Mba Mba Mba Mbambale… ...
This is the sound reverberating from a bolide as it explodes in a shower of rainbow hue. Such a sound, I am told, expresses the shock of impact at the point of creation, where a meteorite, as progenitor of humankind, breaks open to form two intertwined serpents, one male, a rainbow coloured colubridae called mwanzambala and the other, female, a black mamba called nkangi. It is through their intertwining that they produce the shower of rainbow hue,
MWAMBA NKONGOLO, a name echoing that of the first Luba King. This is just one variant of
a Luba creation myth Clovis Mwamba shared with me during one of our many dialogues prior to my travel to Kamina (pers. conv., March, 2014).69 In subsequent chapters, other variants
will appear, suggesting a lack of consensus on a cosmological beginning. In light of this, my purpose in beginning with a bolide exploding is not to assert the veracity of one particular account over another; instead, as described earlier, this creation account is offered to provoke an understanding that to engage with Búmùntù is to engage with the ontological, with fundamental conceptions of our world and our own “being-in-the-world.” For me
personally, this provocation was further extended by a cosmogram drawn on a piece of paper whilst the above creation narrative was being recounted, asking me to see the world anew. Mirroring my own experience, below I share this cosmogram prior to your “arriving” in Kamina and entering into the assemblage of relational and dialogical encounters. As well as helping to establish Búmùntù as the central theme, the cosmogram assists in establishing a more circular movement towards “knowing” presented in the pages to come, where various ideas are introduced and then repeatedly resurface. As I have drawn from elements of this cosmogram in the structuring of Part Three, I also offer it here to explicate the purpose of each of the four following chapters and the relationships that exist within and between.70
69 A written account of this genesis narrative can also be found in (Mwamba 2018)
70 The cosmogram itself, and the particular genesis account from which it arose, did not directly appear
during my time in Kamina. I have also been unable to find an equivalent cosmogram of the Luba-Katanga in the literature, although it does reflect literature on the Bakongo cosmogram (the Bakongo peoples are another major ethnic group located in DRC, as well as Rep. of Congo and Angola)(Ferguson 1999). Nevertheless, during my time in Kamina aspects of this cosmogram were regularly reflected, sometimes subtly and sometimes more overtly, throughout our dialogues. As a result, this cosmogram, offered a
In the above cosmogram, a circle is drawn around an intersecting vertical and horizontal axis. Like the tracing of the sun from dawn to midday to dusk to midnight, this circular line traces a movement from the status of the child, to the adult, to the elder and to the ancestor.
Fulfilling the cycle, the line between ancestor and child remains unbroken, representing the reality that the ancestor can be reborn by their name being carried into the next generation. This establishes the central principle of relationality associated with Búmùntù and widely acknowledged in scholarship on African religion and philosophy more broadly (Kagame 1976; Mbiti 1999; Mulago gwa Cikala 1973; Tempels 1959). This circle is titled the “cycle of life.” According to Mwamba, it represents a social field in which the principle of Búmùntù is expected to reign as a central guiding force drawing the community inwards into harmony with one another. The term “Muntu” (human being) itself is offered as an indication of such a social field, the prefix (mu-) indicating ‘inside of’ and the root (ntu) indicating the “universal principle”(Mwamba 2018, p. 12). Accordingly, to be “authentically human” is to exist
visual aid on which I could hang my developing understanding of the many facets, the complexities and contradictions of Búmùntù and the struggle for peace. It is my hope that it will operate in a like manner in your reading of the subsequent chapters.
relationally and harmoniously within.
In order to introduce the purpose of Chapter Six: A Welcome to Kamina, there are two aspects of the circle I draw attention to. Firstly, I suggest that the circle represents Búmùntù and the peace associated with it, as being located within a specific context, a given
community or society, which operates “within” this “cycle of life.”71 Chapter Six, thus begins,
with a multi-levelled grounding in Kamina; you are invited to “arrive” in Kamina and visit various sites of significance. Drawing from an additional aspect of this cosmogram; the ongoing presence of ancestors (or the “living dead”72), you are invited to experience these
sites of significance at multiple and intersecting time-place plateaus. In revealing glimpses of the histories that they carry, you are introduced to a contemporary landscape alive with the “past.” Whilst earlier chapters introduced the themes of duress and endurance in Congolese national history more broadly, this chapter locates these themes through the history of Kamina (and its present); shedding light on the immense (and often violent) transformations that have occurred across the Luba terrain over the last century or so. This is the terrain from which Búmùntù has arisen and evolved. This chapter thus sets the context from which we can subsequently engage in a dialogue on Búmùntù.
This is followed by Chapter Seven: “To Be” is to Be in Harmony With ... and Chapter Eight: “To
Become” is to Engage in the Struggle for Peace, which both serve to explore the place and
meaning of peace associated with Búmùntù. Returning to the notion of a “cycle of life” as the social field within which Búmùntù is expected to reign, Chapter Seven, begins by exploring this social field and the concept of Búmùntù, this time from the perspective of individuals and communities living in Kamina and its environs. Particularly, it draws attention to the many affirmations throughout our dialogues of the earlier suggestion that peace (expressed more often as social harmony) is the defining characteristic of our humanness. Whilst such an affirmation is the primary focus of the chapter, woven throughout this chapter are also many intimations of a greater complexity. It is these complexities that lead directly to Chapter
71 However, the more universalistic expressions of Búmùntù discussed throughout the subsequent
chapters can also contest this assertion.
72“Living dead” is a term famously coined by Mbiti (1999) which powerfully captures the way in which in
Eight.
Although continuing the purpose of Chapter Seven to explore the place and meaning of peace, Chapter Eight takes a more critical approach. Drawing on the cosmogram, the chapter interrogates the idea that Búmùntù and the peace associated with it may pertain not to a limitless space, but instead to a terrain which has its peripheries. Importantly, whilst I explore “peripheries” in a more literal sense by entering more profoundly into another aspect of the cosmogram (the “cross of life”), I also apply it more metaphorically. In both cases, the acknowledgement of peripheries arises primarily through an engagement with groups in Kamina experiencing varying degrees of marginalization, exclusion and “Other-ing” today: women, ethnic “Others” and those associated with “traditional” religious beliefs and practices. It thus moves beyond the more abstract and even idealized assertions of the place and meaning of peace introduced in Chapter Seven, towards a more contested, fluid, and even unstable vision of peace — an acknowledgement, which I will argue, actually reveals the real potential of Búmùntù as a peace-enhancing and -maintaining concept.
Importantly, the notion of a contested, fluid, sometimes even unstable vision of peace is revealing of an underlying theme woven, sometimes overtly, sometimes more subtly, throughout both Chapter Seven and Chapter Eight. This theme can be considered as an extension of Chapter Six’s multi-levelled grounding in Kamina, where intimations of the immense (and often violent) transformations across the Luba terrain witnessed through such a grounding exercise, reverberate through the changing conceptions and applications of
Búmùntù on a contemporary landscape. This will lead directly to Chapter Nine: The Struggle for Peace Amongst Restless and Unatoned Bones.
Drawing specifically on expressions of the peace associated with Búmùntù, Chapter Nine turns to explore the struggle for such a peace in the contemporary local landscape. In doing so, this chapter aims to draw together the implications of Part One: Tracing the History of an
Enduring Struggle, and Part Three: An Assemblage of Relational and Dialogical Encounters.
Moving beyond the evidence of duress and endurance in the physical landscape (Chapter Six), and their intimations in the ontological landscape (Chapters Seven and Eight), Chapter Nine enters more directly into a critical reflection of their relevance for the struggle for peace.
Whilst in this chapter, one finds a dominant narrative that Búmùntù, as both concept and praxis, is being “lost” and as a result, that peace is very far, there is also much evidence of the resistance, resilience, adaptation, and transformation of Búmùntù as part the enduring struggle for peace in an everchanging contemporary landscape.
This, in turn, will lead to the final concluding remarks in which I offer my reflections on
Búmùntù and its relevance as a productive peace-enhancing and -maintaining concept in a
contemporary and future local landscape. I particularly return to consider the contribution of the thesis in the context of the aforementioned “epic intellectual struggle” currently taking place regarding peacebuilding theory and practice, but also more broadly in the context of that broader epistemic shift or “decolonial turn” occurring across diverse fields and practice contexts. Finally, in light of the earlier proverb, Kuboko kumo kubunga ke kololanga (one single hand cannot apprehend many things), I remind you that this thesis is one moment in the development of an ever-evolving story and so I point to the many questions that are left open, calling forth the continuation of the dialogue. Having now established the flow and structure for the remaining chapters, we can now “arrive” in Kamina.