It is generally recognized that the impress left upon the African society by the imposition of a common administrative framework has been instrumental in fostering a sense of nationhood among the ...different peoples within a given territory, but it must be added that the extent to which Africans actually share this feeling is likely to reflect the patterns and style of administration introduced by the colonizing power.
In view of the centralizing and uniform system of administration introduced by Belgium, one would therefore expect a greater sense of national unity than presently exists among the Congolese. What appears at first
CONCLUSION René Lemarchand
Political Awakening in the Congo,
04/2023
Book Chapter
Granting that the predominance of parochial loyalties constitutes a formidable obstacle to national unification, how should one account for the failure of Congolese nationalists to transcend regional ...and ethnic particularisms? To what extent is this failure the consequence of environmental factors inherent in the Congolese situation? How far is it a reflection of Belgian colonial policies and practices? In what ways has this affected the dynamic of Congolese nationalism? Since some of these questions have already been explored in the preceding chapters, here one needs only to summarize the arguments presented earlier, and relate the concluding hypotheses to probable future
THE GENERAL ELECTIONS René Lemarchand
Political Awakening in the Congo,
04/2023
Book Chapter
The general elections of May, 1960, represent the final phase of a process of political transfer which formally began in January of the same year at the Brussels Round Table Conference. Although the ...Round Table had once and for all settled the issue of a target date for independence, there was still considerable uncertainty as to which group would acquire a dominant position in the new political order—if only because the contestants were so numerous and their bases of support so unstable.
The tensions arising from this atmosphere of uncertainty were further heightened by the suspense created by the
Owing in part to the sheer number and mutability of the groups involved, the political alignments that have taken place in the Congo between January, 1959, and June, 1960, tend to convey an ...impression of extreme complexity. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the political options and priorities of Congolese leaders have been influenced by entirely different factors, depending on the period considered.
Thus, before the Brussels Round Table, intergroup relationships had been largely conditioned by tactical maneuverings vis-à-vis the metropolitan government. The principal aim of Congolese leaders during this period was to organize common fronts designed
The impact of missionary activities and the spread of Western education are among the factors that have most profoundly affected the traditional order in the Congo. Catholic missions were at the ...forefront of European intrusion in the Lower Congo, both chronologically and instrumentally. Similarly, in the nineteenth century Christian missionaries not only assisted professional explorers, but were themselves responsible for exploring extensive areas. The missionary endeavor, however, exerted its strongest influence on the growth of a national consciousness in the field of education: “The one aim of education which has had a continuous history from primitive times to the present
Owing in part to the official attitude of the Belgian government toward European settlement, until the postwar period the Congo attracted only a small number of Europeans. In 1908 only 3,000 whites ...lived in the Congo; between 1920 and 1940 their number increased from 6,971 to 27,791. In the decade following World War II, on the other hand, the non-African population almost trebled, from 34,789 in 1946 to 98,804, in 1956. By 1959, 114,341 non-Africans lived in the Congo, of whom 88,913 were Belgian, 1,582 were Asian, and the rest were of diverse origins; the total represented a ratio of
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES René Lemarchand
Political Awakening in the Congo,
04/2023
Book Chapter
Ruth Slade has recently observed that “if the isolation of the Congo from the rest of the world could have continued indefinitely … Belgian policies might have met with an outstanding success.”¹ This ...view cannot be accepted without certain reservations, for even when contacts with the outside world were minimal or nonexistent, a number of sporadic revolts occurred which in one way or another expressed a reaction against Belgian domination. But it rightly emphasizes the extent to which outside influences have stimulated the growth of political activities in the Congo.
External factors and influences have operated in different ways and
Unlike most of the separatist moves that have accompanied the liquidation of Belgian rule in the Congo, the secession of the Katanga was not so much the result of the fear of domination of one ethnic ...group by another, as the end product of a combination of historical, economic, and social forces converging toward the same end. As already mentioned, the separate administrative status enjoyed by the province during the early phase of Belgian rule, coupled with the receptivity of its non-African population to the ideas and influences emanating from the Rhodesias and South Africa, had already generated strong separatist
In few other parts of Africa are the links between modern political developments and precolonial societies more apparent than in the former Belgian Congo. Although there are wide variations in the ...degree to which traditional factors have influenced the growth of Congolese parties, nearly all of them have evidenced some sort of relationship to the traditional environment in which they grew. Indeed, even when this type of relationship would seem hardly compatible with the program and ideology of specific parties, the evidence shows that their leaders were fully aware of the advantages that might accrue from the exploitation of precolonial
