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Zaire Resistance
Under Mobutu, resistance through public or
institutional
channels of expression generally has met with state
repression
and/or co-optation. Political resistance is often bought
off with
the offer of high-salaried posts. In the past if this
failed,
leaders might be imprisoned or sentenced to internal exile
in their
home villages.
Strikes by workers have occurred intermittently but
have not
been effective tools for social or economic change.
Typical is the
1980 secondary school teachers' strike against low pay and
overcrowded classrooms in Kisangani. Strikers were
threatened with
dismissal, and strike leaders were repeatedly summoned to
appear in
the offices of the secret police. Threats against strike
leaders'
lives were made, and the strike was eventually broken.
When an
institution's personnel have gone on strike or had the
temerity to
hold public protest marches, as university students have
done
periodically since the late 1960s, the state has responded
with
force.
The hopelessness of public protest has given rise to
alternative forms of resistance. Farmers' resistance to
compulsory
cotton cultivation quotas has been well documented. Faced
with low
producer prices, and dishonest state marketing boards,
farmers
sabotaged cotton production by diverting fertilizer
intended for
cotton production to their own food crops, by failing to
space
plants appropriately, and by refusing to replant their
fields as
instructed. Farmers then redirected their energies to the
cultivation of more profitable food crops such as corn,
manioc, and
peanuts. No more cotton hectarage was planted than was
required to
escape fines and imprisonment.
A similar form of resistance has been practiced in the
area of
palm oil production. Low wages for palm oil plantation
workers and
low prices for palm nuts purchased from petty producers
resulted in
workers deserting plantations in areas such as Bunia, near
Lake
Albert. Their preferred course of action was to abandon
commercial
crop production in order to concentrate on producing food
crops.
Resistance has also taken other forms. Illicit mining
of gold
in the Kivu regions and Haut-Zaïre occurs on both an
individual and
group basis. Mukdrya Vwakyanakazi has documented the
formation of
villages of illicit gold miners in Kivu, villages that
have their
own authority structure independent of the government. In
HautZaïre , people engaged in illicit mining activities protect
themselves and their operations with private militias
against
government soldiers and officials, or, elsewhere, local
officials
are paid off for protection against interference. Similar
arrangements have been reported for illicit diamond
mining.
Smuggling across Zaire's porous borders is another
means of
resisting pauperization. A large-scale illicit trade
flourishes in
all commodities that can be sold for foreign currencies,
among them
gold, coffee, ivory, diamonds, cobalt, tea, cotton, and
palm oil.
Finally, resistance is expressed linguistically, in the
labels
used to deflate state institutions and ideologies and to
create an
alternative folk consciousness. In this vein, the national
army's
proud slogan of being toujours en avant (always out
front)
is transformed into toujours en arrière (always
behind). The
national airline, called Air Zaire, has become known as
"Air
Peut-être" (Air Maybe) and the national highway authority,
the
Office des Routes, is called in popular parlance the
Office des
Trous (Department of Holes).
Such resistance began long before the economic crises
of the
late 1980s and early 1990s. When Mobutu officially changed
the
names of the nation, the Congo River (name change not
recognized by
the United States), and the national currency to Zaire,
and
referred to them as Les Trois Z--Notre Pays, Notre
Fleuve, Notre
Monnaie (The Three Zs--Our Country, Our River, Our
Money) in
1967, the radio trottoir (literally, sidewalk
radio; meaning
public grapevine) quickly recharacterized the president's
program
as Les Trois M--Mwasi, Moyibi, Masanga (The Three
Ms--Women,
Thieves, Booze). Or when students in Bandundu were
required in the
name of the state doctrine of authenticity to replace
their
European first names with African ones in 1971, first
names such as
Mambo Ve (Doesn't Matter) suddenly appeared on teachers'
class
rosters.
Data as of December 1993
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