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Sexual violence in the Congo

Posted by Lance Gravlee on April 18, 2008 
Filed Under Class discussion

In class today, we screened the first half hour of The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, a new documentary that debuted on HBO earlier this week. The film and filmmaker, Lisa Jackson, were also featured in a story on NPR this week, in the Washington Post last week, and in the New York Times last fall before the film was shown at the Sundance festival in January.

It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t watch the full 76 minutes, but I encourage you to catch it on HBO or grab the DVD when it comes out. As I suggested in class, the film is valuable not only because it puts a human face on the suffering and survival of Congolese women but also because it connects us to their story. First, because Jackson weaves in her own story of having experienced gang rape, it allows us to see the common inhumanity of sexual violence across radically different cultural and political contexts. Second, the film draws out the linkages between our society and a forgotten war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As Jackson said in a hearing before the U.S. Senate, referring to foreign extraction of coltan from the DRC, “Everyone in this room should consider the fact that there is the blood of Congolese women on their laptop computers and on their cellphones.”

What are your reactions to this film?

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