عصور

Resisting Empire: British Colonialism, Postcolonial Identity, And Congolese Resistance Movements Through Said And Bhabha

Auteurs : Alachaher Fazilet .

Résumé

The Congo Basin stands as one of the most dramatically documented sites of European colonial violence and indigenous resistance in African history. From the brutal extraction regime of King Leopold II's Congo Free State to formal Belgian colonial administration and the independence movements of the mid-twentieth century, the Congolese experience of colonialism generated sustained, varied, and historically significant forms of resistance. This article examines Congolese resistance movements through the postcolonial frameworks of Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha. Said's concept of Orientalism reveals how European colonial discourse constructed the Congolese as an inferior 'other' to legitimize one of history's most exploitative colonial regimes. Bhabha's theories of mimicry, hybridity, and the third space illuminate the cultural and political strategies through which Congolese communities negotiated, contested, and ultimately dismantled colonial domination. This study argues that colonialism in the Congo operated as much through knowledge production and discursive representation as through military and economic coercion, and that Congolese resistance constituted a sustained, theoretically significant counter-project against imperial power.

Mots clés

Belgian Colonialism; ; Cultural Resistance; ; Congo; ; Orientalism; ; Postcolonial Theory; ; Patrice Lumumba; ; Simon Kimbangu.