‘Nakei Kinshasa’, the cultural challenge and opportunity in DRC

Do you remember Mbilia Bel’s Lingala rumba classic song in which she croons, “Nakei Nairobi... nakozonga na Nduni” (I am going to Nairobi… I will return with Nduni)? Apparently, the singer is on a search mission for Nduni, a close friend or relative, who had left their home in the DRC and disappeared into the concrete jungles of Nairobi.

The song gripped our attention not only because the diva was mentioning our beloved cities but also because of her dazzling stage presence when she performed live for us at different venues in the 1980s. Indeed, the performances went down so well with Kenyans that Mbilia and her colleagues improvised a Kiswahili “version” for us, casually paying homage to our leaders of the times.

I am aware that a recent eminent slip of the tongue about Congolese music and sartorial styles occasioned considerable displeasure in some quarters. Most of us in East Africa, however, can hardly separate our concept of the DRC from its great music tradition. Little wonder that UNESCO recently elevated Congolese rumba music to the status of a world heritage item.

So, as I contemplate the final admission of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) into the East African Community this week, I cannot help relating the momentous arrival of this latest sibling of ours into the Jumuiya to its great musical tradition.

After all, music is one of the icons of a people’s creative culture, and it is a good starting point for considering the cultural implications of the DRC entry into the Community. In any case, many Congolese musicians have been coming to us in East Africa, performing for us, and even settling among us.

Inviting them to join us in the Community is our way of going out to them too. Hence the “Nakei Kinshasa” (I am going to Kinshasa). It is, however, a safari (mobimba in Lingala) of tremendous dimensions. I imagine, for example, that even a direct flight from Mombasa to Kinshasa would take the better part of three or four hours. In terms of population, the DRC brings some 90 million people to the Community, just about the combined populations of Kenya and Uganda.

Formal entry agreement

Geographically, I noted that the DRC is the only Community member that shares borders with each of its sister states, except Kenya. It abuts on Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda Tanzania and South Sudan. The DRC’s entry into the Community also makes a few of its other neighbours, like the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Angola and the Central African Republic, potential candidates for East African Community membership, on the principle of “adjacency”.

Even to a dyed-in-the-wool “Jumuiya” enthusiast like me, the mind boggles at these realities. Then there are the well-known governance and security challenges of the DRC, many of them inherited from the colonial greed that grabbed the region as the “Congo Free State” during the 19th century scramble for Africa. The novelist Joseph Conrad portrayed that European greed in his novel, An Area of Darkness, set in what is DRC today.

The greed for the DRC’s enormous natural resources continues in various forms even today, further complicating its problems. So, our leaders’ bold decision to admit the DRC to the Community is a strong act of faith, faith that the Community can contribute positively to the betterment of the DRC, and faith that that great country can, and will, bring benefits to the Community.

But, as I keep saying, it is up to us to put our leaders’ decisions into practice by contributing creatively and imaginatively to the areas of cooperation specified in the protocols of the Community.

DRC President Felix Tshisekedi will sign the formal entry agreement, before President Uhuru Kenyatta, the current Head of the EAC Authority, on April 14. After that, we East Africans should be ready to go in, to Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Kisangani, Mbuji-Mayi. Bukavu, Goma and elsewhere in this new home of ours, and start cooperating with our new compatriots on whatever we know how to do best.

New enlarged community

We educationists and language aficionados, for example, will play a significant role in the new enlarged community. The DRC’s entry into the Community will necessitate a re-configuration of our language policies. The current position of the two official languages, English and Kiswahili, needs rethinking. Rwanda posed few problems when it joined, since it had gone “Anglophone” since the 1990s, but the arrival of Burundi raised the question of the status of French in our operations.

Now with the entry of the DRC, a decidedly “Francophone” entity, the question cannot be left to tacit common sense. I imagine that French will have to be accepted as a “working language” in Arusha and elsewhere in the Community institutions, necessitating the services of bilingual or trilingual (Kiswahili-English-French) interpreters and translators.

This implies a reinvigoration of the teaching and polishing up of our French language skills. Reciprocally, our Congolese compatriots will probably have more interest in learning English, thus creating a demand for teachers of English in the DRC.

A language aspect that particularly interests me is the relationship of our African languages in the new Community. As you know, Kiswahili (a variety of it called “Kingwana”) is widely spoken in the eastern regions of the DRC. But the dominant lingua franca in the western regions, around Kinshasa and its Atlantic hinterland, is Lingala. Other languages, like, Kikongo and Tshiluba, are also spoken in various regions.

It will probably be relatively easy to realign Congolese Kiswahili with our East African variety, since the two are already mutually intelligible. But how shall we negotiate the relationship between Kiswahili and Lingala? This calls for the services of linguistic experts, like the many we have in the old Community, and specifically at the East African Kiswahili Commission in Zanzibar.

The opportunities, and challenges, opening with the DRC’s arrival at Arusha thus go way beyond the travel, business and trade dealings that first come to mind when we hear “Jumuiya”.

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and [email protected]