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The drama(s) of Independence Day: reflections onpolitical affects and aesthetics in Kinshasa (2010)Katrien Pypeaa Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa, Faculty of Social SciencesUniversity ofLeuven Parkstraat 45 Bus 3615, 3000 Leuven, Belgium [email protected] online: 17 Sep 2014.

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58 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2013, 36(1&2)

The drama(s) of Independence Day:

reflections on political affects and aesthetics

in Kinshasa (2010)

Katrien Pype

Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa, Faculty of Social Sciences University of LeuvenParkstraat 45 Bus 3615, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

[email protected]

On June 30 2010, in Kinshasa, a drama unfolded as the military march was abruptly interrupted by street children intermingling and enacting ndombolo-inspired dances in front of the president. Police and soldiers started beating up people; the state radio and television channels aborted the live broadcasts; and people were urged to return home. The order and discipline that the military march had expressed, had in a few seconds given way to chaos. I take this drama as a case to study political sensibilities in contemporary Kinshasa. The main premise is that performances are not merely representations, but are also crucial events within the circulation of feelings and affects. Therefore, both political aesthetics and affects involved in this drama of Independence Day will be studied. I first juxtapose the various aesthetics at play in the independence festivities, both performed in the dfil (military-inspired aesthetics) and afterwards (the popular, sexually explicit dances); and then analyse the ways in which these performances and reactions express different senses of nationhood and different relations to the state.

Keywords: DR Congo; youth; dance; media; resistance; propaganda; public ritual

Commemorations of political independence are performative

moments in which ideas about the nation, the state and citi-

zenship are represented and produced while combining rhet-

oric, display and affect. The participants in these events

speakers, dance groups, marching people and the audience

embody in that moment moralizing, introspective and

cathartic possibilities (Mookherjee 2011: 51). Furthermore,

narratives about independence and the reasons for celebra-

tion, as well as the various spectacles that are produced dur-

ing the celebrations, open up affective domains in which the

nation emerges, is glorified and, at times, also contested. The

independence commemorations are also crucial moments for

the governing elite to confirm and maintain their power (Roy

2006: 210-211). This article will explore the various political

affects that were mobilized in Kinshasa in 2010, the year of

the 50th anniversary of political independence, and analyses

both propaganda performances and colloquial performative

replies to these as sites in which various forms of attachment

to the Congolese nation are being presented and embodied.

It will become clear that, while belonging to the Congolese

nation is never contested, the role of the president, as a uni-

fying principle within this formation, is complicated to the

extent that in and with the popular performances, the presi-

dents involvement in the Congolese nation is debunked.

Weeks before June 30, the actual anniversary of political

independence on which a whole range of celebration and

ceremonies was scheduled, a particular buzz was palpable in

Kinshasa, Congos capital city. Kinois (Kinshasas inhabitants)

were asking several questions: Will the Belgian king accept

President Kabilas invitation and be present during this feast?

Will the population be part of the festivities? The most impor-

tant question, however, was: is there something to celebrate?

During the run-up to the festivities, local media were

flooded with invitations to the public to offer their own ideas

about how the 50th anniversary of Independence should be

commemorated. The political elite, headed by President

Kabila, attempted to create a celebratory ambiance in the

capital city. The question whether there was actually some-

thing to celebrate seemed even more strange considering the

fact that everybody inscribed themselves within the national

feast as various commercial activities of bars newly erected

for the occasion, shops and international enterprises showed.

In their marketing strategies, they all referenced le cinquan-

tenaire (the Jubilee). Around town, companies such as tele-

phone network operators, airline companies, and breweries

erected billboards on which they congratulated the Congo-

lese on the political anniversary; and on television, local musi-

cians appeared in music video clips that celebrated the 50

years of political independence. At the same time, however,

the killing of a local human rights activist (Floribert Chebeya)

stirred up many public contestations of the actual democratic

nature of the government. There was a wide range of com-

peting discourses about the past, accompanied by, at times,

opposed political affects. These affects either produced a

feeling of belonging, pride and attachment with other Congo-

lese citizens from which the political elite could borrow sup-

port and obedience, or expressed perceptions of dis-

appointment, distrust and alienation. Usually, the latter nega-

tive affects were not directed towards fellow Congolese, but

towards the political elite and the state. The various narra-

tives that were told, produced different interpretations of

independence (lipanda), the past, the present and the future,

each serving a particular purpose.

Despite the buzz, many Kinois shared the experience of

exclusion from the larger festivities, and also a feeling that

there was actually nothing to celebrate.

When Kinois reflected about the meaning of the Inde-

pendence festivities, various sentiments were evoked, rang-

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Anthropology Southern Africa, 2013, 36(1&2) 59

ing from anger, frustration over disappointment, to apathy.

Many were discontented with Kabilas political programme,

and signaled lack of electricity, running water and adequate

health treatment as major symptoms of the presidents failing

leadership. In addition, people felt excluded from the festivi-

ties as they held that the major events were organized for the

international community and for the ruling elite. The few

commercial initiatives that were undertaken on June 30, like

breweries giving significant reductions for certain beers, were

also not acclaimed by the Kinois, of whom many felt that the

state should rather give each of them some cash.

The main event, the festivities on June 30, however,

ended in chaos: The military parade was abruptly inter-

rupted, and the parading space became invaded with street

children and people looting the chairs, umbrellas and other

objects they could lay their hands on. This article will exten-

sively deal with the failure of the parade.

The main question addressed in this article is: What are

the political affects, desires and motivations that are involved

in the Independence festivities as they unfolded in Kinshasa

during the festive year of 2010? I thus seek to explore the

relationships between power, nationalism and public culture

through an analysis of several state-led ceremonies. Perform-

ance, affect and aesthetics are the key analytical terms

through which I analyze how the Congolese nation

emerged, and eventually broke down, both in its state-led

display in popular contestations.

The data are based on seven months of extensive field-

work in Kinshasa. I worked with officials participating in the

commemorating events and local media producers that were

engaged to cover events related to the Independence festivi-

ties. Fieldwork, which focused on media, memory and poli-

tics, included participant observation as a journalist with four

local TV stations (pro-Kabila), participation in the festivities

for Independence, and formal and informal interviews with

officials and participants.

The analysis is therefore limited to the production of

commemorative events in Kinshasa, the capital city. In other

parts of the country, provincial governors organized their

own parades, and various towns held their own celebrations.

In most cities, however, there were no special events. Also,

many of the events that had been scheduled by the Comit du

50enaire to travel around the country, in the end never did

happen. As I will explain below, Kinshasa occupies a special

position within Congolese political society, so the analysis

about political affect in Kabilas Kinshasa cannot be trans-

posed to other areas in the country.

The article is organized as follows: I will first lay out the

main theoretical strands performance, affect and nation-

building that have informed my analysis. This is followed by

a (too) short historical overview of how Congolese postcolo-

nial leaders like Mobutu and Joseph Kabila invest(ed), or did

not, in cultural performances in order to tie the citizens to

them. The second part brings an analysis of the ethnographic

material: in particular I will discuss tours by a General who

travelled around Kinshasa and held meetings in which he pre-

sented his narrative on the meaning of Independence, media

propaganda, and the military parade on June 30 2010. The

focus in the analysis is on the performance of the nation, as

carefully orchestrated by the political elite, also on the vari-

ous kinds of affect that have been mobilized or that were

intended to be awakened by the state propaganda.

Performance, affect and the nation

For various reasons performance is a very useful analytical

category to start my analysis of Kinshasas independence fes-

tivities. First, in the notion of performance, temporality and

impermanence are evoked. A performance has a beginning

and a definite ending. The performance only exists in the

staging moment. Recent anthropological reflections about the

nation emphasize the fleeting and the momentary character

of the construction of the nation. Just like a performance,

affects of belonging to nations need to be re-enacted and thus

confirmed through various stagings, again and again. It is in

the enactment of state-related practices and the mobilization

of patriotic sentiment that the nation appears. Public rituals

are, furthermore, negotiations between state actors and non-

state actors (Roy 2006: 210-211). Following Derrida (1998),

Mookherjee (2011) and Pinney (2011) point at the iterativity

and repetition necessary for the production of the nation.

They also indicate the possibility of slippage, the possibility of

deformation that is always inherent in any new performance,

thus providing space for rupture and unsettlement in the pro-

duction of nationhood.

Second, performance combines the emphases on affect

and aesthetics. The idea of the nation as an imagined com-

munity (Anderson 1991) has for a long time dominated

anthropological understandings of how belonging within a

national unity was imagined and produced. Lately, Andersons

approach has been critiqued by Meyer (2009: 7), who argues

that we need to move beyond understanding community as

a fixed, bounded social group. Meyer proposes to think

about belonging in collectivities, such as the nation, in terms

of aesthetic formations, thus emphasizing both the invest-

ment of affect in the production of collectivities, and also

foregrounding the process part of collectivities. Collective

unities do not exist as such: they are continuously made and

remade through various practices that are based on desire,

expectations and emotional investment. Following Webers

statement that the nation is a community of sentiment mani-

fest in a state (1994 [1948]: 25), Linke (2006: 219, my addi-

tion) contends that the entire sensorium of the body,

including the micro-politics of sense experience as well as the

polymorphous incitements to sensuation [the mobilisation of

the senses] are central in the production of political subjects

and national sentiments or the love of a nation. Scholars such

as Butler and Spivak (2004) have also called for attention to

the role of aesthetics in the production of citizens and

national communities. In their study of American nationalism,

Butler and Spivak point out how aesthetic articulations, such

as the singing of the national anthem, produce the sense of

belonging to a nation. Along the same lines, Mookherjee

(2011) emphasizes how the nation seeks to bind those who

belong to it but at the same time it also unbinds, releases,

expels, banishes through the performance of its aesthetic reg-

isters. Apart from pointing at the role of aesthetics in the

formation of national unities, Mookherjee convincingly argues

that inclusion and exclusion, or the boundaries between

those who belong and those who do not, are articulated

through aesthetics and performances.

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Third, a performance approach allows us to think of

national communities as publics (Gaonkar 2002). The idea of

belonging to a nation draws on ties between citizens and also

between citizens and state authorities. National communities

are publics, who are at once audience and co-producers of

the staging of the spectacle of the nation. They are literally

publics, they read, hear and/or watch texts that are

addressed to them as citizens and fellow members of the

national communities. They also express their concerns in the

public sphere, where hegemonic and contesting opinions are

voiced, thus producing interactions between hegemonic pub-

lics and counter-publics. In addition, more and more scholars

are pointing at the fragmentation of publics (Barber 1997),

thus undermining the idea of one national public sharing

homogeneous ideas and sentiments (Arnaut 2013).

This theoretical frame, that focuses on the performativity

of nationalism and the concomitant interplay of affect and

aesthetics, is inspired by Turners notion of social drama

(1957) and his anthropology of performance (1987).

My analysis furthermore combines two dominant strands

within contemporary Africanist anthropology that attempt to

come to terms with the intrinsic linkage between perform-

ance and power (Fabian 1990, 1998), and with the encapsula-

tion of cultural performances in the purchase of political

affects. A first line of authors emphasizes the dramaturgy of

the African postcolonial state. Mbembe (1992, 2001), for

example, pays attention to the symbolic ways in which citi-

zens protest against those in power (especially through the

use of obscene and vulgar language), both within state-led

spectacles and beyond, thus participating in the grotesque

character of the postcolonial state. His focus on the display,

the shared participation in ceremonies and the ceremonial

shows how the African postcolonial state is merely a hollow

sign, a simulacrum, in which citizens (oppressed) and rulers

contribute to the maintenance of a regime, which neverthe-

less keeps the former powerless. Speaking about Mobutu,

Yoka, a Congolese professor and observer of local politics,

says: Mobutu is the very sign of a sinister process of covering

up, of making over, of masking, of the cosmetics of power

(Yoka in White 2009: 227). Analyzing social and political life in

Kinshasa in the late Mobutu years, De Boeck (1996: 92, my

translation) argues that in local statecraft the faire croire

[make believe] and the faire semblant [acting as if] have taken

over from reality.

A second line of research takes popular culture as its main

focus and points at the interactions between cultural per-

formances (theatre, music, dance) and nationalism and power

(among others Abu-Lughod 2005, Argenti 2007, Askew

2002, Edmondson 2007). Askew (2002) draws attention to

the poetics of nationhood by analyzing how dance and musi-

cal shows in Tanzania performed, transformed and reformed

the nation. Studying the primordial role of radio and televi-

sion melodrama in postcolonial Egypt, Abu-Lughod shows

how these serials help to shape a national habitus, while she

also pays attention to the varying reactions of audiences

towards these serials, thus highlighting the fluid, contested

and negotiated character of the nation. In her insightful study

of theatre in Tanzania, Edmonson (2007) also examines the

cultural politics of the nation, yet, theatre actors and their

audiences are engaged in what she calls a collaborative

nationalism, thus by-passing the taken-for-granted strong

division between rulers and population, or between propa-

gandists and opposition. Rather, the convivial nature of the

theatre players and political elite constitute the political

dynamics of Tanzanian popular drama. As Edmondson writes:

It becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between

moments of transgression and capitulation. (2007: 5). She

did not encounter instances of performances that openly crit-

icized the state or the ruling political party (Ibid.).

Acknowledging the fact that her research subjects might

have been hampered by fear of not being paid or losing out

on future jobs, Edmondson follows Mbembe, who highlighted

(in his influential book On the Postcolony) the sharing of the

public space by both rulers and ordinary people, who guide,

deceive, and toy with power rather than confronting it

directly (Mbembe 2001: 128, Edmondson 2007: 6).

Dealing with youths masquerade dances in Cameroons

Grassfields, Argenti has recently argued that dance is the site

of a fierce struggle in the Grassfields: a struggle for remem-

bering, for meaning, for representation, for commemoration,

for knowing, and for forgetting (2007: 254). National dance

competitions are organized to glorify national unity; while

dance is also used as a means to critique and participate in the

new, postcolonial power (Argenti 1998: 763). Dance opens

up new worlds, according to Argenti (1998: 775), and con-

temporary dance forms lie at the heart of attempts to deal

with an authoritarian state and experiences of violence, intim-

idation and terror. Dealing with an authoritarian state and

state violence through performances does not always mean

overt resistance or rebellion, rather cultural performances

and popular culture in general produce cathartic possibilities,

moments in which new possible futures are imagined and

reflected upon; these are very temporal states of contesta-

tion and freedom, moments of freedom, as Fabian (1998)

calls them.

Dramatization of the Congolese nation

To appreciate the stakes of performances such as festivals,

music and dance in the construction of the Congolese

national community, it is useful to briefly give a historical

insight into the interlocking of performance and power in the

Zairian/Congolese cultural space.

Mobutu famously used cultural performances in order to

confirm and enhance his status as father of the nation and to

enforce a collective experience of belonging to the Zairian

state. As part of the services of the General Secretariat for

Mobilization and Propaganda (MOPAP part of the Ministry

of Information), professional national troupes were created

that staged thtre danimation politique, a theater of political

cheerleading (Conteh-Morgan 2004:112, Botombele 1975).

Political slogans, marching-band music, traditional tunes and

carefully choreographed modern and traditional perform-

ances were the key aspects of these cultural performances

that not merely entertained the Zairians and their visitors,

but attempted to produce intense emotional identification of

the audience with the nationalist program (Conteh-Morgan

2004:112, Kerr 1995:205).

However, these festivals were not only moments in which

the leader was confirmed in his leadership; they also offered

moments for interaction between the leader and his citizens.

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At the same time, music was also a vehicle for communicating

serious social critique. As White (2009) shows, the metaphor

of love in many of the songs that were produced during

Mobutus time, attacked the social and economic hardship

the Congolese were experiencing during Mobutus reign.

Joseph Kabilas Kinshasa knows a totally different political

performance culture. The president, who came to power in

2002 after his father was assassinated, confirmed his leader-

ship after he won the first democratically organized elections

in 2006 (although there are many rumours about fraud).

Since he came to power, political animation has almost been

reduced to mass mediated performances. While Kabila regu-

larly orders songs from local musicians, he does not invest in

cultural performances where he is physically present and

where he might be cherished as the ruler of the nation. Many

Kinois regret Joseph Kabilas physical absence in Kinshasa,

even during the annual festivities for Independence Day. Peo-

ple complained that since his election in 2006 Kabila has not

celebrated the national Independence Day in Kinshasa, but

has done so in other cities (Mbandaka, Kisangani, Kananga

and Goma). The one exception, where Kabila attended the

celebration in Kinshasa, was the golden jubilee/fiftieth anni-

versary celebration of DR Congos independence, but which

many Kinois perceived as a mere charade for the benefit of

the international community.

These complaints point to the failure of the state. In post-

colonial Africa, public ceremonies and festivities are a central

part of the production of postcolonial power. In his analysis of

the aesthetics of power, Mbembe (1992:7) suggests that, it

is the festivities and celebrations that are the vehicles, par

excellence, for giving expression to the commandement and

for staging its displays of magnificence and prodigality. Con-

centrating on Cameroon, Mbembe (1992:21) maintains that,

ceremonies have become the privileged language through

which power speaks, acts, coerces. Abundant gift distribu-

tions (most often food) characterize these meetings. Signifi-

cantly, such ceremonies also set the stage for communicative

interaction between rulers and subjects (Karlstrm

2003:63). There is a vaguely defined generalized obligation

to respond to the needs of the local community (ibid.:67), at

least in the margins of these events. The opportunity for dia-

logical interactions with state representatives is, according to

Karlstrm, the main reason why locals participate in such

events.

This article, however, deals uniquely with the perform-

ance of the nation and perceptions about the state in Kin-

shasa, the countrys capital city. Kinshasa occupies a particular

place in Congolese political society. Kinois do not feel at ease

with Joseph Kabila, because they regard him as an outsider:

he does not speak Lingala, the main lingua franca in Kinshasa

(or does not speak it well enough). According to some, he is

not born on Congolese soil, but has Rwandese or Tanzanian

roots; for others, the fact that he is from the east is too dis-

tant from Kinois society. Many also regret that he hardly

addresses the Kinois. As mentioned above, Kinois object to

the impossibility of communicating with their president. The

complaints constantly point to the lack of ties with the Presi-

dent.

Since Joseph Kabila was sworn in as a democratically

elected president in 2006, efforts have gradually been made

to reconnect Kinois to their leader: to open up communica-

tion between Kinois and the president, and thus to convert

Kinshasas community of resentment into one of sentiment,

shared ideas about public goods and necessary political

action. To that end, Joseph Kabila and his entourage have

invested in a strong media campaign (Pype 2012). In addition,

for the sake of the fiftieth anniversary of independence,

Kabila created a structure called the Comit du 50enaire, that

would organize events nation-wide to celebrate the occasion.

State officials performed the mediating role between an

absent president and the population.

The committee, headed by General Kalume, a former

Minister during the regimes of Mobutu and his two succes-

sors (Laurent and Joseph Kabila), and only lasted for 2010,

consisted of a general coordinating group, a scientific sub-

group and a technical group. The committee organised vari-

ous activities, such as the selection of best poem of the

cinquantenaire, the choice of a logo, the installation of a book

fair, the planting of new monuments, the selection and deco-

ration of pioneers of independence, the commissioning of

songs and music video clips that glorified the nation, and the

installation of billboards around town. The main goal was to

mobilize the Congolese towards reconstruction, unity, soli-

darity and cohesion, as the General told me during an inter-

view.

Unhappiness and guilt

One of the main activities of the Comit du 50enaire was the

touring of a caravane that travelled throughout the 24 dis-

tricts of the city. The caravane was a party of about 35 people:

General Kalume, his staff, media producers, and soldiers. A

truck and a brass band accompanied the arrival of the Com-

mittees headman. The truck was covered with a white cloth

on which the three questions, do venons nous? O sommes

nous? O allons nous? (Where do we come from? Where are

we? And where are we headed to?), were painted. During

the months of February, March and April, the caravan visited

all districts in the city. In bars, church compounds and school

halls, General Kalume spoke each time to a group of about

100 people, who had been invited by the mayor of the dis-

trict. They were mainly composed of the chefs de quartier

(individuals who act as intermediaries between the residents

in a particular neighborhood and the government of the city),

the leaders of local voluntary associations, schoolteachers,

and people working at the town hall. Participants were

expected to pass on the message to their pupils, people living

in their area, members of their associations, and the people

who asked for information at the town hall.

Each day, General Kalume and representatives of his com-

mittee visited three districts in a row. The final speech was

also broadcast live on national television. The goal was to

include as many Congolese in this project as possible. In each

district, General Kalume gave two hour-long speeches,

addressing the three core questions: Where do we come

from? Where are we now? And where are we headed?

Kalumes addresses started with the strongly contested

assertion that Congolese had longed for independence. Time

and again, the audience disapproved of this statement, yelling

no!. Nevertheless, Kalume continued, stating that independ-

ence meant autonomy on all levels: economic, political, scien-

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tific, and social. Kalume argued that the consequences of

independence had been youth criminality, bad health infra-

structure, HIV, and poverty even in the domain of the state.

He thus suggested that after independence things went

wrong until Laurent Kabila came. During each meeting,

Kalume asked people to calculate how many hospitals were

needed in each district to meet the needs of the ever-grow-

ing population. He then replied: Conclusion: une exprience

malheureuse. Plus jamais a! (Conclusion: an unhappy expe-

rience. Never again!).

There are three significant aspects of this official recon-

struction of the political past. First, there is a strong emphasis

on emotions the unhappy experience. This is fully in line

with the general propaganda politics of Joseph Kabila, which

relies heavily on the manipulation of affect (Pype 2012). Sec-

ond, in this discourse there was a deliberate silencing of the

past colonial and postcolonial. The whole political history

seemed to have become a disposable past, of which hardly

any events or political characters could become building

blocks for the future. The only reference point was inde-

pendence itself. The past seemed to be divided into a period

before independence, one after independence and a now.

Yet, two main events of the past were singled out: Zairanisa-

tion (the political decision taken during the Mobutu regime

1974 which nationalized all enterprises) and the lootings

which occurred in 1991 and 1993 and which signaled the

despair of the Zairian population and their malcontent with

Mobutus leadership. Kalume lingered especially on the latter

event. Third, Kalume pointed at the Kinois themselves who

had been the cause of the economic crisis that was hitting

them hard since the early 1990s. Who enacted these pil-

lages? he asked. People replied: We did! This spontaneous

reply confirms the statement made by Jewsiewicki et al. that

the lootings in 1991 were a popular feast, a kind of carnava-

lesque explosion (1995:211, authors translation), and that

was recognized by many as a major resistance against the

oppressive regime. Kalume identified the lootings as an

important catalyst for the current crisis:

Indeed, you looted the shops, the factories, and you

thus chased away all the investors. The

consequences were loss of jobs, sudden decline of

industrial production, devaluation of the national

currency, increasing unemployment, lack of money

to pay for school fees for children, children

spending their lives on the streets, who then

become either street children or criminals; and so

on and so on. Conclusion: unhappy experience!

The meetings thus led to a relocation of responsibility with

the audience in order to mobilize their participation for the

progress of the country. The articulation and production of

guilt is significant. Guilt arises as a result of an act of omission

of a sort that typically elicits ... anger, resentment, or indigna-

tion in others (Williams 1993:89) and is associated with rep-

aration. It looks outwards, at what has happened to others,

and does not direct one to think about ones self (Williams

1993:91). In this way, the Congolese state deflected all

responsibility for blame.

During these meetings, the state seemed to be successful

in imposing guilt. The audience cheered and clapped in agree-

ment with the accusations expressed. This is in sharp contrast

to the quotidian narratives of victimhood, caused by a mal-

functioning contemporary state and corrupt previous leaders.

As Kalume wrapped up his speech, he invited people to

share their most unhappy memories, and also their happiest

ones, with the audience (and with the viewers when it was

broadcast on television). During these moments in which

individual experiences of hardship were publicly expressed,

many people in the audience identified with the interlocutors

pain. A community of suffering (Werbner 1991:19) was thus

created. General Kalume, and the Congolese state were thus

binding people through common unhappy experiences

(though selecting certain moments of rupture) and by imme-

diately promising happiness.

Pride

The subgroup of marketing for the Comit du 50enaire did not

so much focus on guilt as on promises and pride. These senti-

ments were evoked in the posters and billboards that were

planted around the city, on leaflets that were distributed dur-

ing political events and on clips that were broadcast on televi-

sion. A few days before the actual Independence Festivities, a

new TV channel, Tldu50enaire, was even created, mainly

broadcasting propaganda for the president in power.

The strong engagement with media was not new for the

Kinois; rather, Mobutu had already used the national radio

and television broadcasting systems early on to produce

national citizens and enhance the idea of collective unity.

Billboards around town showed animals and other natural

sceneries (waterfalls, jungle) with subscriptions such as le

rveil du gant (the waking up of the giant), Un pays plus

beau quavant (a country more beautiful than before),

Rsolument tourn vers lavenir (Strongly turned towards

the future), and, specifically addressing the viewers, Agis-

sons pour lavenir (lets act for the future).

During interviews with the media producers, it became

clear that they tried to mobilize affective experiences among

the audience, in order to promote trust in the current regime

and to activate patriotism through the awakening of dreams

and the creation of expectations. This affective practice,

which aims at expressing and strengthening attachments to

the Congolese nation, is a central point in Kabilas propaganda

campaign (Pype 2012).

The repetitive display of posters in the urban sphere, and

the broadcast of TV clips on television, shows that the state

counts on a communal experience of spectatorship in order

to produce nationalism. By looking at the same posters,

which stage pride in the nation, a particular, though unful-

filled, view of the nation is being projected. The whole idea

behind it is about the potentiality of the nation, claiming: We

collectively possess these resources, but they are not yet

actualized. We need to work together to achieve a nation, a

nation with a new beginning and a new future.

The bonding that is aimed for through these posters and

TV clips is one that is not-yet-real, though it is imaged and

imagined as achievable. Congolese citizenship, as it is evoked

here, is portrayed as an invitation to produce a nation that is

yet to come.

Congolese engagements with these posters and TV clips,

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though, are paradoxical. On the one hand they recognize the

states belief in the potential being realized, especially the

creation of a national community. But on the other hand

these images also point to the limits of the aesthetic endeav-

ors of the state, in particular because people do not believe

the promises that are proffered. Informants held that these

images were produced for the international community that

were to visit the city on June 30.

The grid of social bonding that the Comit du 50enaire

thus tried to establish among the Congolese community was

constituted on two different axes: one of guilt and one of

pride. The Congolese embraced the axe of guilt, while the

narrative of pride and its promises did not lure them. A possi-

ble explanation is that the axe of guilt allocates responsibility

to the citizens, and arms them with the idea that they have

their own destiny in hands. The posters and clips mobilizing

pride among the Kinois probably failed because taking on a

collective sense of guilt means allocating responsibility to

themselves, thereby implying an ability to change the direc-

tion of their and their fellows route to the future. Kinois

were aware of the necessary activity of the state in the reali-

zation of the promises for a better future. While the Kinois

do express faith in the state and the nation, as abstract enti-

ties, they also manifest a disappointment and a lack of trust in

the competence and willingness of their current rulers.

Shame

In the weeks preceding the festivities of June 30, a local activ-

ist for human rights was found dead in his car on the outskirts

of Kinshasa. It caused rage among Kinois, who suspected that

the government had commissioned the killing because of the

activists condemnations of the current rulers. A protest

march was organized a few days before June 30, and every-

where in the media activists discussed whether the Independ-

ence festivities could still go ahead.

Despite local contestations regarding the independence

festivities, the Comit du 50enaire and the government carried

on with the scheduled ceremonies and hosted international

guests such as the Belgian royal couple, presidents of neigh-

boring countries (including president Kagame, president of

Rwanda, a neighbor country with whom RDC shares a his-

tory of conflict over resources in the eastern part of the

country) and various diplomats. Ballet groups, performing

traditional and ethnic-related dances, had been hired to

entertain the crowd, both at the parade venue and in other

public spaces, and to give a traditional touch to the event.

Among the onlookers, there was much spontaneous anima-

tion: some dressed up as deceased political leaders (Kasa-

Vubu and Lumumba), while SAPEUR lovers, dressed in

designer clothes and using public space as a catwalk, strolled

around the streets in their finest clothing.

People could attend the celebration ceremonies or watch

them live on the state television channel. However, they

were not allowed near the platform that was reserved for the

invited guests. Even the press had to undergo strict clearance

control before they were allowed access to the central space

of the event, about 500 meters from the Parliament on a

newly constructed road.

On the morning of June 30, compared to the alleged 9

million inhabitants of the city, a rather small group of people

gathered to watch the event, which only began four hours

later than scheduled because the President arrived too late.

He was driven around in a military Jeep, in which he stood

upright with a stern look on his face. Protocol asked for

silence for the President, which was communicated via mega-

phones. Military salutes were exchanged between the Presi-

dent and a group of high-ranking soldiers before he held a

speech. In it he rehearsed a narrative that was already familiar

to the Kinois: For 40 years the country has not been ruled

adequately, and the future will be better. Various deceased

political leaders were heralded as pioneers of nationalism or

national heroes, and the speech ended with a promise that

the Congo is about to wake up. Immediately after the

speech, a military parade was held. Groups of the various

army divisions with their tanks and other fighting equipment,

police departments with their new motorcycles, and staff

from ministry departments paraded in front of the platform

with the high-ranking guests.

The parade was intended to show off the strength of

state, invoking pride in the nation. This image of a strong

Congolese army (and, by extension, the state) was merely a

simulacrum, however, given that the country is unable to ade-

quately defend its borders and that state services hardly func-

tion in a proper way. Nor did it stir any emotion of pride

among the onlookers.

Around noon, ordinary people took over by suddenly

interrupting the military parade. The march of the various

scheduled groups was broken into when the ruling political

party (PPRD), which was scheduled to march past next,

allowed the intrusion of onlookers. Just like many other asso-

ciations, the PPRD had been invited by the Comite du

50enaire to participate in the parade. Accounts collected in

the aftermath of the parade indicate that PPRD members had

entered the parade venue hesitantly and in a disorganized

way, and onlookers used this opportunity to enter the cere-

monial space. While most people merely followed the trajec-

tory of the other marching groups, a handful of street

children (shgue) began performing ndombolo-inspired

dances, such as Lopele an,d Kisanola, in front of the president,

accompanying their movements with protest chants. The

state instantly reacted to this. Military men and soldiers

quickly and forcibly removed the boys, prompting the image

director of the state television channel that was broadcasting

the event live to interrupt the filming. The president, his rela-

tives and all guests were swiftly led to the Parliament, far

away from the crowd that had begun to sing anti-Kabila songs

and loot the parade space.

Allowable and undesired affective elements, pride and

shame, were voiced in debates about the interruption of the

parade. Most people argued that by performing the ndom-

bolo-inspired dances, these boys had shamed the state and

the nation, though at the same time they laughed about it.

The ruling leaders tried to temper this shame and denied the

public humiliation. The organizers of the festivities and the

spokespeople of the government (the press included) literally

tried to hide the inefficiency of the state as the main organ-

izer of the parade not only by interrupting the live broad-

casts on the state channels and but also by banning the topic

in newspaper articles.

The disruption, apart from confirming that during such

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ceremonies various forms of aesthetics intermingle and that

some of these might escape the control of the state, also illus-

trates that many symbolic meanings concerning the nature of

the Congolese nation and peoples interactions with their rul-

ers are at play.

First, the vulgarity of the ndombolo dance and the boys

chants are expressions of the way in which ordinary peoples

voices have been officially curtailed in the African postcolonial

state. In an embodied way, anger, disdain and dismissal were

communicated to the ruling elite. I interpret the vulgarity as a

cynical performance, which is a political act (Mbembe

1992:16). The effects that the ndombolo dance generated,

indicate that embodied forms of expressing citizenship and

political opinions are at least as powerful as words. As an

embodied practice dance is first and foremost the most apt

medium for people who are not allowed to express their

thoughts and opinions in a discursive way. Kabilas regime is

oppressive towards any strong critique. Although there are

opposing voices that are heard in the media and on the

streets, the government regularly reacts by closing down TV

stations, and by threatening and/or even killing the most vocal

opponents. Apart from activists and politicians from the

opposition, people cannot really express their discontent

with the state. Performances such as dances and songs seem

to be less controllable than media shows and newspapers.

Through the boys bodies, a dialogic space was opened

between the ruling elite, the international community and the

general Kinois public. In this space, however, the orientation

of the communication had altered significantly: no longer

were the invited guests and the whole imagined nation an

audience addressed by the President (as had happened

merely an hour before when President Kabila gave his

speech); rather, the President himself was forced into the

position of the listener, the onlooker. In a very popular form

the dancers decentralized the authority of the state and chal-

lenged the ideal of the state as a centralizing force in repre-

senting citizens and aestheticizing them or orienting their

perceptions through feelings.

Second, with the disruption enacted by boys performing

the ndombolo dances in the space of the parade the space in

which the Congolese state was emerging in its glory we

encounter the slippage and the deformation of the stability of

the sign of the Congolese nation. The state apparatus, with its

extensive security system, had shown awareness of possible

slippage, transgression and re-writing by setting limits as to

who could participate in the parade. But PPRD members

themselves had opened up a space for deformation. The

desired stability of the state collapsed at the very moment of

its staging.

Third, this ethnographic material also brings into relief the

idea of the nation as a homogeneous public, and the fragile

character of nations as publics. Insofar as nations are collec-

tivities of homogeneous groups of individuals who are

addressed, in and through performances as citizens belonging

to the same nation, this case also indicates how audiences

actively co-constitute the formation of the nation-as-a-public.

Barber (1997:355) points out that, although audiences,

themselves, by choosing to participate, constitute themselves

as members of a collectivity, publics can be divided in

sharply demarcated constituencies (1997:357). That is to

say, differences of opinion can fragment the public. The col-

lectivity garnered in the parade space did not unambiguously

constitute a homogeneous group of individuals sharing the

same opinions and interests. While all those present mani-

fested an interest in partaking physically in the event that glo-

rified the Congolese nation, the sudden appearance of the

ndombolo performers brought into the open the cleavages

between groups of people applauding the Congolese state

and those contesting, provoking and critiquing it. There was a

shared sentiment of belonging; yet, the ways in which various

parts of the public interacted with the president were differ-

ent. While most people refrained from being more than mere

spectators (and thus complying with the majority of the audi-

ence as disciplined members of the national public), the boys

contested those in power who had staged the whole event.

Fourth, the performed dance style, ndombolo, has a public

and thus political meaning, since this dance form occupies a

particular position within Kinshasas dance world and spawns

a lot of discussion with regard to morality, the social and the

future of the nation. From the whole range of dance forms

that are performed in Congo (among others, traditional

i.e. ethnic related dances, and also religious and rumba

dances), ndombolo and the various dance movements that are

inspired by it are the most controversial. This dance style was

invented in Kinshasa in the late 1990s, and spread rapidly to

other African countries and sometimes even met with state

resistance. In Cameroon and various other African countries,

the ndombolo was banned for being too erotic or even

obscene. In Kinshasa, ndombolo has also acquired particular

political meanings. According to some informants, the dance

imitates President Laurent Kabila, who limped as he entered

in Kinshasa in 1997 to overthrow Mobutu. For other Kinois,

the dance refers to the way a monkey walks. Still others say

ndombolo is a Hindubill (slang) word for herbal drugs that

make ones body control rather difficult. The references to

sexuality and drugs render the dance suspect, especially

amongst fundamentalist Christians (see Pype 2006).

These ndombolo dances are very popular, but they should

only be enacted in bars or at parties, preferably not in front of

elders or authority figures (parents, guardians, teachers, poli-

ticians, etc.). They should not be performed in other social

contexts, precisely because they are sexually suggestive and

thus unacceptable if performed in a social context where

there is a difference in authority and power, since that would

imply a transgression of accepted norms of respect. Thus we

understand how these young ndombolo dancers generated

shame during the parade. This embarrassment sharply con-

tradicted the pride that the state was trying to mobilize.

The dance choreography, and the transgression of a social

space in which the dance should not be performed, were not

the only aspects with political meaning. The feeling of shame

that was mobilized through the dances, with the intention of

creating such feelings on the part of the government, also

conveys a strong political message. According to Williams

(1993), at the root of shame is a loss of power. Shame is a

reaction in realization of this loss. It was exactly what these

children tried to do during these dances: they tried to embar-

rass, to shame the state, thus showing that the state has no

power over them and the other citizens.

Interestingly, many Kinois felt ashamed about the behavior

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of the children in front of the seated president. According to

many, one still needs to show respect for the leader, even if

one does not support his leadership. Yet, as mentioned ear-

lier, at the same time there was also much laughter when

talking about this event. Such mirth seemed to convey a kind

of suppressed approval of the boys acts. They had done

something no other social group would dare to. So many

Kinois wanted to distance themselves, on the one hand, from

the street children who behaved inappropriately, but also

from the state representatives, because, as was argued, they

are not properly fed by them. One would repeatedly hear

tozolia te, tozoyoka nzala (we are not eating, we are hun-

gry), employing the powerful food idiom which underpins

appropriate leadership in African societies (Schatzberg 2001).

The performance of the ndombolo-inspired dances was thus

first and foremost a moral reversal, which expressed a funda-

mental critique on those in power.

It is not surprising that street children performed these

bad dances. Street children constitute the most marginalized

social group of the city. People do not like such children, who

are known to be violent, to steal and to commit other crimes.

They can be equated with social dirt or matter out of place

(see De Boeck and Honwana 2005:9, Geenen 2009). In addi-

tion, in recent years the shgue have become the states

other. Especially in the run-up to 30 June 2010, the citys

authorities organized hunts, at irregular times, for the street

children. Policemen and soldiers arrived at places where

shgue were known to gather, and imprisoned them for a few

weeks in Kinshasa before sending them to the interior, where

they were either detained in re-education centers or released

but left to fend for themselves. The urban government had

made this one of their key actions in the cleansing of the city

before the international community was to arrive in Kinshasa

for the Independence Festivities. The arbitrariness of the

arrests and the violent treatment by the soldiers and police-

men obviously produced anger among the remaining or

escaped street children. One could say that, on June 30, the

shgue took revenge for the arrests of their fellows and

friends. Yet, the message the boys behavior conveyed also

bore a collectively shared meaning. As mentioned earlier, Kin-

shasa is known to be hostile to Joseph Kabila, who is accused

of not being a Congolese national, of not speaking their lan-

guage (Lingala), and of not being a good leader. These street

children were speaking the voice of a large part of the Kinois

community.

It is exactly the social liminality the street children occupy

which allowed them to critique society in most powerful

ways, using counter-violence and their bodies i.e. not using

intellectual or political rhetoric. Although they also face heavy

repression from the state, they seem to be able to express

the desire for a better functioning government, even when

their actions stir anxiety and fear among the urbanites. For

example in July 2006 shgue attacked the premises of Pasteur

Kutinho and Werrason, two leading figures of, respectively,

Kinshasas religious and music world, thus (violently) express-

ing their discontent with these individuals overt alignment

with the president. Those children have nothing to lose and

can react in ways that ordinary people cannot. Their social

marginalization makes them strong against the state.

To conclude: disrupted ties between the citizens and the state

The decentralization of the authority of the Congolese state

also became apparent in the evening of the Independence

Festivities. The Comit du 50enaire had arranged two popular

concerts: The music band of Werrason was scheduled to per-

form in front of the Parliament, while JB Mpiana, another

leading figure of the Congolese music scene, had been com-

missioned to hold a concert in Ndjili, one of Kinshasas most

dense communities. This must be read against the long his-

tory of Congolese states involvement with the politics of

sentiment and arts. As mentioned above, since Mobutus

time, music bands have been charged with praise singing for

the leader. Both Laurent and Joseph Kabila have continued

this intimate connection with local musicians. Drawing on the

musicians popularity among the larger audience, rulers pur-

chased affective and emotional investment from their sub-

jects through the commissioning of songs that would circulate

all over the country.

Yet, both concerts were cancelled on June 30, the national

day itself. According to rumours, a disagreement on payment

for the musicians, who are usually not on speaking terms, was

the reason for both of them not to show up. The reaction of

many Kinois was one of disappointment, but they all took the

side of the musicians, arguing that the state authorities should

spend more money on popular events that include Kinois,

instead of paying for corruption or for window dressing.

The no-show on the evening of June 30 is a significant

token signaling that the current Congolese government

invests insufficiently in national binding and bonding. In partic-

ular, the longstanding privileged mediators of national unity

the Congolese musicians have not been convinced to par-

ticipate in the production of the nation. If these mediators are

not included, then there is no performance, and there is no

public. The non-event of these popular concerts was signifi-

cant since, again, the Kinois were excluded from actively

being engaged in the Independence festivities. While the cele-

bration ceremonies on the morning of June 30 were under-

stood to have been aimed at the international community, the

two concerts were the only events scheduled that day which

explicitly had a Kinois public in mind.

The material presented above has made explicit the par-

ticular role of aesthetic performances in the making and re-

imagining of the Congolese nation. Affective audiences were

envisioned by the state, but, during the event, positions

between producer and audience shifted as moments of

nation binding were interrupted by chaos or were even can-

celled. This manifests a serious failure in the binding of the

state with the ordinary people. While more thorough investi-

gations of national Congolese publics need to be carried out,

this article hints at a few dimensions of the constitution and

the imagination of the Congolese national collectivity. First,

while the state envisages one homogeneous public that

shares in the same feelings of pride for the nation, this has

obviously not been brought about. Rather, the national pub-

lic is constantly questioned, and constituted along different

lines of interest and opinion about the leader. As mentioned,

most of the Kinois did not show up at the parade space on

June 30; in addition, most people do not share the sentiments

of pride that the posters and billboards should evoke. Sec-

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ond, the material also brings to the fore the fragmentation of

the public present during performances that should glorify

the nation. While it has been argued before that perform-

ances co-constitute their audiences, the data on the ndombolo

performances support the idea that public rituals in contem-

porary, complex societies cannot be approached in a Durkhe-

imian manner, but, rather, that the analysis should also have

room for negativity, contestation and conflict (see Arnaut

2013).

That is not to say that there are no nationalist sentiments

among Kinois. As a matter of fact, there are. What is crucial is

that the Kinois do not agree with the spectacles of the nation

as performed via state-led organizations. This does not deny

the love for the nation, rather it signals the incapacity of the

current state to produce apt venues for nationhood. Congo-

lese sense of national belonging, as many have claimed, is a

heritage of Mobutus regime, who invested much in the

mobilization of patriotism, in particular through the staging of

cultural spectacles.

While a particular image of the nation might be projected,

the whole community does not always share the sentiments

or the attachments to the nation. Onlookers can disconnect

from the festivities, although they do contemplate them.

Emotions that are intended to be transmitted to the audience

through particular performances do not always attain their

goal. Rather, the ties between the audience and the produc-

ers constitute the basis of spectatorship and allow, facilitate

or hamper and, at worst, block the transmission of affects.

While the Kinois shared a national sentiment among them-

selves, as was expressed in concerns about the right repre-

sentation of their country towards the international

community and also in dreams about their future, the political

elite obviously did not belong to the national community in

the way in which Kinois imagined and experienced it. This

could be the most fundamental drama of the contemporary

postcolonial Kinois society.

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork for this article was carried out in 2009 and 2010, in

the context of a Newton International Fellowship (2009-

2011), funded by the British Academy, and carried out at the

Centre of West African Studies (University of Birmingham,

United Kingdom). I am indebted to the journalists of the pub-

lic and private TV stations in Kinshasa, with whom I worked

for more than 7 months. I also thank the different sections of

the Comite du 50enaire for their hospitality during fieldwork,

in particular Prof. E Ziem Ndaywel and Prof. D. Sabakinu. I

am extremely grateful to Vanessa Petzold, an MA student at

the University of Mainz, who was carrying out fieldwork in

the Comite du 50enaire in 2010, and with whom I have con-

ducted interviews, shared fieldnotes, and exchanged data,

impressions, and preliminary analysis. Pedro Monaville and

Peter Lambertz were wonderful colleagues during that

period of fieldwork, and were actually in the audience on

June 30. Their narratives in the aftermath of the event have

also shaped my analysis. The paper was presented at the

Point Sud workshop (Bamako, January 2012), organized by

Carola Lentz and Anne-Marie Brandstetter (University of

Mainz), and at the departmental seminar of Anthropology and

Sociology at the University of the Western Cape (March

2012, invited by Heike Becker). I wish to thank the colleagues

of the Centre of West African Studies, the participants in the

Bamako workshop and the University of the Western Cape

seminar, Pedro Monaville, Carola Lentz and the anonymous

reviewers for carefully reading previous versions of this arti-

cle and commenting on them.

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The drama(s) of Independence Day: reflections on political affects and aesthetics in Kinshasa (2010)Katrien PypeInstitute of Anthropological Research in Africa, Faculty of Social Sciences - University of Leuven Parkstraat 45 Bus 3615, 3000 Leuven, Belgium [email protected] June 30 2010, in Kinshasa, a drama unfolded as the military march was abruptly interrupted by street children intermingling...Keywords: DR Congo; youth; dance; media; resistance; propaganda; public ritualPerformance, affect and the nationDramatization of the Congolese nationUnhappiness and guiltPrideShameTo conclude: disrupted ties between the citizens and the stateAcknowledgementsReferences

katrien pype (2013) the drama(s) of independence day: reflections on political affects and...

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