Tag: Maurice Carney

54. Nylah: I do want to start talking about tech, because the same companies involved in the genocide in the Congo are involved in the genocide in Palestine, and vice versa. It seems like such a natural point of collaboration. 
56. Eman: Tech is an emblem of this broader structure of power and control. We all received the story that we were at the end of the colonial era, but in reality, the colonial era was transitioning to a different form. That was facilitated by these multinational corporations. You have states and corporations working hand-in-hand to basically enact a new form of colonialism, or a slightly revised version of colonialism.
57. You have Apple as a multinational corporation that has its own set of interests that are almost like a state, and it can use states like Israel or it can use the instability of a place like the Congo to basically colonize the world, carve up resources. It can decide different populations are disposable or exploitable for labor. It’s important to have a broad analysis of the way our world works because when it’s not Congo and Palestine, it’s going to be other places.
59. Maurice:  One of the things people put forward [as a way to organize people] was the term “tech genocide,” because tech companies are benefiting from Congo’s minerals and causing human genocide.
60. For me, it was a stretch. Congo has long served, going back to the late 1800s, as a colonial outpost for the extraction of resources that power modern industries. It was  rubber for the advanced automobile industry. Copper used in the bullets and weaponry for World War I. It was uranium that was used for atomic weapons that were dropped on Japan, and so on, right up to today, to the coltan in the Congo. 
61. Congo’s modern history, it can be argued in a number of respects, has been in sync with advances in technology.  That has been  to the detriment of the Congo’s people, because they’ve been living on top of those resources that are needed to power a wide range of technologies. 
62. But I wouldn’t use “tech genocide.”  Without technology, our organizing wouldn’t be as effective.  We wouldn’t be able to communicate with different people in Congo,  especially in Eastern Congo, because it lacks infrastructure.