Paper short abstract:

This article analyzes the colonial historical knowledge production and access to this knowledge in the urban space of the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. Memory practices during and after the colonial period dealing with the colonial past are comparatively analyzed.

Paper long abstract:

The colonial and post-colonial history of the Democratic Republic of Congo is associated with political oppression like in no other country in Africa: after 80 years of foreign domination by the colonial power Belgium and the subsequent dictatorship under Joseph Desire Mobutu, the afflicted country is characterized until today with press and art censorship, persecution of dissidents and a neo-colonial exploitation. During the dominating production of knowledge to memorize the "heroes" and "pioneers" of the colonization of the Congo Basin in the colonial period by the Belgian occupying power, a colonial amnesia can be observed also in relation to historical discourses in post-colonial Congo. Mobutu 'ignored' the colonial discourse in the course of his africanization campaign (authenticité) for reasons of identity. The incumbent President Joseph Kabila declared the reprocessing of the colonial past to be over in the year 2004.

This entirely undifferentiated dealing with the colonial past in the DR Congo opens questions which should be answered in this contribution with a recourse to post-colonial studies and memory theories: In which shape are those colonial memorial sites and memory practices in the former colony of Congo belge and in the DR Congo today? Which groups dominate the colonial and post-colonial discourses and the historiography? The diachronic comparison investigates the hypothesis that the production of knowledge during and after the colonial period was dictated and will be dictated by political elites (top-down). Alternative memory concepts from the civil society (bottom-up) are also brought into focus.