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During the early period of the morning, the protagonist roams through the streets of Goma. He makes a mistaken turn and meets thieves. At his residence, his father flicks through TV channels while his mother counts bags of flour. Silence prevails. The stillness is shattered only by noises on the radio.

By evening, Baraka is sitting on the shore of Lake Kivu, gazing south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, seeing no optimism in either direction.

Here begins the opening to Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, the debut comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story portrays everyday struggles in Goma through the eyes of a child.

Prominent Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who captured the public’s interest in comic strips in the past, mostly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city more than a thousand miles from Goma. But there are few contemporary comics located in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.

Creativity offers optimism. It's a beginning.

“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his evolution as an artist. He began to engage in the craft seriously only after finishing high school, enrolling at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were interrupted by financial difficulties.

His first solo exhibition was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It was a really big exhibition. And it was impressive how everyone engaged to it,” says Musavuli.

But just a year later, the brutal M23 militia, aided by Rwanda, resurfaced in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s delicate art scene.

“Local illustrators are really reliant on external exhibitions like that,” he says. “If they’re not around, it will feel like we don’t exist. That is the current situation right now.”

When M23 took over Goma in January this year, the city’s cultural hubs faltered alongside its economy. “Art gives hope, it offers a beginning, but our reality here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really invested any more,” says Musavuli.

Creators and expression have long been pushed to the edges of the state agenda. “Creativity isn't something the government prioritises,” he says.

Leveraging Instagram, he began disseminating private and public experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “I’m from where you learn to run before you walk.”

In one clip, which has since generated more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an unfinished painting, while explosions are heard in the background.

It was against this backdrop that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is loaded with political undertones, showing how daily life have been eroded and replaced with ongoing instability.

Yet Musavuli insists the short comic was not meant as overt political commentary: “I’m not really a political artist or activist though I say what people around me are thinking. In that manner I do my art.”

We might not have power but staying silent is so much worse. Should even a few listen, it’s something.

Asked whether he feels able to express himself freely under rule, he says: “People can speak openly in Congo, but will you be free after you speak?”

Producing art that appears too negative of M23 or the government can be perilous, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s normal to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s standard to not do that because it’s not safe for you.

“In terms of governance, we are cut off from the ‘actual’ Congo,” he says. Unlike other cities in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, Goma remains under full dominance by the M23.

According to Musavuli, some artists have come under pressure to create supportive content out of concern for their lives. “As a creative with a voice in Goma, the M23 can utilize you, sometimes by compulsion, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It’s complicated to judge. But I cannot allow myself to do something like that.”

If insecurity is one challenge, earning an income through the arts is another difficulty. “There's an issue in Congo that people don’t buy art. Many of the artists here have to do other things to get by.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a digital outlet.

But he adds: “I don't solely doing art to sell it.”

Regardless of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue creating work that gives voice to the marginalized people of Goma. “People here endure – this is not the first time we have been through this.

“We might not have power but staying passive is so much worse. Though your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

In the conclusion of this visual narrative, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “Next day may seem exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Holding on to hope is already resisting.”