{"id":1534,"date":"2020-02-11T07:12:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T07:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=1534"},"modified":"2022-01-04T07:16:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T07:16:07","slug":"why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/1534\/why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"Why history matters in understanding conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Gillian Mathys*, & Judith Verweijen*<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

An\u00a0intense debate<\/a>\u00a0about the rural commune, or district, of Minembwe in South Kivu province in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has recently rocked Congolese politics. The stakes are high. The Minembwe area has been subject to\u00a0horrific violence<\/a>\u00a0against civilians committed by militia groups linked to both proponents and opponents of the administrative unit. While the dispute over Minembwe is\u00a0not the main cause of this violence<\/a>, it does feed into it.<\/p>\n

The current controversy was sparked by the\u00a0installation ceremony<\/a>\u00a0of the commune\u2019s mayor on 28 September 2020, which was attended by a high-level political and military delegation. The ceremony drew attention to the fact that other rural communes are not yet functional. These communes were created in the framework of a nation-wide\u00a0decentralisation process<\/a>, and place populous rural areas under non-customary local governance.<\/p>\n

According to some, the uneven implementation of the communes points to\u00a0preferential treatment<\/a>\u00a0of the Banyamulenge, an ethnic group that dominates the commune\u2019s leadership. Opponents of the commune have also flagged\u00a0procedural irregularities<\/a>\u00a0and issues with the commune\u2019s geographical limitation.<\/p>\n

Yet what has provoked most commotion is that the creation of the commune is seen as an attempt by the Banyamulenge to\u00a0usurp the authority<\/a>\u00a0of other ethnic groups and dispossess them of their ancestral grounds. This would be part of a wider conspiracy by Rwandophones (speakers of Kinyarwanda language) to\u00a0\u2018balkanise\u2019 the Congo<\/a>\u00a0and annex parts of its territory to neighbouring countries or a putative\u00a0\u2018Tutsi empire\u2019<\/a>. Such accusations of balkanisation have a\u00a0longer history<\/a>, and have become a staple of Congolese politics.<\/p>\n

The idea of balkanisation is informed by discourses of\u00a0\u2018autochthony\u2019<\/a>\u00a0or indigeneity. These discourses revolve around the claim to be the \u2018first\u2019 or \u2018original\u2019 inhabitants of a certain area as opposed to newcomers or \u2018foreigners\u2019. Certain ethnic groups in South Kivu draw upon the notion of autochthony to\u00a0claim local authority<\/a>\u00a0and land and deny this to others, who are portrayed as \u2018foreigners\u2019. These claims are generally grounded in specific readings of history, in particular precolonial and colonial history.<\/p>\n

International journalists and observers often take these pervasive discourses\u00a0at face value<\/a>. As a result, they reproduce deeply problematic readings of history. These would, for instance, ascribe the current violence in eastern DRC to\u00a0\u2018age-old\u2019 ethnic animosities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But a close reading of in-depth historical work on the region tells us something else.<\/p>\n

\u2018Age-old\u2019 ethnic animosities?<\/strong><\/p>\n

An exclusive focus on conflict and violence obscures histories of cooperation and collaboration.\u00a0Research<\/a>\u00a0tracing individual life-stories in conflict-affected areas in eastern DRC shows that the social relationships between groups considered \u2018ethnic\u2019 are far more complex than the singular focus on conflict allows for.<\/p>\n

A good example is\u00a0blood pacts<\/a>\u00a0between people of different communities, such as Banyamulenge and Bafuliiru. These pacts \u2013 sometimes going back to the nineteenth century \u2013 were an expression of ritual kinship and created bonds of mutual assistance between families from different communities.<\/p>\n

Violent conflict may have undone many of these older ties but mutual relations across \u2018ethnic\u2019 boundaries continue to the present. Moreover, in several villages, Banyamulenge and other communities are still\u00a0living together<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the past<\/a>, boundaries between \u2018ethnic\u2019 groups were never as rigid as they are today \u2013 neither in social nor in geographical terms. Kinship groups were often mobile and could attach and detach themselves to larger social collectives. Moreover, other forms of belonging, such as clan membership and initiation societies, were often at least as salient as \u2018ethnicity\u2019.<\/p>\n

But complex processes in the colonial era have made ethnicity\u00a0a rigid and territorial notion<\/a>. They have largely obscured the memories of these other modes of social existence and belonging.<\/p>\n

The dangers of anachronistic thinking<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, colonial and precolonial history are often read through the lens of the present, leading to anachronistic thinking. A case in point is the division between \u2018autochthonous\u2019 and \u2018non-autochthonous\u2019 populations. Near-constant\u00a0population movements<\/a>\u00a0imply that few groups in the Kivus can actually claim to be\u00a0original\u00a0inhabitants of certain areas.<\/p>\n

Moreover, labelling groups that migrated to the present-day Congo before international boundaries existed as foreigners or immigrants is anachronistic. What causes these groups to be considered\u00a0outsiders\u00a0is not the fact that they came from elsewhere. Rather,\u00a0colonial border-making<\/a>\u00a0changed the way their former areas of origins were considered.<\/p>\n

Policies pertaining to the\u00a0organisation of customary governance<\/a>\u00a0further changed the perceptions of these groups. For reasons that had more to do with colonial interests than with existing sociopolitical organisation, the colonisers granted certain Rwandophone groups customary governance units and others not.<\/p>\n

Today, the absence of a colonially recognised form of \u2018customary\u2019 organisation\u00a0is used as \u2018proof\u2019<\/a>\u00a0of whether certain groups were present during the colonial era or not. However, this \u2018criterion\u2019 seems to be mostly applied to Rwandophone groups, and not the multiple other groups that were denied a chiefdom, such as the\u00a0Batembo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, in spite of being granted their own chieftaincy in the colonial era, the\u00a0Barundi<\/a>\u00a0are today not always considered \u2018autochthonous\u2019 either. The Barundi are an ethnic group in Uvira territory who speak Kirundi, which is close to Kinyarwanda. Similar to the Banyamulenge,\u00a0politicised discourses<\/a>\u00a0continue to label them as \u2018nationals\u2019 from a neighbouring country.<\/p>\n

At the same time, some groups that migrated from the present-day territories of Rwanda and Burundi are at present considered \u2018autochthonous\u2019. This is so for the\u00a0Bazige or Bahungu clans<\/a>\u00a0in Uvira territory. As these examples show us, invoking history to sustain claims to autochthony is often problematic.<\/p>\n

Bringing history back in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Historical claims of belonging tend to be based on selective readings of history. Yet people in conflict perceive them to be very real. They consider the lands on which they live to be ancestral, and believe they have a right to the soil that is determined by ethnic belonging.<\/p>\n

To understand present-day conflicts, we need to take these perceptions into consideration. But we also need to acknowledge that these understandings of history have been shaped by a colonial \u2018grammar of belonging\u2019. They have also been mobilised politically.<\/p>\n

Engaging with the past in a conflict situation, where misinformation abounds, is not an easy task. Colonial documents are circulated out of context on WhatsApp and other social media to prove one position or another.<\/p>\n

While drawing on history is a potential minefield, we think there is value in genuinely engaging with the past. History shows us we should not take claims about who belongs where at face value. Moreover, it reveals that those groups in conflict today also have long-standing relations of friendship, integration and collaboration.<\/p>\n

These are the stories that are also told by people living in the Minembwe area. But they have become overshadowed by accounts of violence. To overcome conflict, we need to bring back historical nuance and listen to the entire range of lived realities of belonging.<\/p>\n

The failure to do so renders us complicit in the\u00a0colonial project<\/a>\u00a0of classifying and dividing people.<\/p>\n

\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640<\/span><\/p>\n

*Lecturer, Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University<\/p>\n

*Lecturer, University of Sheffield<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Gillian Mathys*, & Judith Verweijen* An\u00a0intense debate\u00a0about the rural commune, or district, of Minembwe in South Kivu province in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has recently rocked Congolese politics. The stakes are high. The Minembwe area has been subject to\u00a0horrific violence\u00a0against civilians committed by militia groups linked to both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":7,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"The Conversation","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,10],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-history","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}