| Abstract: | Temporality in contemporary Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) is of a very specific, eschatological kind and takes its point of departure in the Bible, more particularly in the Book of Revelation, which has become an omnipresent point of reference in Kinshasa's collective imagination. The lived-in time of everyday life in Kinshasa is projected against the canvas of the completion of everything, a completion which will be brought about by God. As such, the Book of Revelation is not only about doom and destruction, but it is essentially also a book of hope, a symbol of possible 'recommencement'. Yet, the popular understanding of the Apocalypse very much centres on the crack of doom and the omnipotent presence of Evil, thereby contributing to the rapid demonization of everyday life in Congo. This article focuses on the impact of millennialism on the Congolese experience, in which the realities of the 'in-between' and the interstitial, much celebrated by postcolonial theorists today, are constantly translated into mythical and prophetic terms as apocalyptic interlude. Ann., bibliogr., notes, sum. in English, French and Dutch. [Journal abstract] |
AfricaBib 
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