Your second reason not to bring back the name Zaire was purely and solely based on negative elements and in response to that, i gave you a very concise list of the same negative elements.
You said again and i quote "The Germans did not change the name of their nation in order to overcome the disgrace brought upon them by the Nazi regime". But disgrace was previously a reason for you not to bring back the name Zaire.
Mathematically speaking, and in relation to your same second answer, our country was called Zaire for 26 years and Congo combined for about 88 years. We have never been humiliated as we are now and if you are honest, you will agree with me that there is nothing pretty about being a Congolese now.
So if you quantify and weight on that, you have a pretty clear picture.
You said, i quote, "The name Zaire was given arbitrarily by an oppressive and corrupt dictator without consulting anybody". So, who consulted who to name the territory Congo? Let say that it was named in reference to the powerful Kongo Empire. Ok, so what about the Kuba empire just to name that one and the others? YES, the name of a country IS contingent on political circumstances and/or history. Examples are legion. And this is the reason why the territory was initially named Congo by whoever who did that. You may not like Zaire but you sure know the context that led Mobutu to change that name and believe me, If you profoundly read 1960-1970 Congo history that you certainly master, you will understand.
The French say: “Vive la France éternelle” and I say: “Vive notre nation éternelle” because Congo in my eyes represent 88+ years of humiliation.
First of all, let us be clear about this: My intention is not to convince anybody to accept the name Congo, but to explain my rejection of the name Zaire based on historical facts, which brings me to recapitulate my argument.
1. The original name of a country is part of its intrinsic identity; therefore, no political circumstances can alter this fact.
2. History of nations is most of the time made of tragedies. Old European nations bear testimony to this fact. France is still smarting from the humiliating defeat inflicted upon it by the Germans (1939-1945) and yet, you will hear no Frenchman/woman saying that because of that he is not proud to be a Frenchman/woman. A nation must be able to assume its past and present, be they glorious or humiliating. That is the only way to reach maturation.
You dwell on the fact that I listed Mobutu’s Zaire failures to justify my rejection of the name Zaire and, as a response, you list a series of the country’s failures under the Name Congo and conclude that mathematically, the name Congo has done more harm to the country than the name Zaire.
By listing Mobutu’s Zaire failures, I wanted to illustrate the fact that the simple fact of changing a country’s name does not provide the latter with a new identity nor does it save it from disaster, as Mobutu pretended. This brings me back to your invitation to consider the circumstances under which Mobutu changed the name Congo to Zaire.
The reason Mobutu changed the name of the country was that, according to him, the political independence granted by Belgium was not enough to put the country on the road to development; only a cultural independence was to liberate the Congolese people from the colonial past and assure his emancipation. How to reach that? By severing ties with all aspects of colonial culture in the Congolese society and by having recourse to the authentic and ancestral values inherent to Congolese people. However, Mobutu was not able to define the so-called “Congolese ancestral and authentic values”. So, the recourse to “ancestral values” consisted of the abolition of Christian names; change of dress code: prohibition to wear suit and tie for men (instead, they had to wear the so-called abacost, which means in French “à bas le costume”, in English: “down with the suit”. In fact the abascost was a copy of Chinese or Indian suits). As for adult women, the wearing of dress, trousers and skirt was prohibited. Instead, they had to wear a wraparound garments made of cloth manufactured in Holland (the so-called “wax hollandais”).
All public institutions (schools, Churches, boy/girl scout movements, etc. were de-baptized to take “authentic” names. European music was banned in official media.
Politically, the multiparty system was abolished to make way for a single party system (MPR); the state as an institution was merged with the single party, giving the latter pre-eminence over the former. Furthermore, the personality cult of the President was made an official policy.
Economically, all enterprises owned by foreigners were seized overnight (23.11.1973) without compensation and were redistributed to “authentic Zairians”.
These are the circumstances under which Mobutu changed the name of the country. Needless to say after the abyssal failure of “authenticity” and the subsequent downfall of the Zairian state, Mobutu, sobbing in public, repealed on April 24th, 1991 his own “authenticity” policies and “embraced” once again the hated “colonial values”. Former dress code, Christian names and European music in official media were allowed again. As for the confiscation of foreign enterprises, Zaire/Congo has never recovered from the economic damage done by this unfortunate policy. If Mobutu did not revert back to the name Congo, it is, in my opinion, because he lost the political initiative in the country from April 1991 on.
You say, comparatively, the name Congo has done more damage to the country than the name Zaire; are you sure? Let us consider some historical facts.
National sovereignty and territorial integrity
The Zairian army, which was to guarantee the above status, never won a single war; it knew only humiliating defeats. Every time it was confronted with any kind of armed conflict, foreign allies came to its rescue to save the regime from collapsing.
1967: After learning the assassination of Moise Tshombe, some 800 “gendarmes katangais" and a score of European mercenaries led by a Belgian colonel, Jean Schramme, swept through eastern Congo defeating the Congolese army and occupied the city of Bukavu. They were defeated after 3 months only after the United States intervened by sending airmen and other military aids. Less than a 1,000 ill-equipped adventurers defeated a whole army.
1977: Nathanael Mbumba, led a 2,000-man strong rebel group in the invasion of Shaba province from Angola, with the view to overthrow Mobutu’s regime. They partly succeeded in their mission and were able advance up to the city of Kolwezi, although Shaba province was a strategic region because it produced almost 70% of state revenue. The Zairian army fled instead of fighting. Mobutu had to order the killing of European expatriates in Kolwezi and pretend falsely that Communist Cubans were fighting alongside the rebels to force the West to intervene. It was the French paratroopers who liberated Kolwezi and defeated the rebels. The Zairian army was nowhere to be seen.
1978: The 2,000 “gendarmes katangais” attacked again: the Zairian army fled again…This time, it was the Moroccan army that was sent by King Hassan II that fought and saved Mobutu and his regime once again.
1996 -1997: A coalition of neighbouring countries’ armies and some Congolese rebel forces launched an attack against Zaire. The Zairian army, as usual, fled without fighting, leaving to the invaders the leisure to cross this huge country on foot and take the capital Kinshasa in only seven months. Mobutu’s allies, fed up with his regime, decided to let him down. This is the glorious history of the Zairian army.
On the economic Front
After the failure of the “authentic” policies described above, Zaire was declared bankrupt. The only way to save the country from total collapse was for the international community to destitute Zaire of its monetary and financial sovereignty. WB and IMF officials were sent in Zaire in 1977 to manage all financial and monetary institutions of the country (National Bank, customs office, Ministry of Finance, etc). The management of the National Bank was taken over by a German Bundesbank official, Hermman Blumenthal. Zaire was officially back to its colonial status. Supreme humiliation. The list goes on…
IN CONCLUSION
The Zairian State became an embarrassment not only to its people but to the whole African continent. That is why there was a large consensus among African countries and beyond, regardless of political persuasion, to put an end to the regime that incarnated it. The Zairian state owed its existence to the Cold War. The fact that it was allied with the West and was strategically located gave it protection that guaranteed its survival. Once the Cold War was over, it could no longer survive.
However, this is part of the history of the Congo and every Congolese must assume it and draw lessons from these failures - and the current failures and humiliation - in order to construct a better future and still be proud of his/her country. Maybe Congo would have gone through the same ordeal even if Mobutu had not change the name to Zaire. Name change is unnecessary because it does not decide on the fate of the country. The country was born under the name of Congo and nobody can change this intrinsic indentity. If the country were founded under the name of Kuba or Zaire or Boumboumstan, I would today stick to those names because they would be part of the intrinsic identity of the country. My point is not to establish under which name the country was more humiliated, but rather to underline the necessity to foster a better future by sticking to one's intrisic identity and by learning from past and present failures.
hno:
