Heads up to anyone that might not know, but you shouldn’t say “the Congo”, because referring to it that was is a remnant of colonialism. Instead, just say Congo. E.g. “there’s a war in Congo”.

I realise that I’m being peak buzzkill politically correct leftie here, but I only learned this relatively recently, and I want to help out others like me. It still sounds weird to me to say “Congo” rather than “the Congo”, but that’s part of why it feels important to make the effort to change

Someone has already replied to you clarifying that the war is in DR Congo, so I’m going to take a different angle in my reply.

It is true that the full names of the countries include the word “the”, for both the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo. However, this doesn’t mean that including “the” when shortening it is inoffensive. Context is a part of how words carry meaning, and connotations are a part of that.

For many, “the Congo” evokes the period when it was a Belgian colony, where the Congolese faced horrific treatment, even compared to other colonialist regimes of the past. Arguably, it’s still suffering from the effects of colonialism, given that there are many powers extracting the country’s abundant natural resources, leading to ongoing economic exploitation of the Congolese.

To put it simply, “the Congo” has bad vibes attached to it, in a way that “Democratic Republic of Congo” doesn’t. This is just how language works. Taking a phrase and adding new words to it doesn’t just modify the meaning of the existing phrase; it can create an entirely new phrase that is able to exist independently of its starting point (especially if it goes on to be used regularly in a particular context, such as with a country’s official name). Meaning being built up like this also means that shortening a phrase may require more than just straightforwardly chopping it up into parts. It wouldn’t make sense to short the “United Kingdom” to just “Kingdom”, because that’s not one of the accepted shortened names for that country.

I stopped using “the Congo” when a Congolese person told me that just “Congo” was preferred. Obviously they don’t speak for the entirety of their country, but I didn’t see any purpose in digging my heels in against a reasonable preference from the only Congolese person I’ve met— certainly their word weighs more than my habits. Since then, I’ve seen it mentioned a few times “Congo” is the preferred term for the shortened country name. Convention can take a while to solidify when a country is enduring war and various kinds of economic exploitation, so this isn’t universal yet. However, if we’re able to recognise which way the wind is blowing in this respect, then we have the opportunity to be courteous and respect people’s self determination.