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Modem living in the Congo: The 1958 Colonial Housing Exhibit and postwar domestic practices in the Belgian Colony
The Journal of Architecture
In this article, I translate local narratives about one particular event into a reading of a city as a whole. The city concerned is Butembo, a secondary city in the North Kivu province (DRC). The incident relates to the appearance of a foreign flower in the late 1950s. This water hyacinth — named ‘Congo ya Sika’, which means ‘the New Congo’— caused severe damage to the waterways of the Belgian Congo, and the colonial authorities mobilized the population in an effort to eradicate the plague. Pamphlets and posters were spread, with the request to destroy the pictured flower when spotted. People of Butembo reacted in a most particular way to the appearance of these posters in their city, ascribing the Congo ya Sika flower mythical proportions right from the start. In their interpretation, the appearance of the flower was a sign that ‘the new Congo’ would rise in their town, endowing their place exclusively with a particular force. I scrutinize the myth's origin and analyse its social meaning, in an effort to gain a better understanding of Butembo's society. Throughout my analysis, special attention is paid to (self) representation, and to noise stuck to colonial messages.
Résumé
Ce travail part de récits locaux à propos d'un événement particulier pour restituer une lecture de toute une ville. Il s'agit de Butembo, une ville secondaire de la province congolaise du Nord‐Kivu. L'incident est liéà l'introduction d'une fleur étrangère à la fin des années 1950. Cette jacinthe d'eau appelée Congo ya Sika, qui signifie ‘Nouveau Congo’ a proliféré dangereusement dans les voies d'eau du Congo belge, incitant les autorités coloniales à mobiliser la population afin d'éradiquer la plante. Des brochures et affiches ont été diffusées, demandant de détruire la fleur représentée dès qu'elle était repérée. La population de Butembo a alors réagi d'une manière très singulière, donnant à la fleur Congo ya Sika une dimension mythique dès le début. Selon l'interprétation des habitants, l'apparition de la fleur était le signe que le ‘nouveau Congo’ naîtrait dans leur ville, conférant à ce site une force spécifique. Après avoir étudié l'origine du mythe, cet article analyse sa signification sociale afin d'appréhender au mieux la société de Butembo. Une attention particulière est accordée à l'(auto)représentation et aux signaux parasites qui se sont raccrochés au message des autorités coloniales.
The concept of hybridity has been discussed chiefly in relation to cultural issues and interpreted as a challenge to dominant power. It is equally relevant to the interpretation of economic and social change (for example, in the field of international development), while its political significance is properly a subject of investigation. Hybridity was common under colonialism: in domestic and work settings (mines, plantations), in the organisation of urban areas, and in the organisation of colonial administration. It became more common in the British territories once Britain began to promote colonial development in the late 19th century. The evolution of colonial housing and urban housing policy after 1929 indicates that colonisers tolerated and then endorsed hybridity. Usually, it was accepted as a step towards modernity; occasionally, it was viewed as a local adaptation that embodied local practices that had intrinsic merit. In any event, the concept of hybridity has broad application to our understanding of colonialism and development.
Within the former colony of the Belgian Congo, the encounter between Belgian colonials and Congolese women quickly leads to a great number of cohabitation overstepping the norm. The white civilising man gives in to black woman's "barbarous" attractions. The mixed couples - often temporary - give rise to a half-breed population. In the Congo and in Belgium this new social reality worries a lot of colonial interveners, either politicised or not. Indeed most of the Belgian-Congolese half-breed, which are not legally recognised by their European father, live with their African mother in a system based on tribal habits. Although Belgian colonial laws categorise every field of the civil, public and penal life according to the colour of skin and the "race", the "Mulattos", neither white nor black, seem sociologically to inhabit an unnamed no man's land. The colonial opinion concedes with difficulty that a man of European descent evolves among natives and, a contrario, that a man of African descent has access to the Coloniser's privileges. In spite of being haunted by the "racial" dilemma and the popular Science, some doctrines of thinking and action about the mulatto phenomenon in Belgian Congo take shape. In this context a "mulattos' question" comes to light: do we have to make the mixed people "more native" advocating a complete integration into the black population, or "Europeanize" them and organise their insertion in Belgium within the Metropolitan population, or at least, make them "more racial" by adopting legal measures for a new category of citizen in the Congo? This ethical controversy leads unending debates between various colonial actors of Belgium: missionaries, civil servants, politicians, men of law, associative groups. Periodically heckled the Colonial Office has been clumsily trying to settle the "mulattos' question" by selective actions and with a special committee in Brussels by 1937. However, can politics conciliate the ideological and strategic aspects of the national colonization with the socio-economic interests of uncontrollable human destinies?...
Displacement provokes disruptions and shifts of meanings and conventions. Patterns of displacement are not confined to highbrow artistic practices, but manifest themselves in everyday environments too. We analyze this by confronting the case studies of this double theme issue with a theoretical framework focusing on the concepts of metaphor, mimesis, modernity, and identity. We argue that architecture can function as a receptacle, as an instrument, or as staging of displacement. Sometimes, architecture manages to generate possibilities to turn contradiction into ambivalence.