Abstract

Abako (Alliance des Bakongo), one of the main political parties rallying for Congolese independence in the late 1950s, started off as a linguistic-cultural movement to promote the use of the Kikongo language and Kongo identity in Leopoldville against a dominance of the Lingala language and “Bangala.” In reaction to this, members of the “Bangala” elite also organised themselves, after which a series of ideological confrontations between “Bakongo” and “Bangala” intellectuals ensued. Tracing back Abako's transformation from cultural movement to political party, we describe how, in pre-independence Kinshasa, politics was ethnicised and ethnicity was politicised along this Bakongo–Bangala and Kikongo–Lingala divide. We analyse how the initial entente between Abako elites and colonial missionaries in favour of Kikongo morphed into a hostile, anti-colonial discourse as the struggle for independence reached its height. This Congolese case shows how, as the decades of colonial decay progressed, the nexus between ethnolanguage and colonisation inevitably also became one between ethnolanguage and anti-colonisation.

摘要

1950年代后期集会刚果独立的主要政党之一Abako（Alliance des Bakongo）起初是一种语言文化运动，旨在促进Leopoldville使用Kikongo语言和Kongo身份，以控制Lingala语言的统治地位和“孟加拉语”。为此，“班加拉”精英分子也组织起来，随后“ Bakongo”和“班加拉”知识分子之间发生了一系列意识形态上的对抗。追溯Abako从文化运动到政党的转变，我们描述了在独立前的金沙萨如何沿着Bakongo-Bangala和Kikongo-Lingala鸿沟对政治进行族裔化和对种族进行政治化。我们分析了Abako精英和殖民传教士之间最初的支持Kikongo的约定如何演变为敌对状态，反殖民话语随着争取独立的斗争达到顶峰。刚果的这一案例表明，随着几十年殖民地衰落的进行，民族语言和殖民化之间的联系不可避免地也变成了民族语言和反殖民化之间的联系。