Zaire

Download or read book Rumba Rules written by Bob W. White and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-06-27 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) from 1965 until 1997, was fond of saying “happy are those who sing and dance,” and his regime energetically promoted the notion of culture as a national resource. During this period Zairian popular dance music (often referred to as la rumba zaïroise) became a sort of musica franca in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. But how did this privileged form of cultural expression, one primarily known for a sound of sweetness and joy, flourish under one of the continent’s most brutal authoritarian regimes? In Rumba Rules, the first ethnography of popular music in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bob W. White examines not only the economic and political conditions that brought this powerful music industry to its knees, but also the ways that popular musicians sought to remain socially relevant in a time of increasing insecurity. Drawing partly on his experiences as a member of a local dance band in the country’s capital city Kinshasa, White offers extraordinarily vivid accounts of the live music scene, including the relatively recent phenomenon of libanga, which involves shouting the names of wealthy or powerful people during performances in exchange for financial support or protection. With dynamic descriptions of how bands practiced, performed, and splintered, White highlights how the ways that power was sought and understood in Kinshasa’s popular music scene mirrored the charismatic authoritarianism of Mobutu’s rule. In Rumba Rules, Congolese speak candidly about political leadership, social mobility, and what it meant to be a bon chef (good leader) in Mobutu’s Zaire.

Download or read book East Along the Equator written by Helen Winternitz and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this brilliant mix of political journalism and travel writing, Helen Winternitz and fellow journalist Timothy Phelps witness what few Westerners have: life in the ecologically rich but financially impoverished American-backed dictatorship of Zaire, the former Belgian Congo.

Download or read book The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State written by Crawford Young and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 1985 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zaire, apparently strong and stable under Presdident Mobutu in the early 1970s, was bankrupt and discredited by the end of that decade, beset by hyperinflation and mass corruption, the populace forced into abject poverty. Why and how, in a new african state strategically located in Central Africa and rich in mineral resources, did this happen? How did the Zairian state become a “parasitic predator” upon its own people?

Download or read book The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire written by Michael G. Schatzberg and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire written by John M. Janzen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Dr. John M. Janzen describes patterns of healing among the BaKongo of Lower Zaire in Africa, who, like many peoples elsewhere, utilize cosmopolitan medicine alongside traditional healing practices. What criteria, he asks, determine the choice of the alternative therapies? And what is their institutional interrelationship? In seeking answers, he analyzes case histories and cultural contexts to explore what social transactions, decisionmaking, illness and therapy classifications, and resource allocations are used in the choice of therapy by the ill, their kinfolk, friends, asociates, and specialized practitioners. From the Preface: This book presents an "on the ground" ethnographic account of how medical clients of one region of Lower Zaire diagnose illness, select therapies, and evaluate treatments, a process we call "therapy management." The book is intended to clarify a phenomenon of which central African clients have long been cognizant, namely, that medical systems are used in combination. Our study is aimed primarily at readers interested in the practical issues of medical decision-making in an African country, the cultural content of symptoms, and the dynamics of medical pluralism, that is, the existence in a single society of differently designed and conceived medical systems.

Download or read book Zaire written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 2 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Zaire's Golden Babies written by Charles Leister and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the setting of real-life Zaire and the Great Lakes region of central Africa, three bank investigators provoke retaliation by corrupt government officials. An attractive and skilled fraud investigator from Mauritius finds herself working closely, perhaps too closely, with a charming but discredited banker from California and a Zairian lawyer with intriguing skills. The overnight disappearance of hospitalized infants and the flourishing clandestine market in coffee, valuable minerals and ores along the eastern frontier of the country, gradually coalesce to form an ugly puzzle. After government secrets are revealed by the investigators, a suicide thrusts the American to the top position of the African bank where he has been given asylum. The number of abducted infants grows, promising developments appear to bring hope, cruel events turn upon them, and unexpected moves by three powerful women working behind the scenes change everything.