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Zaire Kitawala
A much more radical product of the synthesis of African
and
Christian elements is the Kitawala movement, which
appeared in
Katanga Province (now Shaba Region) during the 1920s. Born
of the
black American missionary activity in South Africa of the
Watch
Tower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses), the
movement
converted miners who then spread the movement northward
from their
South African base into the Katangan copper belt.
Watch Tower missionaries preached racial equality,
equal pay
for equal work, the imminent arrival of God's kingdom, and
the
impending struggle for the restitution of Africa to
Africans.
Although anticolonial in ideology, the movement had no
concrete
strategy of revolution, which, however, did not prevent
the state
from cracking down on it. As with Kimbanguism, the state
attempted
to repress Kitawala by relegating its members to isolated
rural
regions. Ironically, this strategy once again simply
served to
speed the spread of the movement as exiled adherents
converted
their rural neighbors.
Over time the movement became more Africanized and more
radical, slowly transforming itself from a branch of the
worldwide
Watch Tower Church into what has been termed a form of
peasant
political consciousness. Theological messages varied from
place to
place, but a common core of beliefs included the struggle
against
sorcery, the purification of society, and the existence of
a black
God. Kitawala denounced all forms of authority as the work
of
Satan, including taxes, forced labor, and most other
coercive
elements of colonial rule. The movement's anticolonial
message was
so strong that the worldwide Watch Tower movement formally
renounced it.
Colonial bannings failed to eradicate the movement,
however.
And the independent state that succeeded colonial
authority, black
African though it be, has been no more successful in
converting the
Kitawalists from their apolitical, antiauthoritarian
stance.
Kitawalists continue to resist saluting the flag,
participating in
party-mandated public works (Salongo), and paying taxes.
At times
they have resisted state pressure violently, as in Shaba
in 1979
when the appearance of army units in their midst provoked
an attack
by Kitawalists on the state's administrative offices and
the
killing of two soldiers. The state retaliated with a
vicious
repression. More frequently, Kitawalists withdraw when
state
pressure becomes excessive. Entire communities have moved
into deep
forest in areas such as Équateur Region in order to escape
any
contact with civil authorities.
Data as of December 1993
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