Zaire Historical Setting
Wooden figurine
THIRTY YEARS AFTER ITS BIRTH as an independent state,
Zaire
still bore the imprint of its colonial past. Behind the
omnipresent
apparatus of control forged by President Mobutu Sese Seko
since
1965 lurked the shadow of King Léopold II of Belgium,
whose
absolute and arbitrary sovereignty found symbolic
expression in the
Kikongo (language of the Kongo people) phrase bula
matari
("he who breaks rocks"), a name also applied to the
colonial armed
forces, the Force Publique, and generally evocative of
brute force.
The modern version of the bula matari state was
nowhere more
evident than in the Mobutu regime's extreme centralization
of
authority, highly personalized style of governance, and
readiness
to use force whenever the circumstances seemed to require
it.
The Mobutist state is, however, the product of a
complex
concatenation of forces that go far beyond the eighteen
years of
Leopoldian autocracy. Between the formal proclamation of
the Congo
Free State in 1885 and Mobutu's second seizure of power in
1965, a
number of events occurred that had a profound and lasting
effect on
the Zairian polity and on society. The first occurred in
1908, when
the Belgian parliament assumed full administrative and
political
responsibility for the colony, which until independence in
1960
would be known as the Belgian Congo. The second involved
the rise
of organized nationalist activity, symbolized by the 1956
manifesto
of the Alliance of the Kongo People (Alliance des
Bakongo--Abako)
calling for immediate independence. The crisis of
decolonization,
dramatized by the mutiny of the Force Publique in July
1960,
constituted the third, and by far the most consequential,
event.
The final stage in Zaire's precipitous leap to
independence began
with the proclamation of the First Republic immediately
after
independence, extended through the convulsive aftereffects
of
regional secessions and rural insurgencies, and reached a
plateau
of sorts after the proclamation of the Second Republic in
1965.
In Zaire, as elsewhere in Africa, both indigenous and
Western
influences have been significant. The impact of the West
has been
felt most strongly through the import of institutions,
policies,
and culture that were radically new to the area. Zairian
traditions
are represented by many different ethnic groups with
historically
different beliefs, loyalties, and tensions. Whatever their
exposure
to these various historical influences, modern-day
Zairians are
alike in being repressed or neglected by a small and
highly
centralized political elite.
Data as of December 1993
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