Comments on: The DRC is neither democratic nor a republic https://www.isegoria.net/2025/04/the-drc-is-neither-democratic-nor-a-republic/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:58:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: McChuck https://www.isegoria.net/2025/04/the-drc-is-neither-democratic-nor-a-republic/comment-page-1/#comment-3757852 McChuck Thu, 01 May 2025 08:46:29 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=52885#comment-3757852 “Now the job is not to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, because the DRC was never whole. It is simply to keep the pieces apart until a way can be found to join them sensibly and peacefully.”

Thoughtless conformity to lines arbitrarily drawn on a map do not lead to peace. Diversity + proximity = war.

Why should Africa not have their own version of the Westphalian doctrine of a country for every nation?

]]> By: Adept https://www.isegoria.net/2025/04/the-drc-is-neither-democratic-nor-a-republic/comment-page-1/#comment-3757832 Adept Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:05:43 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=52885#comment-3757832 My favorite niche conspiracy theory is that the DRC’s population numbers are totally fraudulent. The country is said to have a population of >100M. But look at it via satellite imaging — even with Google Maps — and it very quickly becomes apparent that there’s no possible way this can be the case.

Kinshasa alone is said to have 17M people, but this is completely impossible. It’s low-rise sprawl, and there’s not really that much of it. A satellite imaging estimate gives 1.3M people, with an absolute max (unlikely) at 3M. Realistically, it has 10x fewer people than they claim it has.

There’s also not much evidence of farming in the DRC. Very small-scale subsistence stuff, solely. And, again, not that much of it. If there’s a large rural population, they’re living under tree cover like Ewoks.

And, basically, the population figures are a foreign aid grift. Same goes for Nigeria, BTW, though it’s not quite as extreme.

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