion, you attack the mines, you control the road, you start to export, you send it to Asia, Thailand, transforming. And it enters in Canada, okay, and it's clean. That is the war in the east, one part of it, all right? And so you enter a cycle of violence where there is no control.

But repeat history. And the problem of DRC now and the problem of wealth and the problem of money is that we have to stop repeating history, that's the thing. The only thing is you have to stop repeating history. Even today, it has went too far. All that region could have become California with the same player, you know, with the same guys.

You organize this, you do that. It could have become California, and then it became that place. You have millions of displaced people, the rape victims, okay, all these women raped. It started with the rebels. It started with the military. It started with guys attacking a city in Bukavu and you say, we're gonna spread terror so people fear us.

What you're going to do, you have your rebels, so to speak. They enter houses, they beat up the father, the son, the girls on one side, they put a father on the ground, they put a mattress on him, and then they're gonna rape the daughters on his back.

You see, that's the kind of, you start, we're gonna spread terror. And then they don't stop there, they start stabbing women. And kind of like what it does happen, he says, they're gonna fear us now. But then you don't control it anymore, right?

>> H.R. McMaster: And you lose you debase people.

They lose their humanity, I mean, those who are the criminals, these horrible criminals and terrorists, and then they systematically dehumanize the youth, right? In terms of kind of industrial sized child abuse and create another generation of people who have lost their humanity. And then, of course, the victims are traumatized.

I want to ask you about this, because one of your films is extremely powerful on collective trauma and mental health. And this is I'm talking about State of Mind, your film, State of Mind. And you reflect on the millions of people. Right who've been killed and in the last quarter of a century right?

And one of your interviewees said the history of our country is like stitching that can easily unravel through successive violence. And could you share your thoughts about how to. Maybe begin to overcome this trauma, to begin to maybe restitch.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: The stitching. How do you see a path forward out of this kind of cycle, violence and trauma.

>> Djo Munga: Look, I mean, about this thing, if you start to look at it, I'm gonna fix it all, you'll be overwhelmed. And in these things, I look at it from the perspective of a filmmaker, saying, okay, I'm gonna look at Truman, I'm gonna make that movie. I'm gonna make that documentary.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: First you start by people talking, because people were traumatized. They first need to have their story out. The story I talked about, the father the daughter was raped. It's one of the first story I recorded in 2002 and three, you know, the rape phenomenon. I mean, you have been a general yourself, right?

No, I fought the same kinds of people, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS and so forth. But you know when someone's traumatized, start to tell their story because it was in the dark. The energy, the vulnerability, I mean, it's terrible. You feel the pain. And so this is the pain.

And then starting to stitch is first up, to have the story out. That's the first thing, is that once people start to tell their stories, we start to record it, we start to recognize that you have been hurt.

>> H.R. McMaster: True.

>> Djo Munga: Okay, we recognize that we have been hurt, and we start to work.

That is the only way. And when I talk about education, it's not about, we're gonna have teachers, and then they go to school. There's that part as well. But you also need to have healers. You also need to bring all the psychiatrists, all the people who put narrative into perspective.

Because my personal view about the Congo, it's true, but we had two decades of horror, and we had 100 years of colonization. But it's okay. It's just one small thing in a long, long history. Because out of that trauma will come, as well, a lot of strength, will come new ideas.

I mean, I'm not negative about the Congo. Absolutely not. Because from 2001, I started working there in 99. The worst I've seen was 2001, 2003, the war and the rape system, and the rebellion and all these other things. That was the worst. 15 years after, okay, 15 years after, I was able to have a paper from Kinshasa, I was traveling with a crew of two Westerners in the car.

From that paper, I could take a car from Goma, go to the north, and go east again to Kisangani. 1600 kilometers where you could show paper to soldiers, they look at it, okay, you can go. That was the beginning of the state. And that's when you say, because 15 years before they will come back and I'll be afraid, I won't even take the car.

But you can have that and you have the Chinese roads as well. It's complicated, but it's happening. But you also have all these businesses in the west, next to the harbor. It is growing. So it's chaotic.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, okay.

>> Djo Munga: It's chaotic, and so your trauma of fixing the trauma is coming to bring a little help here and there, right?

>> H.R. McMaster: And the words you said at the beginning was resilience, right?

>> Djo Munga: Resilience.

>> H.R. McMaster: And you show in your film the resilience of individuals.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: I mean, an aspect of this is that it's fascinating how, not fascinating, it's concerning. And an element of post traumatic incidents like these and crimes is that the victims blame themselves, right?

And they become.

>> Djo Munga: So, exactly.

>> H.R. McMaster: You have to make it clear it's not your fault, and you can overcome.

>> Djo Munga: So the self harming.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: Okay, the other word for corruption, okay? For the moment, the Congolese population, institution, even the big guys who are in charge, they are self harming.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: That's the thing. Okay, you steal money, right? Okay, you have it at home, three of your guys. But you know these guys, if he has an attack, because the dream is that, I'm gonna fly to South Africa to go to the hospital. I'm gonna go to Europe, yeah.

But he won't even reach the airport, he will die there. So people are self harming for the moment, collectively and also individually. And so the healing process, is also the healing of the administration. You say, we have to build institutions. Yes, yes, yes, but what is the meaning of institution?

Because if you say institution, the EU assigned in February, okay, a treaty with Rwanda, where Rwanda will provide the.

>> H.R. McMaster: For the refugees, for the-

>> Djo Munga: No, no, the minerals.

>> H.R. McMaster: The minerals, okay.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah, the minerals. So which means that you legitimize the 20 years of hurt, that hurt.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, okay. And the minerals are not in Rwanda?

>> Djo Munga: No, there are no minerals, not on that scale. Yeah, I mean, Amnesty International, they have the first report of plundering of Congo in 2003. An institution as well. It says, these guys, they are plundered, they are killing, they are violent, they do that, okay?

20 years after, we signed a treaty so they can, you see the enablers? The question of the enablers is also at that level. So we need to find a new word. We say, institutions, yeah, but these guys, they hurt me. No, no, no, no, no, you need to stop self-harming.

You're gonna create a system where collectively you are around this table where you share the wealth with everybody and you're gonna be wealthy.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: That is what is missing for the moment.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, this is a really important point. I think one of the projects we're working on here is how to use finance, how to use commercial relationships to promote freedom and the rights of people rather than to reinforce systems that are oppressive.

And I love your thoughts on that, but also your thoughts on what is effective aid, and what is, what critic is called dead aid, or aid that doesn't help at all. And I'm thinking in particular, and something that I think Americans are justifiably proud about is the PEPFAR program.

Which is the President's emergency plan for AIDS relief, which has now morphed into a much broader health assistance program.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: It's gone after a range of diseases. AIDS, obviously, or HIV, tuberculosis, recently mpox, right?

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: So can you maybe comment on what you've seen that's effective, and what's ineffective from an aid perspective, but also from a financial investment or commercial perspective. What harms and what helps?

>> Djo Munga: Poor HR. You are sensitive with the artist. I love those guys.

>> Djo Munga: But at the same time, I'm a military, my friend. I'm not a friend. You're not a friend. Does it work? No, it doesn't work. Does it work? That's the question,

>> H.R. McMaster: No, no, I think some.

>> Djo Munga: The money works, all right? We agree about, yeah, exactly.

>> H.R. McMaster: No, here's also a great book called, called Aid for Elites by Mark Moyar, who's a colleague here. So I mean, I'm skeptical about it. I think a lot of it's wasted.

I think it doesn't focus on objectives and evaluate itself on objectives. So I, I don't know. I was using PEPFAR as a positive.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah, look.

>> H.R. McMaster: But there's a balance.

>> Djo Munga: Let's be clear. Money coming into a country, it is good, all right? Now, at some point, you talk about efficiency.

Efficiency is the story of the taxi driver I told you about.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: Okay, you work hard. You have proved yourself 100 times. You don't have to prove to me anything.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: I give you money.

>> H.R. McMaster: That's like microfinance?

>> Djo Munga: Yeah, yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: I give you money, okay?

You work, and I'm gonna have more. He doesn't trust me. He's like, you're gonna have more.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: And then he works, he makes more money, and he takes the next job. Okay, that works. Because that money goes to him, to his wife, to the kids, to the school, everything.

That one works, all right? And then you do that with bigger skill money, people, that will work. So the problem with aids, all right, the money is good, but I mean, these NGOs are nice, some are.

>> H.R. McMaster: I agree with you, hey, listen, I've seen, I was in Afghanistan. 

>> Djo Munga: Yes, yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: Where aid flows.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, far exceeded the absorptive capacity of that economy.

>> Djo Munga: Okay, yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: A lot of it went through these so called implementation partners, right?

>> Djo Munga: Okay.

>> H.R. McMaster: And their metric was, this is really, they called it the burn rate of aid.

Well, I mean, what do you think is gonna happen? It's gonna reinforce these criminalized networks and so forth. So you're, what you're saying is, and I want your thoughts on this to be effective, right? It has to affect the lives of the people whose lives are trying to, trying to improve, not go to the elites, not just flow into the economy in a way that maybe encourages organized crime.

>> Djo Munga: There are two things, there are two components that are missing into whatever aid. You cannot take away someone's dignity. And thinking that he's gonna perform after, it's impossible. It is impossible. So the taxi driver, he comes with his broken car. I'm not saying, now I'm gonna put you into a nice great car. 

You got that, no, no, no. That big money. It's for what you have. He builds his dignity. And to be sure that he doesn't forget, he buys himself a house.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: So you see the aide and the NGO, the other guy, they have created kind of like a super class, they want to mimic the elite.

I'm not against the elite. A guy who works hard for years, for generation, you become an intellectual elite or become an intellectual in the bank system.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yes.

>> Djo Munga: He has worked, that is one of the things. And then the second thing is that, you know, what we admire about America, okay, is that of course we look a lot at African Americans, right?

They had a terrible history, ugly stuff. But at the same time, we still think that African Americans are doing good, they are progressing because they are next to the best Westerners in terms of Caucasian. The American system is complex. It's not perfect. There are things that don't work.

But you cannot say that people do not thrive. It's not perfect. But if you have talents in Miami, and I see it here, and I say, I'm going to send you money, you do this, he will do it and we sell it in New York. He makes profit, money goes back to him.

Plus the system that you don't have, what you have is this click. Not elite. They're gonna take, I'm gonna have my black guy or Afghan guy. The drug dealer mentality. There is a nice essay by a British intellectual. He talks about the drug dealer's mentality.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: So instead of hiring the black guy who works hard, they're gonna hire the black guy who brings them drugs.

He's my guy, he's my buddies.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: So by doing that, the hard working guys who works up at 4 in the morning, go for 16 hours of work at some point, he's demoralized, wake up at 10, he start drinking at 1.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: That is the problem of that.

It's not the money, you know, send the money, but the selection. But also these, because. Yeah, I agree, and the guy, the white supremacist. And the American, okay, let's talk about the European, the soft white supremacist. Because there are different ways to be a white superior guys.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: The way you talk French, how you lower people, the way you want to be British and drinking your tea in a certain way and talking to people, talking down.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: All these other guys, I mean, HR, you have been in the military. Who's gonna go and fight to die for a country? Someone with pride and heart.

>> H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

>> Djo Munga: Because he believes, I mean, if you have to go and fight for those guys, you wanna die here.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, absolutely, yeah, there's a saying like, you don't fight for what's in front of you fight for what's behind you.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right?

>> Djo Munga: Exactly.

>> H.R. McMaster: And yeah, and I'll tell you, one of your films, I mean, I think it's sort of, it seems like the Great Gatsby to me, man, cuz nobody comes out of it well, right? And it's because of the hours. I'm talking about like the smuggled fuel scene, you know, and, and how, you know, this generates this interaction between characters in the film.

That is based on just as you're saying, instead of they lost, they lost. They did lose their pride, right? I mean, they lost their sense of pride.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: And they got mired in the criminality. Can you maybe talk about that in that film in contrast to what you're talking about with the taxi driver who now, based on, on your hiring of him, is building a better life.

>> Djo Munga: Look, I'm talking about people of my generation.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Djo Munga: Those I've seen people before and those I can see. Laterally, he says, well, if you survive, you make it, you're gonna be good. But many of them, they may look nice, right? You can see the guys built great house, my brother, for example, really nice guy, really, a moderate, conservative person.

We were together in Belgium and we made it, and went back to Congo. He has a big house, a beautiful house. But at the same time, we can't even discuss about it. But I can feel that it's consumed inside, you see, even if you have all these material things, I can see that.

Well, all, me included, and all guys of our generation, there is a lot of drinking to do. Yes. There is a lot of alcohol.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: There is a lot of things that will be. At the end of the day, we reduce our lives, and same for me, when I go to Congo, I go all these other things. Why, in the countryside is to be able to tell the story. Because I have the dream that, you know, one day I'll be able to say, I'll get enough data, I write one narrative, maybe less, one movie, and that's it. But you see, that's this idea that as long as the system is as it is, we won't live long, we won't survive.

But what we start to have with the taxi driver is that it's also that idea that you're gonna leave the person who come behind you after you will do better. That you see as well. I admire the guys, my brothers, some of their friends, they owe the money, they send their children to Canada, to the US to better their life.

So that's this thing. Well, I'm not sure it will work. I'm not saying it will work, but that is where we are now, because there is no other strategy, there is no other possibility.

>> H.R. McMaster: And what you're talking about has to, you know, it has to come from within, right? But also they have to be reinforced, right, with.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: What's happening outside, so that there are positive rather than the negative influences. And I'd like you just to talk about, like, the outside influences on the DRC today. What I'm thinking about in particular is, are those that contribute to corruption, state weakness, right? We see this broadly in Africa. I mean, look what the Vaga group has done to the Maghreb, like five.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: Five coups in a row and so forth. But in Congo, you already mentioned the Chinese investment a little bit. But what we're seeing, obviously, are a lot of Russian and Chinese private military companies that are now intertwined with local governments.

And China is kind of displaced. Belgium in the old days, in the exploitation of Congress resources. And I'm thinking of, I don't know if you know, Siddharth Karr's book Cobalt Red. It's about how the blood of the Congo powers our lives. It's about how critical Congo is. You mentioned rubber, then uranium, then all these other minerals, Cobalt now. And others.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: But he describes in this book like Horrific Working Conditions of Miners. He says in his book, across 21 years of research into slavery and child labor, I have never seen more extreme predation for profit than I've witnessed at the bottom of the global cobalt supply chains.

And so could you comment on that? And then maybe how President. Physically. How is, how is this government and how are the people coping with this latest challenge? I think it's a challenge to sovereignty, really. Isn't it? I mean, from now China and Russia, who have displaced a lot of the US investment that was in.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah, we're gonna get to that. Well, first to mention the book that you. You mentioned. I don't read these books. When I read this.

>> H.R. McMaster: It's too depressing.

>> Djo Munga: No, it's too bad. It's too big.

>> H.R. McMaster: Because they don't set up the granular.

>> Djo Munga: They don't serve the granular.

But on the soul level, why would you talk about that without talking about the history? And also the narrow view they give about China. It's complicated place. It's complicated. Look, the Chinese are who they are. But at some point, there is zero money. There is nothing. And the thing is that this type of narrative, they don't talk about why there is no money.

Why in 97, 98, nobody says, we're going to talk. We won't deal with you anymore. We're gonna punish you. That, you talk about the white supremacists earlier, but that also mentality that has not been digested. We're gonna punish you, little black guy. You punish the guy and someone who's desperate will do anything.

If you have a player who has a history to back that up, who has the engineers to back that up, he's gonna say, you know what? We could have whatever billion dollars, give them five, and they're going to take it. And they will. But out of these 5 billion, you have a bit of a road, you have a bit of infrastructure.

You have the minimum, where you see, for example, the woman in the market. As a filmmaker, we film all day and we arrive often at night, 11pm or 1pm but you see the woman in the market, she's still there. But when in, let's say, European time, she was selling a candle, because that's where you go, we're going to buy a candle so we can sleep at the mission.

At least we have a candle. She sell you a small Chinese lamp. I'm not talking about Kinshasa. I'm talking about deep, deep inside. She sells you a little Chinese lamp. It's funny, there is no candle anymore. But you know, you buy. Don't you want to buy two or three because they don't live longer.

That's what Chinese do. They're gonna sell you something that will die quickly. I say, well, I'll buy you three, I'll buy you ten. The rest, all of them, you see. But she's making a profit. What I see about the Chinese, when we were really deep, where hell was just there, that they were there.

Look, you see, that's the thing, is that someone who comes in this darkest time, you're gonna forgive him so many things.

>> H.R. McMaster: It's like a fire sale is what they've done. I mean, that's what they've done around the world. It's like. You're right. I mean, what's the alternative?

>> Djo Munga: There's not an alternative. Yeah, from that part there was this, we don't die today. You live to fight another day. That's the kind of narrative. And also there's this story. The Chinese are the new colonizer. No, the Chinese are of the Belgium. Nobody can be as evil as the Belgian.

It's impossible standard. What you have is that you have a Chinese. Well, you are in the bus one day, they pick up the phone, they speak Lingala. My God, they do. But the European have been there for 30 years, for 40 years, they can't even speak. You see, these are the things that happen at the smaller level.

And of course at the higher level you have players you can't control. Of course you have all the bad things that do happen and everything at the moment. The little guy, the nine years old boy who is in the mine. The artisanal, what they call the artisanal. Artisanal 40 million.

They're digging all these.

>> H.R. McMaster: Their homes a lot of times.

>> Djo Munga: Yes, exactly. You won't, that guy won't put him in school. It's too late. But what you can do, you can increase the wages. Okay, complaining, there's institution. Yeah. Okay that was the past. Today he's a worker, okay?

We look at the history of all these industrial countries. They have the 12-year-old, a kid, in the mining, everything people die. He brings money to his mother., that's what they do. The link to the mother I was talking to you about, it is real. That's maybe the only thing that is real in terms of, like, if you have so much chaos.

So that is real. That's day one, okay. You make $9 a day, okay? And you, you eat for $3 and you give and you drink for the rest, okay. We're gonna make it $30 a day. We're gonna legitimize the business. You say you are the businessman. Really, but if you make enough money, you can go back to school at 25.

So starting from Utopia doesn't help anybody. Complaining and crying doesn't help anybody because the people on the ground, they don't care. You, you have money, you have power, show it okay? Come build. You complain about, do like them. Do you know the mine? What's the name again?

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, yeah, yes.

This is the big one. The big one. Right.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah, it was an American mine. It was an American mine, and they sold it to the Chinese.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, no, that's right. I agree with you. I, I can't tell you how many. Back when I was a national security advisor, so many African leaders would say, hey the Chinese are affecting our sovereignty.

We're not getting the full benefits. Because they would complain about kind of Chinese banks, China, you're making Chinese loans, hiring Chinese companies and Chinese workers, and then the wages going back and crumbling infrastructure, whatever it was. But they would say, hey, this is a problem that we're dealing with, but we don't have an alternative.

You're not giving us an alternative. So I think we did actually retreat from investment that could have been more beneficial in Congo and other places as well, for a number of reasons. And of course, the Chinese, the vanguard for the Chinese is a, is a bank official with duffel bags full of cash for anybody who will take it for the concession up front, so.

>> Djo Munga: Yes, and also, beside the money problem, okay, on the human level, there is something that impresses me about the Chinese. They send their best people. All right, Ur institute, fantastic, all that. I build a film school as well, but if I want to hire your top guys to say, can you come work nine months in Congo?

I have this, I mean, that's the thing.

>> H.R. McMaster: No, and they're state companies too.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: They can just tell them to go.

>> Djo Munga: Hey, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the problem is also the human level. I run a school, right? And so I need to bring teachers, you know, from western world.

Because, well, that's what it is the fantasy of the teachers in Congo, they have these Africans. No, you can't be a teacher if you didn't train properly, if you didn't have certain things, impossible. But to hire people, how much you have to beg them and how much it cost and the kind of like you see.

And also we have, we're talking about dignity after. Okay, but who is someone who takes away someone else. Dignity is someone who has no good feeling. Because if you like your job, when I leave, I want you to be big, that's what the dignity of work. You have also poor manpower coming from western country.

And they already start very low. And they come there and drinking the women with a lot of money and then finally, it's them, you see. See, it's a different type of criminality. The stories I got from the Chinese, right? You have the guy says, what are you doing there?

Well, he had a life and then he was in the local Oxford in his finishes. And then the father says, no, you go back there. He said, really? Yeah. And so you have your top guy, they send him into the forest, right? And so it's okay. So you see that's intellectually the movement to send your competent people.

They go, they work, they bring the competence. So you ask them to do other things as well. That is okay, that is part of you. But that's also that, you see? That is where you say, all right, you are a good player, the smart player there. So the mind of was American, why they sold it to the Chinese?

And now all the cobalt, we need to have access to cobalt. And now the Americans are pressing hard to say, we need a cobalt now. And I suspect that the European Union having this memorandum with Kigali about the mining. That is to find once again an agent who gonna get the goods that you need, whatever what he does, and he delivers them to them. You see, that's the kind of like there needs to be a shift in paradigm. I'm not the first one to say it. I'm not the only one to say it. So it has been said before. But the thing is that the other party doesn't change.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, well, I think also, you know, we're just so late to the competition because, you know, China's been pursuing this effort to get a lock on critical supply chains.

The concept of the dual circulation economy where China can have coercive power over other economies but be insulated from any kind of economic disruption in response maybe to their aggression in the South China Sea or vis a vis Taiwan or whatever. So I think we're just behind in the game and we'll see how this evolves.

>> Djo Munga: No, I don't think so. You know, look, the place is so big. There is so much potential. 23, 26 trillion. It's too big for them.

>> H.R. McMaster: So there should be alternatives, right?

>> Djo Munga: I mean, my view personally as a filmmaker when I read all these stories and I talk to all these players.

And that's where the background you talk about, film, the format is that I need to be in that place where I talk to everybody. If I want to serve my public, if I want to serve my audience, I need to have everybody, you know, so the good and bad.

Bad doesn't apply. But then, when you see this player says, well, how does he play that? Well, but the game could be, you know, it's so large that actually everybody could play.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah and I love just the fact that how, as a filmmaker, you go right to the human experience. The lady with the lamps.

>> Djo Munga: Yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: The child, sadly, it was involved in artisanal mining, but the effect that that has on the family. And so I think it is always a much more complicated picture than these. These macro trends that you see. You know, what I'd like to do is just ask you more about life in the DRC.

In your films they show the multifaceted of life. Life, the joys, the challenges, the dynamism?

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: It's kind of the poetry of life, as you describe it, in your hometown.

>> Djo Munga: Exactly.

>> H.R. McMaster: And so, could you maybe tell us more about life in Congo and how you've tried to capture it on film?

>> Djo Munga: The problem, if I tell you the truth is, you won't believe. Or your audience is, he's making things up. He has been paid by the presidents to come and say, look, Congo is a great place. I have a lot of admiration for my compatriot. I have a lot of respect for even the drunk policeman who doesn't do either.

But he asked me to give me a little bit, he doesn't threaten me, right. It's different. People work people, they invent things. But also Congo is one of the safest place in Africa and in the world. There is the war, okay, that's one thing. But then there is the city.

And so when you speak to these really big players, the European, those who come, they will tell you, yeah, Kinshasa is good. That place is safe and so that is that, you have security, you have kindness, but also, people want to live because if you have a hard life like that, you won't go back home and be miserable.

No, you go out, you drink, you have swagger, you live life with a passion. And it's fantastic, it is great. So I live that life but at the same time, you know, talk about my mother I'm also a responsible person. So at some point, you start to work you start to have read this important book.

You start to build, you start to look at the future, you also need to. That's the thing is that we. It is so extreme, we suffer extremely, but the joy is also extreme, and that's the thing is to find that balance when it becomes a society who lives in democracy, who lives peacefully and people do business.

That's the kind of things where I wanted to capture as a kind of a picture of my time. That's the thing. The picture of my time is that you had, you lived hard, but also you had joy and you have poetry, and then you have also the music.

But it's one element. Because actually, when I look at the movie, says, there are all these other things I cannot talk about because the format is limited. Yeah, if I go inside when you talk about poetry, but the way people speak their own language. Not Lingala or French, but really they say the countryside language.

The poetry, it's fantastic, that ability to talk about the universe, put words on things that you cannot really explain or understand but that give you the path. That's what you have in Congo. Yes. And you have plenty of that in the North and the South. And so the question now is, how before I go?

Because now there's a measure of times is like what do you create as tools for this to be the real wealth for people?

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Djo Munga: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, what's your next project? So what do you want to explain next through film? And what are your ideas that you're pursuing these days?

>> Djo Munga: Well, I mean, the problem and the joy is there are two things that comes at the same time. I'm still myself, I'm a filmmaker, I want to get up in the morning, I get up in the morning, I write, I go, I want to make my movie.

That is one thing I want to do. But at the same time, I need to invest in education. I need to build all these other things that comes, like these two things. Once you have started that way, you cannot dissociate that. So on the film side, and I say, okay, the next film, let's aim at an American movie. Bring an American movie to Congo. Not in the studio in South Africa, in Morocco, no, no, no, no, no, no. You bring an American project in Congo, you make it work. But you also bring these millions of dollars of investment, okay? Because you train people, you give an organization or generation, you opportunity to work In a big organization that works.

So I've been working on that for a few years, but maybe we are at the end, you know, maybe next year it's happening.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, I'll tell you from your films, Kinshasa is just a fascinating place. I mean, it's unbelievable. The complexity, the vibrancy, and I can imagine a major film being made there would be fantastic.

That is where we go, and having that major film and be a larger scale, that will be really the next fascinating thing.

>> Djo Munga: And on the other side, I am discussing with the government to build a film studio in Congo. Why? We have other priorities. Yeah, why? But look, the American export, American film.

The woman I mentioned, with the candle and the little lamp, when she has a bit of power she watches an American movie. And so, well, we can also produce because the conditions are right, the money is there, you can build an infrastructure. The content in the world, the need for content is so large that we have to enter that race.

You build a studio. If you build a studio, you need to build a university. And if you build a university, you also need to have a department to handle mental health and handle people. You create that, and then you have the hotel and you have the business. So your ecosystem, that is what I'm selling now to the government, because you can only do that with the government.

These type of things for private investment or hedge fund is too complicated. But with the government it's like we will not be the kind of like, we're gonna be like the European and then we're gonna be like the American. Impossible, we cannot be that. We will jump straight into the future.

And so the jumping straight into the future is infrastructure, is money, is education, training, and get going.

>> H.R. McMaster: That's great. Well, I look forward to having you back on Battlegrounds to talk about that project. And then, Djo Munga, thank you so much for helping us learn more about battlegrounds important to all of our future.

But also to learn more about the Congo and to learn how art can help us understand better life and humanity.

>> Djo Munga: Thank you for being here, H.R. thank you for having me. Really special, thank you so much.

>> H.R. McMaster: Thank you.

>> Presenter: Battlegrounds is a production of the Hoover Institution where we generate and promote ideas, advancing freedom.

For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.