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INTRODUCTION1
On a morning in November 2009, I was talking with a group of young political activists in Kasavubu district in Kinshasa. We spoke about political developments in the Congo since the signing of the peace agreement in 2002, and the promises and disappointments of democracy.2A passer-by tapped me on the shoulder and said 'Mundele, it is because of you'.3The people with whom I was speaking were slightly embarrassed but did not contradict the man when he spoke about how the West has betrayed the Congo and its people. He said to me 'I don't like [President] Kabila', and walked away. The man used a narrative commonly used in the Congo through which people explain the disappointments of the present situation in their country. For him the West is the cause of perpetual Congolese misery. He is disappointed in President Kabila, but he believes that Kabila is in power because Western powers want him to be, like Mobutu had been in the past. For him democracy and all that it entails has been taken hostage by devious and deceitful Western powers. His statement that he does not like President Kabila means that he does not like what Western powers have done to the Congo, rather than what he thinks of Kabila himself. He holds the West responsible for the perpetuation of misery in the country.
Mbembe has asked how identities that produce social practices are imagined in contemporary Africa and argues that African forms of 'self-writing' can no longer be based on European fictions of the African as victim (2001: 14-15). This paper argues that, contrary to Mbembe's argument Congolese people continue to imagine a Congolese Self as a perpetual victim and a Western Other as a perpetual oppressor. These identities subsequently manifest themselves in ambivalent Congolese attitudes towards the process of democratisation and political reconfiguration in Congo since the Sun City peace agreement. This raises important questions about the prospect of successful peace building and democratisation in the Congo.
After a brief section on historical narratives and democracy in the Congo, I will discuss several historic moments in Congolese post-colonial history when a central plot about the struggle for freedom was followed by failure and victimhood due...