Fighting boys, strong men and gorillas: notes on the imagination of masculinities in Kinshasa.

ABSTRACT

The article provides insight into the current violent practices of urban youngsters in Kinshasa. At nightfall youth gangs transform the streets of Kinshasa's townships into arenas of the fight. Frequent regular clashes between these gangs create young violent leaders, who not only sow terror but also provide security for the inhabitants (young and old) of their territories. Although many of these boys and young men are trained in foreign fighting styles such as judo, jujitsu and karate, in the public clashes between the fighting groups, these boys and young men perform mukumbusu. This fighting style, inspired and based on the gorilla, was invented during the last decade of colonialism, and is an original mixture of a traditional Mongo wrestling practice, libanda, and Asian and Western fighting practices. In the article, I scrutinize the practices of these young fighters through the diverse images of masculinity (kimobali) upon which they draw, such as the fighter and the soldier; and the models of masculinity that they contest, the sapeur and the staffeur.

RESUME

L'article apporte un eclairage sur les pratiques violentes recentes de jeunes urbains a Kinshasa. A la tombee de la nuit, des bandes de jeunes transforment les rues des cites de Kinshasa en arenes de la peur. Les heurts reguliers et frequents entre ces bandes creent des jeunes meneurs violents qui sement la terreur, mais aussi assurent la securite des habitants (jeunes et vieux) de leur territoire. Si beaucoup de ces garcons et jeunes hommes sont entraines aux styles de combat etrangers tels que le judo, le jujitsu et le karate, ils pratiquent egalement le mukumbusu lors des combats que se livrent les groupes en public. Ce style de combat, inspire du gorille, a ete invente dans la derniere decennie du colonialisme. Il allie de maniere originale une forme de lutte traditionnelle Mongo, le libanda, et des pratiques de combat asiatiques et occidentales. L'article examine les pratiques de ces jeunes combattants a travers les diverses images de masculinite (kimobah) dont elles s'inspirent: le combattant et le soldat; ainsi que les modeles de masculinite auxquels ils s'opposent, le sapeur et le staffeur.

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This article examines violent practices in Kinshasa's townships as arenas where several models of masculinity are embodied simultaneously. In particular, I will discuss a group of young fighters who call themselves bakumbusu (sing. mukumbusu), which means 'gorillas' in Lingala, Kinshasa's vernacular language. Violence among Africa's youth has often been described as an expression of resistance to local political conditions (Abrahams 1987; Glaser 1998; De Boeck 2004; De Boeck and Honwana 2004; Smith 2004; La Hausse 1990; Bazenguissa-Ganga 1999; Marchal 1993; Toulabor 1996), but these examinations rarely discuss the violent acts themselves or the movement styles, body decorations and songs that shape the combats, nor do they locate young fighters amongst other sub-groups of local youth culture. Since the early days of urbanization, Kinshasa has witnessed the physical dominance of sportifs (1) or 'youngsters of the fight' (bato ya libanda) in the streets of de townships (De Boeck 2000; La Fontaine 1970), and today's gang clashes are thus not at all a new phenomenon, despite the profound socio-economic, political, and demographic transformation the city has gone through since colonial times. Instead of politicizing the violent outbursts, this article intends to unravel the historical roots and the modern--because mass-mediated- influences on the violent practices, in order to identify the role of violence on the construction of local identities. I thus hope to contribute to the exciting discussion of the ongoing construction of masculinities in post-colonial Africa (Morell 2001; Lindsay and Miescher 2003).

'Masculinity' can have divergent contents (Gutmann 1997; Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994), but is here considered to be that field of images concerning what 'real men are and ought to do' that guide the practices and discourses of the young fighting men. This article draws on recent anthropological theories that focus on the work of mass-mediated images and fantasy in the construction of identities and the generation of meaning in a global post-colonial world (Hannerz 1980 and 1983; Abu-Lughod 1997; Appadurai 1991; Weiss 2002; Behrend 2002). It will be argued that imaginative processes are essential in the enactment of gendered practices of post-colonial Kinois sportifs. In contrast to Gilmore (1990), who offers essentialized and 'universal' images of manhood, the data of our field research in Kinshasa require a dynamic approach to ideas of kimobali ('manhood'). This more flexible and historical approach to the production and enactment of masculinities is also the perspective which we will follow throughout this article. First, we discern multiple models of masculinity in Kinshasa (the Pasteur, the soldier, the yankee, the sapeur, the staffeur, the musician, the fighter). In this respect, we agree with Hodgson that 'masculinities, like femininities, are complex, diverse, and dynamic, and a range of masculinities, some dominant, some subordinate, exist in any society' (Hodgson 2001a: 16; Cornwall 1994). Moreover, 'masculinities are multiple, historical, relational and contradictory' (Hodgson 2001b: 109; also Butler 1993; Cornwall 2005: 5).