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Angola The Definition of Ethnicity
Bantu languages have been categorized by scholars into
a number
of sets of related tongues. Some of the languages in any
set may be
more or less mutually intelligible, especially in the
areas where
speakers of a dialect of one language have had sustained
contact
with speakers of a dialect of another language. Given the
mobility
and interpenetration of communities of Bantu speakers over
the
centuries, transitional languages--for example, those that
share
characteristics of two tongues--developed in areas between
these
communities. Frequently, the languages of a set,
particularly those
with many widely distributed speakers, would be divided
into
several dialects. In principle, dialects of the same
language are
considered mutually intelligible, although they are not
always so
in fact.
Language alone does not define an ethnic group. On the
one
hand, a set of communities lacking mutually intelligible
dialects
may for one reason or another come to share a sense of
identity in
any given historical period. On the other hand, groups
sharing a
common language or mutually intelligible ones do not
necessarily
constitute a single group. Thus the Suku--most of them in
Zaire but
some in Angola -- had a language mutually intelligible
with at
least some dialects of the Bakongo. However, their
historical
experience, including a period of domination by Lunda
speakers,
made the Suku a separate group.
Although common language and culture do not
automatically make
a common identity, they provide a framework within which
such an
identity can be forged, given other historical experience.
Insofar
as common culture implies a set of common perceptions of
the way
the world works, it permits individuals and groups sharing
it to
communicate more easily with one another than with those
who lack
that culture. However, most Angolan groups had, as part of
that
common culture, the experience and expectation of
political
fragmentation and intergroup rivalry. That is, because one
community shared language and culture with another,
political unity
or even neutrality did not follow, nor did either
community assume
that it should. With the exception of the Bakongo and the
Lunda, no
group had experienced a political cohesion that
transcended smaller
political units (chiefdoms or, at best, small kingdoms).
In the
Bakongo case, the early Kongo Kingdom, encompassing most
Kikongospeaking communities, had given way by the eighteenth
century to
politically fragmented entities. In the Lunda case, the
empire had
been so far-flung and internal conflict had become so
great by the
nineteenth century that political cohesion was limited
(see Kongo Kingdom;
Lunda and Chokwe Kingdoms
, ch. 1).
Very often, the name by which a people has come to be
known was
given them by outsiders. For example, the name "Mbundu"
was first
used by the Bakongo. Until such naming, and sometimes long
after,
the various communities or sections of a set sharing a
language and
culture were likely to call themselves by other terms, and
even
when they came to use the all-encompassing name, they
tended to
reserve it for a limited number of situations. In
virtually all
colonial territories, Angola included, the naming process
and the
tendency to treat the named people as a discrete entity
distinct
from all others became pervasive. The process was carried
out by
the colonial authorities--sometimes with the help of
scholars and
missionaries--as part of the effort to understand, deal
with, and
control local populations. Among other things, the
Portuguese
tended to treat smaller, essentially autonomous groups as
parts of
larger entities. As time went on, these populations,
particularly
the more educated among them, seized upon these names and
the
communities presumably covered by them as a basis for
organizing to
improve their status and later for nationalist agitation.
Among the
first to do so were mestiços in the Luanda area.
Although
most spoke Portuguese and had a Portuguese male ancestor
in their
genealogies, the mestiços often spoke Kimbundu as a
home
language. It is they who, in time, initiated the
development of a
common Mbundu identity.
In general, then, the development of ethnic
consciousness in a
group encompassing a large number of communities reflected
shifts
from the identification of individuals with small-scale
units to at
least partial identification with larger entities and from
relatively porous boundaries between such entities to less
permeable ones. But the fact that these larger groups were
the
precipitates of relatively recent historical conditions
suggests
that they were not permanently fixed. Changes in these
conditions
could lead to the dissolution of the boundaries and to
group
formation on bases other than ethnicity.
In any case, ethnic identities are rarely exclusive;
identification with other entities, new or old, also
occurs in
certain situations because not all sections of a large
ethnic group
have identical interests. It remained likely that earlier
identities would be appealed to in some situations or that
new
cleavages would surface in others. For example, descent
groups or
local communities were often involved in competitive
relations in
the precolonial or colonial eras, and the conditions
similar to
those giving rise to such competition might still prevail
in some
areas. In other contexts, younger members of an ethnic
group may
consider their interests to be different from those of
their
elders, or a split between urban and rural sections of an
ethnic
entity may become salient.
In Angola, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of
people,
especially in the late 1980s, had significant
repercussions on
ethnic identification. For example, many of those forced
to abandon
rural areas and traditional ethnic communities for urban
dwellings
no longer engaged in agricultural activities and the small
town
life that defined their communities. Instead, they were
forced to
become urban laborers in ethnically mixed surroundings.
Many were
compelled by their new circumstances to learn new
languages and
give up traditional life-styles in order to survive in
their new
environment.
Data as of February 1989
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