‘MBOKA MUNDELE’: AFRICANITY, RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AND THE MILITARIZATION OF PROPHETS IN BRAZZAVILLE AND KINSHASA

Abstract

In recent decades, Kinshasa and Brazzaville have given rise to movements of prophecy, messianic fervour and revival (Pentecostalist in nature) in the field of religion. The patterns of liberation and deliverance that can be discerned here reflect forms of identity politics in which Africanity, in the ethnic and national sense, is not only a major issue, but a component that is increasingly associated with armed conflict. These processes express a radical paradigm shift that we place within the context of the relationship between Africanity and religious pluralism that has become evident in these two religious areas in recent years. The term ‘Mboka Mundele’ (the village or country of the Whites) points to an experience of ‘colonial modernity’, and allows us to describe in objective terms the current urban context in which these ‘businessmen of God’ emerge. Fernando Kutino, Ntoumi, Yaucat Guendi and Ne Muanda Nsemi are four major politico-religious figures who embody an ideology of Africanity related to complex types of ‘magic’ and processes of pluralization.