Youth and Therapeutic Insurgency in Eastern Congo: an Ethnographic History of Ruga-Ruga, Simba, and Mai-Mai Movements, 1870 - Present
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Youth and Therapeutic Insurgency in Eastern Congo: An Ethnographic History of Ruga-Ruga, Simba, and Mai-Mai Movements, 1870 - Present by Jonathan Edwards Shaw A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in The University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Nancy Rose Hunt, Co-chair Professor Derek Peterson, Co-Chair Professor Adam Ashforth Professor Mike McGovern Professor Koen Vlassenroot, Ghent University Jonathan Edwards Shaw [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6337-434X © Jonathan Edwards Shaw 2018 2 Dedication For my sons. ii Acknowledgements This dissertation, whatever its weaknesses, is the product of significant labor, sacrifice, and commitment from many individual people and organizations. My field research would not have been possible without support from the Social Science Research Council’s Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship program. I particularly wish to thank Daniella Sarnoff for her support and encouragement. Field research was also funded by the United States Institute for Peace’s Jennings Randolph Fellowship program. Lili Cole proved an unstintingly supportive and flexible ally there. I am grateful to the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan for awarding me both a Humanities Fellowship as well as an International Research Fellowship. I thank Diana Denney and Kathleen King within the History Department at the University of Michigan for their aid in applying for those opportunities and for many other tangible and intangible forms of support during my career as a graduate student. I am thankful to have received an African Initiatives Grant from the African Studies Center and Department of African and Afro-american Studies at the University of Michigan, with particular gratitude to Anne Pitcher in that program. I am also grateful to Columbia University’s Hertog Global Strategy Initiative for funding some of my travel and field research, and deeply appreciate Matthew Connelly and Monica Toft’s attention to my work and willingness to be stimulating mentors during a very enjoyable summer in New York City. Special thanks to Amanda Blair (University of Chicago), Karen Bouwer (University of San Francisco), and Samuel Mukoma and Laura Hubbard (Stanford University) for kind invitations to present portions of this work at their respective institutions, and for their valuable feedback. iii I am indebted to many individuals at Congo Initiative and Université Chrétienne Bilingue du Congo in Beni for providing me an institutional home in Congo. I profoundly appreciate the multifaceted support provided to me by David Kasali, Kizito Mayao, Lwanzo Katuka, Mary Henton, Honoré Bunduki, Kaswera Kasali, Jessica Shewan, Baraka Kasali, Kyle Hamilton, Butoto Mahinduzi, Adelphine Angemito and Jean-Paul Tsongo over the years. It was a delight to share a home with David Bakwanamaha, Da Chiku Mahinduzi, and Mathieu Lembe Lembe for several years. I would also like to acknowledge Papa Jerlas’ openness and commitment to working together to preserve documents and enhance record keeping at the Oicha Hospital Archives. My research assistants and partners over multiple field work periods were invaluable aids and interlocutors. Jonas Kinangani, David Mudeya, Lygisha Malonga, Archip Lobo Ngumba, Augustin Nobamuzi, Jean-Paul Kapitula, Prince Kalyathi, Robert Syayighanza, Wivine Kahindo, and Christopher Kasali all proved to be both friends and intellectual allies. In Uganda I owe a special debt to Patrick Byensi for his aid as a research partner and translator. Many thanks to Evarist Ngabarino and Doreen Kembabazi—who later became a treasured fellow graduate student at the University of Michigan—at Mountains of the Moon University in Fort Portal, Uganda for their support and facilitation. At the University of Michigan, I am deeply grateful for challenging and inspiring classroom experiences with Butch Ware, as well as Gabrielle Hecht’s contributions to my intellectual development. Adam Ashforth is responsible for some of my favorite conversations at the university and became a valued and trusted mentor and friend. My dissertation writing group, consisting of Brady G’Sell, Emma Park, and Maria Taylor could not have been more thoughtful and encouraging co-laborers. I must acknowledge Emma Park, in particular, as a brilliant, iv humane fellow traveler and friend throughout the PhD process. I am deeply grateful to Mike McGovern and Koen Vlassenroot for being willing to participate on my dissertation committee and for their time and insights on my work. It would not be possible to overstate the contributions of my advisors and mentors to this project. Nancy Rose Hunt and Derek Peterson were foundational and of indispensable importance to me during the entire journey through the PhD program. Nancy and Derek are unstinting allies, deeply generative critics, and inspired conversation partners. Each opened worlds of thought and creativity to me that enriched both my intellectual and personal lives. Whatever insights emerge from this project must owe provenance to my advisors, and the best of this dissertation owes much to their influence and guidance. I could not imagine two better interlocutors with whom to explore African pasts. While any strengths of the project owe deep debts to their influence, all weaknesses in this dissertation are exclusively my own. My father and mother, Mark and Lois Shaw, were sources of limitless encouragement and support. My sons, Graham and Eliot, remind me every day of the wonder of living: each a unique source of delight and joy. Finally, it is not possible quantify the immense contributions of my wife, Katherine Shaw, to this process. Both life and vocation are unimaginable without her. v Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Figures vii Abstract viii Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Killing the Talking Baby: Authority and Immaturity in Eastern Congo, 1870 -1960 30 Chapter Three: Lost Children in the Belgian Congo, 1929-1960 68 Chapter Four: “Congo Crisis” in Bunande, 1960-1964 97 Chapter Five: Henri’s Rebellion: A Microhistory of the Simba Movement, 1964-1967 130 Chapter Six: Death Talk and Martyrdom in Decolonizing Congo, 1963-1967 170 Chapter Seven: “A Cannibalistic Entity:” Consumption, Morality, and the UN Stabilization Industry 199 Chapter Eight: Conclusions 223 Bibliography 242 vi List of Figures Figures 1. Mai Mai Training Camp 7 2. Belgian Congo Ecclesiastical Map 81 3. Young Christians on Day of Baptism 84 vii Abstract This is an ethnographic history of child soldiering in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It focuses on deployments of mai (Swahili: “water”) medicines and charms during periods of intergenerational conflict from the late 19th century to the present. Why do recurring insurgencies invoke the discourses and practices of these particular medicines, wielded primarily by the young? At the heart of this question lie the antecedents, events, and afterlives of the 1964 Simba Rebellion: likely the most massive mobilization of child soldiers in post-colonial Africa. The Simba’s roots are traced through ruga-ruga movements in the late 19th century, Anioto leopard-men violence in the Belgian Congo, and carceral sites like the National Penitentiary for Delinquent Youth at Niangara in the late colonial era. The dissertation concludes by examining the proliferation of mai-mai movements in contemporary eastern Congo and the international development industry that seeks to manage the violence of these young warriors. Working across time and scale, from a microhistory of an individual child combatant to deeper regional histories of generational dynamics, the focus remains on links between violent children, war charms and medicines, and forms and practices of adult authority. The study invigorates contemporary analyses of child soldiering by foregrounding temporally deep, emic interpretations of links between age, violence, medicine, and immaturity. It builds arguments from a broad array of evidence, including oral interviews, vernacular narratives such as the Mwindo Epic, mission archives, periodicals, and colonial security archives. The geographical focus is on the northern parts of what is now North Kivu province. viii Chapter One: Introduction This dissertation traces an entangled history of violent youth, insurgency, and intergenerational conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo from the late 19th century to the present. At the heart of the study are the antecedents, events, and afterlives of the 1964 Simba Rebellion. This was likely the most massive mobilization of children in conflict in post-colonial Africa and the most successful insurrection in Congo prior to the First Congo War in 1996. From ferocious beginnings in mid-1964, borne forth by thousands of young people fortified with mai1 war medicine, the rebels controlled—at peak—over half of Congo. By the end of 1964, however, the movement was crushed. International mercenary reinforcements to the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) halted the Simba’s explosive expansion from June through late October. During the five months of Simba rule, insurgents purged customary, religious, and economic elites, foreigners, and government forces in eastern and central Congo. Despite its brevity, and the maelstrom of concurrent crises throughout Congo, the intensity of the Simba Rebellion made it a “defining chronological marker” in the life histories of those who experienced it.2 1 Mai