 CONGO BELIEFS |
The population of DRC is mainly Christian, about 50% practise catholicism and 20% practise Protestantism. The Muslim community is restrained. One inhabitant on five believes in animism. Kimbangism which gathers 10% of the population combines concepts issued from both Christianity and traditional believes. It is on this last one that we decided to focus, having set up its sources in the Congo kingdom. It seems important, in a first time, to situate the genesis of the kimbaguism among messianic African movements, to develop then its general philosophy.
The Kimbangism
Historical reminder:
Kimpa Vita, better known in the Occident under the name of Dona Beatrice launched the farthest African messianic phenomenon in 1704. At that period, the trade dispute between Portuguese and Dutch was mainly based on the colonisation of the Congo territory, once called the Kongo Kingdom, that gathered the Portuguese Congo (Angola), the Belgian one (democratic Congo), and the French one (Brazzaville). Holland, who was the leader of a colonial empire (the Occidental African Coast), was looking for servile workhand and was confronted with the Portuguese refusal, since Portugal was claiming his rights to the Congo's property. Giving birth to a cold war between both European nations, this conflict provoked the decline of the political, cultural and economical Congo's scenary. In the 17th century the historians evoke a climate of general crisis in the Congo (we talk about civil war, starvation and a non state existence) resulting from the conflict of interests between the European powers in one side and the candidates to the royal throne in the other side.
It is within that context that the prophetess Dona Beatrice created a spiritual and nationalist waking movement qualified as "the Saint Antonians movement" with a discourse adapted to the mentality of her compatriots. She affirmed having received the Godly mission through Saint Antoine to appease the sufferings of her people and succeeded in mobilising them for the national restoration.
Her discourse was not only driven against the Portuguese missionaries (who were disturbing the restoration work) but also against witchery and its fetishist and traditional practise. Dona Beatrice announced the imminence of the final jugement. Her predictions, following Marie Louise Martin, were articulated in three axes: first the reaction against the cross and the images of Christ that had become a substitution to the African traditional and magical materials. Then, the prophetess makes, for the first time, appear the idea of a black Christ to deliver the oppressed peoples and finally, she announced the reestablishment of the ancient kingdom followed by the coming of prosperity.
Convinced by her mission Dona Beatrice contacted the king Pedro IV who, because of the war, found refuge with many of his subjects in the Kimbangou Mount. She proposed him the project of the kingdom's restoration and national unity, meanwhile the king and his refugees had to come back to San Salvador to put an end to the internal conflict.
Father Capucin helps us to get acknowledged with the aspect of the nationalist attitude through a national hymn taught by the Dona: "…Saint Antoine is the one who has the mercy, Saint Antoine is our remedy, Saint Antoine is the restorer of the Congo kingdom, Saint Antoine is the consoler of the Celestial kingdom, Saint Antoine is beyond the angels and the virgin Mary." We notice through this singing the nationalist faith aroused by the Dona and her attempt for the congolisation of the Christianity as it has been delivered to the Congolese. Being Christian, the Dona tends to create a national church liberalised from all antagonism susceptible to divide the political society of the kingdom. In July, 1706, mother of a child, the Done who pretended being virgin, was condemned by an ecclesiastic tribunal and was burnt alive. Following the analysis of some historians her movement failed as lots of her followers, among them the king, died in fierce and fratricide fights.
Secondly it is worth talking about the black churches of South Africa divided into two groups: The Ethiopian churches in one hand, and the Zionist. The formers are the result of an inter-ethnic relation. A Methodist African pastor called Mangena Mokono withdrew from the European churches to create an independent African church in 1892. This gave birth to many other Ethiopian religious movements, their doctrine preaches the deliverance of the Ethiopian people from slavery and servitude. In the other hand, the churches of the Austral Africa are syncretist churches, their appellation is taken from the Afro American church of Daniel Bryant: "The Christian Catholic Church in Zion" this doctrine puts an accent on a dogma representing the Christ as being a Black Zulu.
Another phenomenon attracts searchers' attention which is the harrist movement founded by William Harris at the Liberia and Ivory Coast frontier. Born in 1850, W. Harris received a religious education at The American Episcopal Protestant Mission. In 1910, he was put in jail after having taken part in the arising of his tribe, the Grebo, against the Liberian authority. It is in jail that he received the visit of the Angel Gabriel that gave him the mission to convert the pagans. Harry fought against witchery and magic, he published a Decalogue adapted to the African cultural practises (authorising the polygamy and condemning the adultery) and announced the golden age with the arrival of the white missionaries.
The birth of a new African religion
The Kimbanguist movement we are particularly interested in, was launched by Simon Kimbangu, a Baptist catechist. Born in 1887, two years after the international conference of Berlin where the Congo has been divided between the European powers. He received his education from the Baptist mission of Gomge Louété, situated in the south west of the Belgian Congo. Married and father of three kids, he became catechist in 1918; it was on this same year that he heard the voice of Christ who ordered him to convert his compatriots. Thinking that he was undignified to respond to this call he refused untill 1921, when he finally created a spiritual waking movement for the congolese population.
| Simon, benefited from all the favourable conditions to mobilise his compatriots throughout a prophetic action. Indeed, these were oppressed by the Belgian, French and Portuguese colonisation added to the fact that the mortality rate was increasing because of a Spanish epidemic flue that afflicted the local population, also, the illiteracy kept them from accessing to the Christ's message or the Bible. It began with the miraculous recovering of a young agonising woman called Nkiantond, arising the faith of the population, who got mobilised by their leader. But Kimbangu quickly changed his orientations. Indeed, in his apostolic rounds, he not only used to cure people but he also preached against witchery and fought the colonial order. After 5 months of sensitization, he was arrested by the Belgian colonial authorities and kept in jail for 30 years. Thanks to his wife, the movement kept developing in clandestinity until its official recognition, the 24th December 1959. The Kimbanguist movement became an independent African Christian church recognised by the Belgian government.
Kimbangu was seen as the wakener of congolese's conscieness. The movement was well regarded as it allowed the population to take count of their social dissatisfaction: misery, oppression and inability to challenge the white man. Kimbangu is considered, among the population, as the liberator in charge of bringing peace, prosperity and happiness and also a science superior to the colonizer's.
Soon the hopes of the people were expressed through the salvation of a race. George Balandier uses one of the excerpt of the Kimbangu discourses: " God promised us to pour his holly spirit on our country, we beg him to, and he sent us a black savior: Simon Kimbangu. He is the chief and the savior of all the blacks, equal to the saviors of the others races: Moïses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha." Following Kimbangu, the Christ is coming soon, the dead will resurrect, black people will be very happy, even more than white ones. A golden age will come, which will benefit the black people."
Indeed his nationalist discourse is also the one of a black man who takes conscience of the difference between white and black people in terms of progress. He follows his people expectations saying that " the white will become black and the black will become white ", a saying that will grant him the jail for life. This will be intrepreted by his successor as the forseeing of independance for african countries. Since then the awakening on the colonial situation will spur a nationalist and anti-colonialist movement not only in DRC but also in the neigbouring countries such as the French Congo and Angola. It expresses itself not only in terms of nations but also in terms of races. The " N'gouzisme " (kimbanguisme apellation in Brazzaville), politico-religious mouvement, claims Africa to the Africans and seems to be installed in the people's soul for ever.
The Sources of Kimbanguism
Above this political message, kimbanguism based itself on the three pilars of its theology: the Bible, the inspired singings and the prophetic messages from its spiritual chief Papa Diangienda (son of Kimbangu).
The Bible is the only book of reference. It was recommended by Simon Kimbangu soon before his arrest: "the spirit told me it is time for me to go... I leave you nothing but the bible. Read it in any circumstance, time and place. Put it in practice as it is God's will." Nevertheless we have to say that the Bible, in the kimbanguism, is adapted to the identity of the africans.
Then comes the inspired singings, so called by the kimbanguist themselves, and that some experts called " the songs of the sky ". They refer to the instructions received from God and the angels, through inspired men. This people are chosen (without discimination of sex, education level, age or nationality) and used by God himself to transmit His message.
The themes of these songs are diverse; they announce the Word of Christ, the saving of souls, the glory of the afterlife and essencially of the black condition. They can be revelations of the past, prophecies,warnings, and even ultimatums.
The prophecies from the so named Eminence Diangienda Kuntima, represent the third source of the Kimbanguist theology. Born in 1918, yougest son of Simon Kimbangu, he was the first spiritual chief of the kimbanguist Chrurch, since his official recognition in 1959, untill his death in July 1992. His succession beeing granted by his brother Dialungana. The messages of Joseph Diangienda (which are oral allocutions) represent the essence of the kimbanguist theology. These words, considered holy and the interpretation of the Bible and of the chants, became the word and memory of the community. They consist in revealing the past, understanding and interpreting of the present, and foreseeing the future. They are also the base of the recomposition of the black identity in the Kimbanguism.
In its genesis, the Kimbanguism represents the refusal of the colonial order. When this last one disapeared, Kimbanguism became a liberated space in which the adherents reconstitute themselves in their black identity. If at its beginnings kimbanguism seemed to be the affirmation of the bakongo-lari identity, its actual face perceives a deep revendication of the black identity. Roger Bastide underlines it as follows: "What calls our attention is that from this moment on, the messianism is going to be overthrown by the prophetism; in other words, the black condition, at one time denied, reappears in the new sects now arising." And Jean-Claude Froelich writes in the same manner: "It is thanks to Joseph Diangienda that this revolutionary and anti-white movement, at its beginnings, took a deep religious meaning." To his baptist education he added his father's revelations, summing up: it is a very africanised Protestant Church with a tendency to be modern and even occidental."
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