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South-South

ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2016) Literary and Theatrical Circulations in the

Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and

Burundi, from the Belgian Colonial Empire to

the Africa of the Great Lakes.

Abstract

by retracing the history of these practices, taking several examples from the colonial period. It then analyzes contemporary modalities of the circulation of texts (via procedures such as reprising narrative patterns and adaptation), and cultural actors, in the different transnational arts networks that are more or less closely tied to the humanitarian sector, or to international cooperation. Finally, it proposes a critical questioning of the concept of artistic circulation.

Résumé

ǯ ces pratiques à travers quelques

contemporaines de circulations des textes (via des procédés tels que la reprise de ǯȌ es acteurs culturels dans les

différents réseaux transfrontaliers de création artistique plus ou moins liés au secteur questionnement critique sur le concept de circulation artistique.

Maëline Le Lay

CNRS / LAM Bordeaux

* Maëline Le Lay is a research fellow at CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) in Bordeaux (Les Afriques dans le monde (LAM, UMR 5115). Her research deals with theatre, performing arts and literature in DRC and the African Great Lakes Region. She published " La Parole construit le pays ». Théâtre, langues et didactisme au Katanga (RDC), (2014).

Le Lay Ȃ Literary and Theatrical Circulations

44 South-South ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2016)

Preamble

the lands of others, nomads poaching - Michel de Certeau literature, and the reading that is its corollary in terms of reception Ȃ they can definitely also be applied to other artistic genres, and notably the speech arts (theatre, song), which, to variable degrees, imply the act of reading.

This article proposes to study the protean

dimension of literary and theatrical circulations

ǯ Lake

region: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, today united in the Economic

Community of the Great Lakes Countries and

which formerly, until 1960, were part of the

Belgian colonial empire.2

Introduction

The African Great Lakes is a region long beset by

acute tensions and scarred by murderous violence; these crystallize often-conflictual memories around the lakes and hills of the Democratic

Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

Travelling the region, one discovers the

astonishing porosity of the official borders, which allows for intense exchanges (both in the sense of the inhabitants of these three countries. In the artistic milieu, this circulation of individuals-- which frequently takes the form of flight and exodus, due to frequent political upheavals in the region--starkly contrasts with the density of the divides (distancing and side-lining in the best-case scenarios; processes of exclusion and elimination

1 Dz Ǣǯǡ

braconnage," ǯǡͷȀ (Paris: Union générale

2 I would like to thank my colleagues Alice Corbet, Didier Nativel and Daouda Gary-

Tounkara for their informed reading of this article, and for their questions and pertinent remarks. in the worst) that characterize relations between the communities living in this region. Despite deficient state structures (and at times, due to), authors thus organize themselves within different networks to circulate their writing: poetry recitals, literary cafés, radio drama, or theatre performances. All these initiatives paint the broad-strokes of a rich and varied textual landscape. They attest to the dynamism of this landscape and translate the force of the identity issues that animate it, and the emancipating potentiality it aims to convey.

Indeed, whatever the networks through which

these texts reach an audience, they all appear to pursue the same quest: to heal wounds and rebuild ties. Hence, the circulation of texts, like that of people, highlights the common themes addressed: those of war and peace, and the dynamics of conflict in general. After a first historical section presenting artistic circulations in the regionȂcirculations of individuals in general, and of artists and their works, in particularȂthis study will focus on contemporary modalities of the circulation of dramatic texts (adopting a format, reprising and adaptation). Finally, it will end with an analysis of cultural actors' strategies of circulation in the region, mainly in the humanitarian sector.3

I. A Brief History of Artistic

Circulations in the Great Lakes

Region: Some Examples

From time to time scrutinizing the worrying

horizon with a lost look, always avoiding meeting anyone, I continue my hallucinatory flight through the vast cassava fields, past mounts and valleys, heading south, washing up, crushed with fatigue, thirsty, out of breath, no doubt in Mayaga, in the

3 This paper was written following fieldwork in DR Congo (Lubumbashi, Kolwezi,

Fungurume, Kinshasa, Goma, Bukavu) and Burundi (Bujumbura), carried out between January and April 2016. It was supported by the CNRS (InSHS - Institut national des Sciences humaines et sociales), IFRA Nairobi and IFAS Johannesburg.

Le Lay Ȃ Literary and Theatrical Circulations

45ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2016) South -South

know which hill Ȃ Kibirizi, perhaps, or Matara? Ȃ where the brambles, alongside wild bushes, grown beneath the careful hand of God in a thankless land shall cross the river and, after the Kanyinya Mission and the Kirundo post in Muhinga territory, reach the Anglo-Belgian border and at last Tanganyika

Territory, in complete safety. 4

This passage is taken from a dense account,

recently re-published under the title Mes transes à trente ans (Escapade ruandaise). In addition to its indisputable literary interest, it testifies to the real circulation of people, artists and texts in the Belgian colonial space, despite very rigidly applied regulations. Saverio Nayigiziki, who exerted many professions, notably in the public administration,5 was the author of this remarkable account, part of which was published in 1950 under the title:

ǯ a

trentième année.6 It is an autofiction, as it would be described today, narrating the flight of Justin in the colonial territories and beyond, from Rwanda to Burundi to Uganda and Tanzania. A clerk in a national company, Justin fears he will be accused by his superiors of theft when a deficit comes to incessant travels in a sub-region not yet known as travel tale steeped in metaphysical and spiritual musings. Although very dense and hard to classify, it was awarded the literature prize at the 1949 Brussels Colonial Fair. It was hardly to go down in

4 Dzǯǯǡ

rencontrer qui que ce soit, je poursuis ma course hallucinée à travers de vastes champs de manioc, passe monts et vallons et vais vers midi, échouer, recru de fatigue, assoiffé et haletant, sans doute au Mayaga, en pleine steppe, sur la crête abrupte de je ne sais quelle colline, - Kibirizi peut-être ou Matara ? Ȃ où les ronces, gagnerai, après la Mission de Kanyinya et le poste de Kirundo en territoire de Muhinga, la frontière belgo-anglaise et enfin la Tanganyika Territory, en pleine intégral, établi et présenté par Jean-Paul Kwizera (Metz: Université Paul Verlaine- Metz, Centre de recherche "Écritures", coll. Littératures des mondes contemporains, série Afrique n°5, 2009), 72-74.

5 He was in turn a clerk in a Rwandan mission, an employee in a transportation

company in Usumbura, ran a cloth trading post in Nyanza (Rwanda), was a postal worker then auxiliary accountant in Goma (Congo), a research assistant and editor at the IRSAC (Institute of Scientific Research on Central Africa) in Astrida (Butare, Rwanda), then Élisabethville (Congo), where he also enrolled at the University of the

Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi.

6 Saverio J. Nayigiziki, Escapade ruandaise. ǯ

(Rwandan Escapade. Diary of a Clerk in His Thirtieth Year). Preface by J.-M. Jadot (Bruxelles: G.A. Deny, 1950) Ȃ renamed with the publication of the unabridged version in 1955: Mes transes à trente ans. Histoire vécue mêlée de roman. I. de mal en pis. II. De pis en mieux. (My Trances Aged Thirty. A True Story Mixed With Fiction. I. From Bad to Worse. II. From Worse to Better.) (Astrida: Groupe scolaire, 1955), 2 vol.,

487 pages.

posterity, however, until it was rediscovered by Jean-Paul Kwizera, editor of the 2009 edition. A few years later, in 1954, Saverio Nayigiziki published a play, ǯǡfirst published in Astrida (today Butare in Rwanda), then in the journal of the Élisabethville association of writers, IRSAC (Institute of Scientific Research on Central Africa) in Astrida to its Élisabethville station (today Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of

Congo),8 he indeed emigrated to Congo and settled

one of the first Africans to hold a function on the editorial board of the colonial journal as of 1959.

1. The Mobility and Circulations of Individuals

in the Empire people between the three countries were common, but carefully controlled. These were primarily labour migrations, essentially from Rwanda and Burundi to Congo; the latter was officially the only colony, Ruanda-Urundi having the status of protectorates, attached to the colony.9 The

Katanga thus drew a large Rwandan and

Burundian workforce to the U.M.H.K. (Upper

Katanga Mining Union) in Elisabethville and the neighboring mining towns of the Katanga copper arc. Migrations were also observed in the public path demonstrates; numerous Rwandan and

Burundian clerks were sent to Leopoldville (now

Kinshasa) and the other regional capitals to occupy administrative posts. But they were also motivated by university training requirements.

7 Concerning this journal and its desire to inscribe itself in an urban modernity, with

a veneer of cosmopolitanism, see: Pierre Halen, "La Première revue Jeune Afrique ou

ǯ-colonial au Congo belge. 1947-1960", in A.

Vigh, ed., ǯ. (Paris :

8 Saverio J. Nayigiziki, ǯ. ǯ (Astrida: Groupe scolaire

Frères de la Charité, 1954), 58; Saverio J. Nayigiziki, ǯ. A three-act play, in Jeune Afrique, (Élisabethville), 27 (1958): 17-29 ; 28 (1958): 27-35 ; ǯ (part

3), in Jeune Afrique, (Élisabethville), 11e année, 29 (1958) : 24-31.

9 Both had a provincial governor, like in Congo, but these came under the authority

of the Governor General of Congo. According to the 1925 Law of Administrative Union, the two mandated territories of Ruanda-Urundi were administratively annexed to the Belgian Congo and were meant to become the fifth province of the provinces. See: Joseph Gahama, Le Burundi sous administration belge. La période du mandat (1919-193) (Paris: Karthala/ACCT, 1983), 48-49.

Le Lay Ȃ Literary and Theatrical Circulations

46 South-South ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2016)

Indeed, as the Universities of Rwanda and of Burundi were created later than the Congolese universities,10 many left to study in Leopoldville and Elisabethville, right up until the 1980s.11

While the migration of people between these three

countries thus mainly concerned the professional and student milieus, exchanges also took place in arts milieus too, essentially as of the late 1950s.

This was the period when the colonial government

began a semblance of cultural policy, at least with regard to the performing arts. Prior to this time, it had essentially backed the visual arts.12

10 The Lovanium University of Léopoldville was created in 1954, but the first

Lovanium University Health Centre in Kisantu (Bas-Congo) dates to 1949. In 1956, the official University of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi was created in Elisabethville. In Rwanda and Burundi, however, it was in 1960 that the Jesuit Faculty was created, which later became the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature. See: Hocine Khelfaoui, Bref état des lieux du système national de recherche scientifique et technique de la République du Burundi, (UNESCO report, July 2009), 14 :

11 In the 1980s, circulations within the academic milieu became complicated because

of the growing political tensions between the three countries. The tensions were notably due to the massive presence of Rwandophone and Burundophone people in the Eastern region of Kivu, who asserted their claim to be considered Congolese citizens and their ambition to administrate the territories in which they had settled.

12 As testifies the organisation of art exhibitions, notably at the Léopoldville Museum

of Indigenous Life, founded in 1936, but also political measures, such as the Decree For the Protection of Indigenous Art, signed in 1938 by King Leopold and the Minister of Colonies, E. Rubbens. Source: Archives africaines de Bruxelles, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères.

2. Changwe Yetu, a Transnational, Collective

Belgian African Creation

Nonetheless, while circulations of artists within this space were frequent during the 1950s, they mainly concerned European artists on theatre tours in the Empire, particularly in the Congo. The show Changwe Yetu constitutes the first example, to my knowledge, not only of circulation, but also of collaboration between Congolese, Rwandan and

Burundian artists.

Changwe Yetu ȋDzǡdzȌ

suite of traditional performances (music and hall style actsȄsketches, comic acts, games (musical chairs, for example) Ȅ, and jazz-twist type pieces of music. It was thus a kind of folkloric patchwork incarnating tradition, as reinvented by

Belgian orchestrators (theatre directors,

Le Lay Ȃ Literary and Theatrical Circulations

47ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2016) South -South

also included an interlude of what was not yet

Dzdzǡted a form

of burgeoning modernity in the colony. Staged in Elisabethville in 1956 on the occasion of the ǯͷͲ-year jubilee, this show funded by the company was performed at the 1959 Universal

Exhibition in Brussels. Staged with clearly

propagandistic intentions, it was designed to celebrate the greatness of the Belgian Empire and to demonstrate its wealth and diversity.

While a few Congolese, Rwandan and Burundian

groups came together for the first time on the same stage in this transnational collective creation in part destined for export, this event did not in reality constitute a real opportunity for Congolese, Rwandan and Burundian artists to collaborate. Indeed, if they cohabited in the same spaces Ȃ in Elisabethville during the creation of the show, then in Brussels Ȃ there was hardly any exchange between them, according at least to an official report concerning the behavior of the Changwe

Yetu artists during their time in Brussels.13

That said, this show nonetheless constituted an emblematic event in the circulation of the people and intangible heritage of these three countries, prepared in Elisabethville (with groups and individuals from several regions of Congo and

Ruanda-Urundi) and exported to Brussels, where

it indeed made a strong impression.

II Ȃ Modalities of the Circulation

of Texts After this historical perspective and general reflections on the axes of circulations between shall now look at how, precisely, different types of theatrical circulation operate in this transnational

13 In it, we learn, among other bits of "spicy" information, that the Barundi did not

communicate with the Bahemba of Kongolo (North-East Katanga), despite, the report's author points out, their cultural proximity, and that the Ntore of Rwanda (Tutsi) openly showed their contempt of all the others, including the other

Banyarwanda: Van Sinay J. ȋǡȌǡDz

pour M. Clément, administrateur de territoire. 3è bureau Service des affaires January 1959. Source: Archives africaines de Bruxelles, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, portefeuille RUDI (98), liasse 736. from one country to another.

1. The Circulation of "Dramatic Formats": The

Example of Impossible Unions

of multiple variables, but which repeat the same pattern. If there is indeed something of the industrial order in the reprise or repetition of a pattern in the Benjaminian sense, there is also, indubitably, a meaning to be sought in the recurrent activation of this pattern and its articulation in a work and within a specific socio- political context. It is this impression that leads me to refer to novelist Henry James and his short story The Figure in the Carpet.14 In a narration, the pattern is instantiated by topoi, articulated together in a The Russian literary theorist Veselovsky, who inspired the Formalists and notably Vladimir Propp in his Morphology of the Folktale, defined here is a kind of over-arching general theme, or, it may be said, a sub-ensemble of more specific themes that enter into resonance with it, and which they activate in the narrative to fulfil a specific narrative function.16 Impossible union is thus the pattern par excellence found in dramatic formats in the Great Lakes region. Its circulation has been encouraged by a radio programme of sketches called Jirani ni ndugu, imagined to encourage reconciliation between warring parties. Jirani ni ndugu-Ȃa phrase in Swahili that can be translated as "Your Neighbour Is Your Brother"-Ȃis the title of a radio drama comprising an ensemble of dialogues

14 Henry James, The Figure in the Carpet [1896]. London: Heinemann. ǯ

tapis (Paris: Pierre Horay, 1957) ; ǯ (Paris: Éditions de L'Équinoxe, 1984) ; New edition (Paris: Le Seuil, Points, 1985) ; Le motif dans le tapis (Paris: Babel, 1997).

15 Vladimir Propp, Morphologie du conte [1928]. (Paris: Seuil, coll. Points, 1965). This

is how Claude Brémond presents it in Logique du récit, (Paris : Le Seuil, coll.

Poétique, 1973), 13-14.

Le Lay Ȃ Literary and Theatrical Circulations

48 South-South ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2016)

recorded on radio in serial form, and revolving around the motif of neighborly entente. This program was initiated in Burundi, in 1997, at the time in the throes of a civil war, by the

American NGO SFCG (Search for Common

Ground), under the auspices of Studio Ijambo, the

was called Umubanyi niwe muryango ȋDz was directed by one of the most famous Burundian playwrights, Marie-Louise Sibazuri, a pioneer of Burundian theatre, in French, then in Kirundi. She has also written a self-published novel17 and, in recent years, become a storyteller, in addition to her official functions as Ambassador of

Francophonie in Burundi. The production of these

radio drama serials is as prolific as it is longstanding: in early April 2015, the troupe was up to its 909th episode, with two episodes broadcast a week. The story revolves around two neighboring families, who build very strong ties.

ǡǡǯknow

which is which. This deliberate vacillation aims to transcend ethnic divisions and to surpass prejudices.

This dramatic family saga format, with its

archetypal characters, who are in turn divided and united by conflicts, was thus exported to Congo in

2006. Nearly ten years later, it continues to be

popular there, under the name of Jirani ni ndugu. The slogan is still used by the NGO to introduce its participatory theatre method everywhere it is involved. This common usage is based on the simple principle that this slogan can be adapted to any context, provided that problems between neighbors, in the broadest sense of the term, are at the heart of the conflict, whatever it may be, and taken in the strictest sense of the term. Jirani ni ndugu has thus become the typical format of the popular drama serial, and is very widely broadcast in the Great Lakes region. Like all drama serials, its development and characters are quite

17 Marie-Louise Sibazuri, Les seins nus (Canéjan: Copymédia, 2013).

codified. The storylines weave together a series of variants from one town to another, but are articulated around the motif of impossible union, and used to encourage peaceful cohabitation. Inquotesdbs_dbs47.pdfusesText_47

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