Lingala Franca: experiencing and navigating language and political power in Congo-Zaire – 1965-1997
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Abstract
This dissertation examines how the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko used language, especially Lingala, to rule Congo-Zaire from 1965 to 1997, and how Congolese from across the Ciluba, Kikongo, Kiswahili, and Lingala language zones experienced and navigated the Mobutu regime’s use of Lingala. Mobutu seized power in a 1965 military coup, and his regime immediately began to impose Lingala, the language of Congo’s army under Belgian colonial rule as what Congolese termed the “language of power,” meaning the language used by Mobutu and members of his regime. Failing to gain support for a change in language policy, the Mobutu regime’s imposed Lingala by effect as a by-product of the language practices of officials and other state agents combined with the regime’s non-language policies. Officials spoke Lingala to demonstrate loyalty and proximity to Mobutu, followed Mobutu’s lead as they used Lingala for speeches, political rallies, slogans, and music nation-wide. Soldiers, militiamen, and national police all used Lingala as they extracted wealth and labor from Zairian civilians, while politicians used Lingala as they corruptly accumulated wealth and power at the expense of their subjects. Lingala came to be associated with the regime’s worst excesses even as the language’s expansion under Mobutu’s rule strengthened many Zairians’ sense of national identity.
This research draws from three-hundred and twelve oral history interviews conducted in seven provinces, in Congo’s four national languages, as well as archival research conducted in Belgium, Congo, and the United States. I argue that the Mobutu regime’s use of Lingala enabled his long-lasting rule, by providing Mobutu and his officials with an effective means to communicate nationwide and creating continuity of rule amid the regime’s repeated reinventions. The imposition of Lingala produced divergent effects, strengthening Zairian (and later Congolese) national identity, by providing a shared speech community but it also fracturing Zairian society, as some Zairians, particularly Swahili speakers, experienced the regime’s use of Lingala as an oppressive imposition. Congolese Swahili speakers then spear-headed the AFDL rebellion which ended Mobutu’s regime in 1997. This dissertation contributes to African history first, by developing a new methodological approach drawing from sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and second, by providing a new vantage point to understand the relationship between language and power in post-colonial Africa.