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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The story of a tragedy: how people in Haut-Katanga interpret the post-colonial history of Congo
Author:Rubbers, BenjaminISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:47
Issue:2
Pages:267-289
Language:English
Geographic terms:Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Katanga
Subjects:memory
national identity
race relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/30224943
Abstract:This article examines how people in Haut-Katanga (Democratic Republic of Congo) remember their national history. In order to give an account of the Congolese tragedy since independence, the inhabitants of Haut-Katanga often resort to four different narratives: the abandonment by Belgium; the biblical curse on Africans; the conspiracy of Western capitalism; or the alienation of life powers by Whites. Though these four stories offer different scenarios, they are all constructed around the Congolese/White dichotomy. This article suggests that this racial/national frame finds its origins in colonial and national ideologies, which have left their mark on Haut-Katanga, and that it continues today to structure the narratives through which people remember their postcolonial history. Collective memory and racial/national identity are reciprocally constituted in these stories, but in different terms. They offer, accordingly, different ways of influencing the present. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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