Naming Colonialism: History and Collective Memory in the Congo, 1870–1960

7. Confronting African Voices: Negotiations and Instrumentalization of Names

136 7 Confronting African Voices Negotiations and Instrumentalization of Names Most colonial officials recognized that their local names were voices of village communities and expressed protests, wishes for negotiation , accusations of suffering, and even praise. Based on my own research , this chapter documents various ways colonial officials confronted these voices. The first part of the chapter is a brief discussion of the inevitability of negotiations. It sets the contexts that help us understand why colonial government officials deployed their local identities to construct a discourse of domination. It elucidates the idea that although Belgian colonialism was brutal, it could hardly work without some segments of the village world participating. The second part explores ways in which colonial officials used messages they decoded from their names. It investigates how colonial officials translated messages of praise names into paternalist discourse to woo residents of the villages into colonial economic and political projects and stave off perceptions of colonialism that belied colonialism’s civilizing mission. It explores ways of- ficials and agents retooled messages of violence to terrorize Congolese without using the corporal violence suggested by the explicit meanings of their names. Colonialism and the Inevitability of Negotiations The exclusion of Congolese from political participation characterized Belgian colonization of the Congo as it did in other parts of Africa. The Congolese had no voice in advisory institutions such as the Commission Permanente pour la Protection des Indigènes and Conseil de Gouvernement. Missionaries and high-level government officials spoke for them. Even when Congolese were co-opted in the Conseil de Province in the 1950s, they did not carry great weight in the debates to determine their destiny because of their lack of democratic experience and because of their inadequate command of French, the official language of debates.1 But most officials in the colonial administration, particularly those who carried out policies among the Congolese, acknowledged that such an exclusion harmed colonial purposes. By highlighting the experiences of seasoned officials, the training of the European newcomers shows that the government was aware of the danger of the policy and that it had not always relied on force and threats of force as instruments of state policies. From the outset, colonial officials acknowledged the public meetings, the important role of chiefs’ councils (1910–60), and native courts (1926–60), which were the formal avenues for negotiations.2 Outside these bodies, colonial officials paid attention to the views of colonialism held by Congolese villagers and which Congolese expressed through work songs, the performance of rituals, dances, and other forms of body language.3 Several economic, political, and military conditions made negotiations inevitable. First, to lower the financial cost of fighting, the autonomy of local leaders longing for power to make decisions on local affairs required administrative decentralization and some local participation, not just intimidation and violence.4 Second, the fear of misrepresentation of colonialism and revolts and its impact on long-term political interactions showed to colonial planners the relevance of negotiations with the village world. From the outset, violence showed its limits as an effective and workable long-term instrument of social control. The dispersion of villagers across a huge country, the small size of the police force in each chefferie and secteur, and the costs of military expeditions diminished the power of the colonial authorities to monitor people and communities.5 Still, violence generated many responses that worried colonial state officials.6 During colonization, Congolese villagers not only rebelled, rioted, and attacked and beat tax collectors and agricultural officers, but they also showed their feelings during public meetings, with their frowning faces and disdainful looks. Frowning was the most common contemptuous bodily language that exemplified the everyday forms of protest during village meetings with colonial officials and caused officials to complain, to imprison arbitrarily, and on occasion to almost shoot Congolese .7 The frustrations of colonial officials convinced many, especially Confronting African Voices 137 the proponents of force, of the enormous difficulty of imposing domination solely by violence. Even the most ruthless officials slowly came to recognize the usefulness of incentives and inducements and started combining force with tactics of humiliation. To punish individual resisters , colonial officials used public whipping, stripping, and chaining from the outset. While the need to prevent “agitators” from running away justified chaining, the stripping and...