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THE LEOPOLDVILLE RIOTS OF 1959: EVERYDAY VIOLENCE AND POST-COLONIAL MEMORY By AURELIE MAKETA MAWETE A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2020 © 2020 Aurelie Maketa Mawete “To my family, thanks for everything” ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis is the result of months of work and endeavor; it would not have become a reality without the support, supervision, and encouragement of a significant number of people and institutions during both the research and writing phases. My thanks go in the first place to my advisor, Nancy Rose Hunt, and all my professors here at the University of Florida, notably Suzanne O’Brien, and my committee members, Philip Janzen and Alioune Sow. I would also like to thank my friends Nancy Nswal Nson, Felicien Maisha Masanga, Ange Asanzi Afurawa, Cristovao Nwachukwu, Nourridine Siewe, Macodou Fall, Raphael Iyamu, and Mosunmola Adeojo; thank you for your time and friendship. Finally, I would like to thank my family. My mother Celine Nkuizulu Mufuta, my aunt Vicky Mufuta Miakiedika and her husband Professor Jacob Sabakinu Kivilu, my brother Thomas Maketa Lutete Nsanda Junior and his family, my sister Vivi Maketa Tevuzula and her family, my niece Celine Maketa Miakiedika, and my cousin Leslie Sabakinu Lukwikilu. Thank you for always checking up on me and always being there for me. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..........................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................9 2 RIOTS AS EVENT: A HISTORY .........................................................................................14 3 FROM RIOTERS TO LOOTERS ..........................................................................................20 4 CONGOLESE REPORTING IN NEWSPAPERS .................................................................22 5 THE RIOTS: A LENS ONTO CLASS STRUGGLES ..........................................................30 6 A NATIONALIST MEMORY PROJECT: MOBUTU’S RECASTING OF THE 1959 RIOTS .....................................................................................................................................39 7 THE RIOTS AND DECOLONIZATION ..............................................................................45 8 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................49 LIST OF REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................51 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................................................54 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 4-1 Inside cover of La voix du Congolais showing a class taught outside after the January 1959 riots. The scene is at Ngiri-Ngiri, one of the African neighborhoods of Léopoldville. ......................................................................................................................23 4-2 Destruction in an African neighborhood. Pages 64, 65 and 67 of La Voix du Congolais.. .........................................................................................................................24 4-3 Page 68 of La Voix du Congolais. Peace after the riots. First picture, a view of the central market. Second picture, a bus in a Léopoldville street. Last, a classroom in a destroyed building. .............................................................................................................27 4-4 Page 5 of Présence Congolaise First picture on the top: Arthur Pinzi facing the crowd at YMCA. The second picture shows Pinzi trying to calm down the crowd. .........29 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ABAKO Association des Bakongo ACP Agence Catholique de Presse ANC Armée Nationale Congolaise APIC Association du personnel Indigènes du Congo Belge CRISP Centre de Recherche et d'Information sociopolitiques DRC Democratic Republic of Congo MNC Mouvement National Congolais OCA Office des cités Africaines PSA Parti Solidaire Africain V-Club Vita Club YMCA Young Men Christian Association 7 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts THE LEOPOLDVILLE RIOTS OF 1959: EVERYDAY VIOLENCE AND POST-COLONIAL MEMORY By Aurelie Maketa Mawete May 2020 Chair: Nancy Rose Hunt Major: History On January 4, 1959, a riot broke out in Léopoldville, the capital of the Belgian Congo. The riot began some hours after the cancelation of a political ABAKO meeting and the defeat of Vita-Club, a well-known soccer team. The disturbances lasted three days, took the lives of more than forty Congolese, and destroyed a significant part of Léopoldville’s African quarters. According to contemporary Congolese newspapers, these riots were not a revolution against Europeans, but a step back for nationalist movements Most people at the time considered the rioters to be criminals and looters. In recent years, on January 4, Congolese commemorate the rioters as martyrs of the independence movement and celebrate them as heroes. How did the depiction of these rioters change so drastically? This work draws on evidence from archival materials and the rich historiography about nationalist memory projects to examine how, after his coup in November 1965, Lieutenant General Joseph-Desiré Mobutu used the memory of the 1959 riots to legitimize his power. 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On January 4, 1959, a series of riots erupted in Léopoldville, the capital of Belgian Congo, during which an angry mob of more than 3,000 people destroyed a significant part of the “indigenous” neighborhoods of the city. The event lasted for three days and cost the lives of more than forty Congolese. According to some Congolese journalists at the time, the rioters were criminals, looters, and delinquents, while the riots were a considerable step back for this colony edging towards decolonization, that is, for the fight for Congolese autonomy from Belgium. In recent years, on January 4, Congolese commemorate the rioters as martyrs of the movement for decolonization and celebrate them as national heroes. This thesis argues that the best way to understand the history and mythology around the riots and their transformation within Congolese national imaginary is to analyze the debates and tensions that surrounded them at the end of the 1950s. This analysis seeks concrete ways to understand tensions in the social structure of Congolese society and Kinshasa (before Léopoldville) from the end of the Second World War to the eve of independence and beyond. Using primary sources from the 1950s, this thesis tells the story of the riots while highlighting class struggles that existed within Congo and its capital city during that period. The class tensions shaped Congolese society in a way sustained after independence and that were instrumentalized by Joseph-Desiré Mobutu to serve his political agendas. This analysis also challenges the notions of security and stability in Congolese colonial cities and argues that "indigenous" neighborhoods were not only unsafe but crowded and sometimes violent. This social promiscuity or density underlined and complicated class and social differences among Congolese. 9 The goal here is not to simply retell the stories of the January 1959 riots in Léopoldville, nor of Mobutu’s rise to power. It is rather to document and analyze class conflict within Congolese society in Léopoldville and other cities during the colonial era and understand how these same struggles played a role in the production of national memories years later. The idea for this study came out of a graduate seminar on policing and cities; then, I studied “the martyrs” of independence. My argument was that the January 1959 riots were proof of a Congolese political awakening just before decolonization arrived in 1960. The more contemporary sources that I investigated about the riots, the more I realized that Congolese journalists who described the event at the time depicted them in a way quite different from what I grew up learning about them in Kinshasa. One question emerged over and over again: How did the 1959 rioters become symbolic of resistance against Belgian colonial tyranny? The answer to that question emerged from developing this thesis, which views the 1959 riots as a window into everyday life and realities in this colonial city, including matters of cohabitation, insecurity, violence, social promiscuity, and racial strife. This thesis also underlines debates among Congolese évolués and postcolonial intellectuals about the riots. It investigates how these debates were once representative of class tensions within late colonial Congolese society in Léopoldville and still have postcolonial reverberations. Thirdly, this thesis discusses how the Belgian responses to the 1959 riots were important to future framings of these events as a major turning point on a “the path” to independence. Finally, it suggests how diverse individuals and groups instrumentalized memories