Conversion and Missionary Narratives in Post-Independence Congo. A Comparative Analysis of Jacques Bergeyck’s Het stigma/The Stigma (1970) and V.Y. Mudimbe’s Entre Les eaux/Between Tides (1973)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Missionaries played a central role in the colonial system in Congo – they were a key part of the well-known triad consisting of state, church, and corporations. During the Belgian Congo period (1908–1960), missionaries of diverse congregations were in charge of health care and education, and their religious services were the only ones officially recognized. Narratives have strongly shaped how these missionaries operated. One could even say that the conversion and missionary narrative define what it means to set up a successful ‘mission’. In my contribution, I explore how these narratives surface in two novels written in the two decades after Congo’s Independence in 1960. Entre les eaux (1973) by V.Y. Mudimbe and Het stigma (1970) by Jacques Bergeyck both refer to the missionary activities in mid-century Congo but their use of the conversion and missionary narrative complicates the common-sense understanding of them. By comparing a Flemish and a Congolese novel, this article aims to decentre the Flemish literary world as the locus where these narratives gain their meaning. By taking a more transnational, multilingual context as a starting point, it wants to shed new light on the ways in which the European missionary presence in Congo has been imagined.