Les Ninja,les Cobra et les Zoulou crèvent l’écran à Brazzaville: le rôle les médias et la construction des identités de violence politique

In his recently published studies, the author analyzed the development and use of militia groups in the political conflicts that shook Congo-Brazzaville in the 1990s. After briefly reviewing these events, he points up the change in recruiting militiamen that occurred in the last phase of these conflicts. His text is primarily concerned with the role of Western mass culture in shaping the bodies and identities of these militiamen and the militiamen’s sense of identity. From the late 1950s (here the author draws on the research of Georges Balandier) to the late 1990s, the young men of Brazzaville were inspired in constructing a modernity of their own bodies by certain Western action films. The graphic violence in these films, perpetrated by characters whom the young men adopted as their heroes, legitimated their own use of violence.     

Traumatismes et séparations familiales prolongées chez les réfugiés du Congo-Kinshasa établis à Montréal

The authors inquire into traumatic experiences of refugies who recently arrived in Montreal from the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. They look into both the trauma experienced before as well as after they settled in Montreal. Based on close exmination of some selected cases of men accepted into Canada as political refugees, the conclusion stresses the importance of the family in successfully overcoming the traumatic past.     

Le théologien et le somnambule: un épisode récent de l'histoire almoravide en Mauritanie

In 2012, images of a mystical mermaid known locally as Mami Wata circulated on the Internet and via people's mobile phones, sparking rumours that Chinese labourers had captured her as they were installing underwater fibreoptic cables. Appearing as a grotesque sea-creature with a gnarled, shrivelled body, this new image of Mami Wata challenges older, popular depictions of her as a beautiful maiden. Further, in her deformed body, Mami Wata reveals new tensions arising from promises of wealth and modernisation promoted by both Chinese and Congolese governments. Accounts of rumours/urban legends and metaphors of contagion animate larger contemporary discussions concerning development projects, “otherness” and the influence of the Internet and mobile phone technology on production of popular African culture. The female siren, Mami Wata, is a recurring motif in Kinshasa's collective urban imaginary. Historically she has been an expression of modernity and hybridity through visual representation in popular painting, sculpture and television serials. Now Mami Wata appears in the digital world. In this article, in addition to analysing the ways in which contemporary technology mediates this archetypal figure, I draw on notions of otherness, recent historical, political and economic changes in the Democratic Republic of Congo to analyse the ways they inform the particular shape and meaning that Mami Wata takes when transformed into the digital domain.     

Le marécage ou le Zaïre des années 1990

In 1985, in the previous special issue of the Canadian Journal of African Studies on Congo-Kinshasa, the author analyzed the situation in Zaire in the early 1980s, which he saw as marked above all by economic crisis. Here, in attempting to show the structural causes of the absolute paralysis of economic and political life in Congo today, he underscores the instability of domestic political life: the dictator has built instability into a system, and that system has poisoned the entire society.     

Logiques transnationales et stratégies locales: les étapes de l'implantation des religions afro-brésiliennes au Portugal

The transnationalisation of Afro-Brazilian religions to Portugal is marked by the opening in 1974 of the first terreiro (house of worship) in the city of Lisbon and today there are around 40 terreiros throughout the country. This article will attempt to elucidate the stages in the implantation of Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal at the level of individual religious observance as well as at the more global level of Portuguese society. In order to understand these stages, it is necessary on the one hand to consider the purely local strategies enabling a progressive adaptation of Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal. On the other hand, this study must be situated within comparative research on the transnationalisation of Afro-American religions, which facilitates an understanding of their common processes of legitimisation in new contexts.     

L’Afrique centrale francophone entre au XXIe siècle: Citoyens et États,nations, régions face au monde

This special issue is the successor to Volume 18 Number 1 of the Canadian Journal of African Studies, published in 1984 under the title, “État indépendant du Congo, Congo belge, République démocratique du Congo, République du Zaïre?” The title of that special issue devoted to the political and social crisis in the Republic of Zaire ended with a question mark, implicitly asking: What next for Republic of Zaire? The present special issue offers a reply, one nobody expected fifteen years ago. At least symbolically, the country has recovered its identity as an independent contemporary polity, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many authors in this issue argue that forty years of independence were mainly a time of violence, destruction, and pillaging. Ilunga Kabongo suggests that the global crises was so deep in the mid-1990s that people would vote for anyone able to restore normal life, the return of coloniser included.

Once a regional power, the Congo of today is a toy in hands of its neighbours, some of them being very small countries such as Rwanda which is deeply resented by the Congolese. The circle of violence seems to have engulfed local society, starting from the 1990 massacre of university students on the Lubumbashi campus. Even if, for the first time in a century, the war in and over the Congo is a regional African affair, it is difficult to rejoice as it is more the result the lack of interest from the world powers than the proof of Central African political independence.

The issue is organised in the manner allowing the reader to look first at the regional situation, mainly that of the French-speaking countries. Given the importance of Uganda and of Museveni, both as a political and military local power and as a model of a new leader, an analysis of his autobiography by Ron Kassimir is included. As often as it was possible, the voice of social scientists working and living in the region is heard. In little more than three years, between the time this issue was initiated in late 1996 and the time of its publication, many of them were forced into exile. It is an important characteristic of the present day situation. In addition to social science analyses, some local voices are included in order to help readers to grasp local perceptions and local efforts to understand the ongoing life, to find a way out.

As far as Congolese social scientists are concerned, we have publish articles of scholars belonging to three generations: those who were mainly educated abroad and came to national universities in the early 1970s; those who were mainly educated at local universities and who came to teaching and research in the 1980s; those who were educated in the 1990s, partially locally and partially abroad. It is important to note that many of those scholars were in the meantime forced to expatriate. The comparison of their understanding of what is going on can help us to appreciate Congolese social thought.

One central fact emerges, more from the search for peace and comments of local urban intellectuals than from scholarly essays. Today, while the borders of the Congo are disregarded by various national armies and foreign intervention forces, while local markets depend more on foreign exchange than on local currency, while the country is de facto divided into four more or less autonomous parts, ordinary people feel Congolese and refuse partition as well as secession. Should one conclude that in the deepest crises of its twentieth-century political history a nation is born, that it is born despite the demise of political institutions?