Political symbolization and socio-cultural dynamics in a traditional society

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of the political process and the socio-cultural dynamics that, to a time of transition, moves the Congo, ethnic bantu groups established now at some territories of Angola, Congo and Zaire. Within an historical and systemic perspective, on the first part the author presents a critical view on some specific aspects of the systemic trend concerning the problem of causality and explanation in social sciences and presents a «conceptual paradygme» of the systemic pattern as an adequate tool for the analysis of the political symbolization of events. The second part shows the two complementary aspects of the political process in the Congo traditional society: the logic of the values and legitimations which constitutes the traditional and customary regime of government and the logic of the normativity which regulates the political regime; it analyses why and how the Congo matrilineal descent groups reevaluate the processes of chiefship operating within an affinal and patrifilial local network. On the last part, the author shows the rejection of political, bureaucratic and new estate structures imposed by the colonizer. He puts into light the essential dynamics of the Antoniens movement: to reform the traditional political power due to the new instruments taken from the colonizer and to make social innovations throught the continuity of the Congo cultural identity. The analysis permits a reevaluation of chiefship as it formerly existed and a new sociological interpretation of the changes of the Lower Congo under colonial rule and, more recently, under the independent regime.