ASAUK 2018

This paper focuses on conflicts during what Pierre Mulele – leader of the Mulelist rebellion – called ‘the second independence’ in the eastern Congo, during the 1960s. It argues that these conflicts need to be analysed from a longue durée historical perspective. While at the one hand they were the result of changes in (local) governance introduced (and negotiated) during the colonial period, at the same time these conflicts also contain clear references to pre-colonial notions of ‘tradition’, and schisms which were already apparent before European colonizers first set foot in the eastern Congo. This paper will demonstrate this point by focusing on a case-study from South-Kivu, using empirical material collected during fieldwork in 2018.