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

5. Naming and Belgian Colonial Rule

92 5 Naming and Belgian Colonial Rule This chapter documents critiques of colonialism by Congolese villagers through naming. It argues that accusations of assaults on the village world, violence, exploitation of women, and intrusion of colonialism into everyday life expressed sufferings, anger, resentments, and protests. Although the chapter pays attention to different categories of names given to various groups of European professionals, as discussed in chapter 3, it focuses mainly on names given to officials of the territorial administration and agricultural service. Territorial administrators, tax collectors , agronomists, and crop supervisors established more than any other groups of colonial government officials many and consequential relations with the villagers. The two sections of the chapter focus on individual names that wove colonial situations into the themes of violence and assaults of colonialism on the village world. Analyzing individual names that were perceptions of colonial situations prevailing in a larger area elicits consistencies and changes in the workings of colonialism. Scholars have documented and gauged the exploitation of Congolese crop cultivators and their resistance.1 To evaluate the revolutionary political behaviors of Congolese cash crop producers, a number of works have looked at the fines resisters paid to colonial treasuries and days of imprisonment and lashes they received. These quantitative data showed the exploitative conditions of the colonial system and economy. Yet the analyses overlooked a contemporaneous discourse of villagers lamenting and contesting colonialism by contrasting wealth accumulation by capitalist segments with losses Congolese villagers incurred while selling their crops and their labor force. The analyses do not express, as much as names do, the inside views of the producers about the effects of low prices and high taxes and fines on the economic security of the households. Exploring assaults of colonialism on the village world by looking at the meanings of names given to colonial officials is thus a strategic entry point into the inside views of colonial aggression and violence, and fills the gap. To show the relations of naming to colonial rule and experiences of colonial life, the chapter first explores the accusations of colonial assaults on the village world. Second, it looks at critiques of violence by concentrating on native courts and prisons, whippings, cash crops, roadwork , and exploitation of women. It also investigates names, which, although seemingly less loaded, denounced such colonial practices as the confiscations of food. The chapter contends that the accusations of colonial violence and assaults of colonialism on the village world were laments of suffering and expressions of discontent and anger. Yet, references to historical memories and the ambiguities of messages of names transformed many accusations of assaults and violence into voices of protest against colonialism and its representatives. Names and the Evil of Belgian Colonialism A typical accusation of colonial officials as evil and colonialism as assaults on the village world was the name Ndoki, which means “Witch.” The Congolese gave Elter the name when he was the station chief in Kasongo because of his use of exasperating stereotypes designed to deny them justice: “Whenever a Congolese was accused of a crime and brought to his court, Elter who was deaf asked his elderly guard Kumbwa to repeat what the accused said. The guard then leaned closer to his ear and shouted, ‘he is saying that he is innocent.’ Elter then imperturbably pronounced the sentence. ‘If you say that it is not you, then it is you.’”2 Elter’s trial procedures were partly rooted in a widespread stereotype about Congolese shared by most colonial officials. He believed that “all the blacks are liars. So the truth is always the opposite of what they say.”3 Congolese’s reference to Ndoki, an antisocial individual associated with evil powers in their cultural universe, meant that Elter’s trial procedures disrupted social harmony and caused the decline of natural order and even the ruin of individual life force. The outcome of the trial procedures was that Congolese accused of committing crimes and brought to his court rarely escaped imprisonment, whipping, payment of fines, and public humiliation, and all fed the negative perceptions of colonialism. Congolese also interpreted Elter’s trial procedures as partly motivated by his infirmity. Colonial officials propounded ideologies and Naming and Belgian Colonial Rule 93 carried out their tasks in ways that subtly or openly showed to the villagers that white men were physically flawless and all-powerful. When colonial officials...