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School Wars: Church, State, and the Death of the Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Patrick M. Boyle
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Extract

Two conventions tend to shape appraisals of the Belgian Congo and the manner of its decolonisation. The first describes the colonial power structure as an alliance of state, church, and large corporations.1 This trinity was ‘not only… a virtually seamless web’, writes Crawford Young, ‘but each component, in its area of activity, was without peer in Africa in the magnitude of its impact’.2 The second convention typically portrays decolonisation as tumultuous, chaotic, bungled, or simply ‘gone awry’.3 Indeed, the mutiny and secession movements that followed hard upon the proclamation in June 1960 of the Republic of the Congo (renamed Zaïre in October 1971) resulted in the rapid internationalisation of responses to them, thereby demonstrating the fragility of domestic political arrangements.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 451 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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