Ethnicity and Language in the Run-up to Congolese Independence in the 1950s: Ba(Ki)Kongo and Ba(Li)Ngala Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Abako (Alliance des Bakongo), one of the main political parties rallying for Congolese independence in the late 1950s, started off as a linguistic-cultural movement to promote the use of the Kikongo language and Kongo identity in Leopoldville against a dominance of the Lingala language and “Bangala.” In reaction to this, members of the “Bangala” elite also organised themselves, after which a series of ideological confrontations between “Bakongo” ...