|
Zaire Other High-Status Groups
Ranking military officers, Zairian university staff,
and clergy
all enjoy high social status in Zaire but have developed
quite
different profiles. Officers have received rewards from
the
president for their loyalty and have been given wide
leeway to
develop lucrative outside businesses. They are, however,
in much
the same position as members of the politico-commercial
class in
that they are frequently promoted and demoted at the
president's
whim and have little security of tenure. Staff at the main
Kinshasa
campus of the National University of Zaire (Université
Nationale du
Zaïre--UNAZA) have tended to be absorbed into the
politicocommercial class; this is particularly the case with those
faculty
in fields such as economics, commerce, and law. They have
served as
appointees in high government posts or have found
lucrative
consultancy opportunities. Kinshasa campus staff not in
these
fields and university staff outside the capital have had
an
increasingly marginalized economic position but have
nevertheless
retained considerable social prestige. In general, the
clergy have
retained much of the status and security they enjoyed
before
independence. For example, in the transition from
single-party rule
beginning in 1990, Monsignor Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya,
archbishop
of Kisangani, played a major role, reflecting the
continuing
prestige of the Roman Catholic clergy.
Data as of December 1993
|
