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Am I Myself? Identities In Zaire, Then and Now

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Wyatt MacGaffey
Wyatt MacGaffey
Affiliation:
The Institute of Historical Research, London
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Extract

It is useful, for the sake of my topic today, that since I declared my title the Republic of Zaire (in May 1997) changed its identity, or at least, resumed one of its former names, the Democratic Republic of Congo. The change is also a nuisance, because the new/old name revives the likelihood of confusion not only with ex-Zaire's neighbour across the Zaire River, the Republic of Congo, but also with the people called BaKongo, who owned the name in the first place. I will try to explain all that in a moment.

Type
Identities and Empires
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 8 , December 1998 , pp. 291 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1998

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