The Democratic Republic of Congo has been on its knees for decades; wrung dry by the cynical, devastated by industrial-scale slaughter. So, what the Congo really needs right now is... a rock group?
We can all be cynics when it comes to a trip like this; it's wise to maintain a healthy scepticism. The terrifying fact is that over the last eight years some four million people have died in a conflict we've barely noticed in the UK. It's death on a scale that dwarfs what's happening in Iraq, yet we've barely blinked.
So if Feeder allow themselves to be a device which drags our attention to the generation of children whose lives have been ripped apart by war, then fair enough.
But it's more than that. Journalists - and even aid workers too - often watch the world with a sophistication and detachment that's inevitably part of their job. Grant Nicholas, Taka Hirose and Mark Richardson didn't have that luxury. From the moment they stepped off the plane at Ndjili Airport in Kinshasa, their reactions were raw; bemused, scared, compassionate, sometimes tearful, sometimes angry, but also - remarkably - often optimistic too. To see a country through such eyes is no bad thing...
You can read the full story in the new issue of Q, out now.
Feeder made this special trip to support War Child, the charity that works with the child victims of warfare. For more on War Child, click here
2:51 PM | 07/08/2006
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