(PHOTO: Upbeat Congolese schoolchildren in front of their school at Kasese, South-Kivu Province, in 2005)
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The UN World Happiness Report 2013 was released yesterday.
And according to the Report, "The top five countries are Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Sweden, and the bottom five are Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, Benin, and Togo."
At rank 61, Angola is Africa's happiest country, while the DRC, ranked 18 among African countries (117 world ranking) is among the first 20 happiest countries in Africa.
Strangely, the DRC is ahead of Ethiopia (rank 19) and Uganda (rank 20).
At rank 40, Rwanda is among the 5 saddest squalid boondocks of the African continent that include Burundi (41), Central African Republic (42), Benin (43), and Togo (44).
It's worth noting that among the countries bordering the DRC, besides Angola, only Zambia, at rank 7, trumps the Congo.
These rankings are significant as they are based, on the one hand, on opinion surveys conducted by Gallup in each country ranked and, on the other, on:
"Six key variables that [...] explain three-quarters of the international differences in average life evaluations: GDP per capita, years of healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on in times of trouble (sometimes referred to as 'social support' [...]), perceptions of corruption, prevalence of generosity, and freedom to make life choices."
So much for those who can't praise Rwanda's good governance without bashing the Congo.
By the way, there's just no way normal people could feel comfortable and happy living in Rwanda, a country I've once described on this blog as "Africa's North Korea."
If you dispute my characterization, just read the recent piece on President Paul Kagame by New York Times East Africa bureau chief Jeffrey Gettleman titled "The Global Elite's Favorite Strongman," which reads in part (I reformat):
"[Critics] argue that Kagame's tidy, up-and-coming little country, sometimes described as the Singapore of Africa, is now one of the most straitjacketed in the world.
"Few people inside Rwanda feel comfortable speaking freely about the president, and many aspects of life are dictated by the government — Kagame's administration recently embarked on an 'eradication campaign' of all grass-roofed huts, which the government meticulously counted (in 2009 there were 124,671).
"In some areas of the country, there are rules, enforced by village commissars, banning people from dressing in dirty clothes or sharing straws when drinking from a traditional pot of beer, even in their own homes, because the government considers it unhygienic.
"Many Rwandans told me that they feel as if their president is personally watching them. 'It's like there's an invisible eye everywhere,'said Alice Muhirwa, a member of an opposition political party. 'Kagame's eye.'"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwanda.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
This devastating description of Africa's North Korea reminds me of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who, astonished by people praising tranquility and peace ensured under dictatorial regimes, blurted out: "Tranquility is found also in dungeons."
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PHOTO CREDITS: War Child Canada/Jean-Marc Page via getloud.ca
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