Associations and sociability between is and ought (1944–1953)

During his trip through the Congo Free State in 1899, the mayor of Brussels lamented the lack of associations. According to him, European colonial society required protected social spaces if its members were to come together in ways appropriate to their social status and cultivate bourgeois manners even under adverse circumstances.1 Over the course of time the association developed into Europeans’ most important form of sociability in the Congo. Beginning in the 1920s, however, Congolese too, primarily graduates of mission schools, started to organize themselves into associations. In the colonial situation, the practices and forms of association-based sociability were subject to a complex transformation.2 The association culture of Congolese differed from that which arose in the eighteenth century along with the European and US-American bourgeoisies, especially in its relationship to political and religious authorities. While associations in the trans-Atlantic world were distinguished by a certain autonomy,3 in the Belgian Congo they were closely tied to the institutions of state and church and were subject to their patronage and control. It is no coincidence that the colonial state’s involvement in African associations began in the mid-1940s. During the war years, the colonial administration had taken wary note of the growth of informal associations in the cities, though without doing anything about it. The authorities overlooked the fact that these were often mutual aid societies established by new city dwellers, organized based on their places of origin, whose members sought to help each other cope with the challenges of everyday city life.4 In the eyes of the authorities, these bodies were “hierarchical sects,”5 which they suspected of being potential hotbeds of messianic and subversive movements. These free associations were

The genesis and controlo fC ongolese associations During his trip through the Congo Free State in 1899,t he mayoro fB russels lamented the lack of associations. Accordingtohim, European colonial society required protected social spaces if its members weret ocome togetherinwaysappropriatet ot heirs ocial statusa nd cultivateb ourgeois manners even under adverse circumstances.¹ Over the course of time the association developed into Europeans' most important form of sociability in the Congo.B eginningi nt he 1920s, however,C ongolese too, primarilyg raduates of mission schools, started to organize themselvesi nto associations. In the colonial situation, the practices and forms of association-based sociability weresubject to acomplex transformation.² The association cultureofCongolese differed from that which arose in the eighteenthc entury along with the European and US-American bourgeoisies, especially in its relationship to political and religious authorities. While associations in the trans-Atlantic world were distinguishedb yacertain autonomy,³ in the Belgian Congot hey werec loselyt ied to the institutions of state and church and weres ubjectt ot heir patronage and control.
It is no coincidencethatthe colonial state'sinvolvement in African associations began in the mid-1940s. During the war years, the colonial administration had taken wary note of the growth of informal associationsinthe cities, though without doing anything about it.The authorities overlooked the fact thatt hese wereo ftenm utual aid societies established by new city dwellers,o rganized based on their places of origin, whose members sought to help each other cope with the challenges of everydayc ity life.⁴ In the eyes of the authorities, these bodies were "hierarchical sects,"⁵ which they suspected of being potential hotbeds of messianic and subversive movements. These free associations were commonlyunderstood as aform of "political protest against the prevailing order and the Belgiana dministration."⁶ Thisp erspective became particularlyp opular after secret groups of évolués weresuspected of being behind the soldiers' uprisingsi nL uluabourgi nt he spring of 1944.
From then on, the colonial state begantoexpedite the foundation of associations for évolués so as to maintain control over them. Thecolonial planners had something quite different in mind than the sociability described by French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville, who regarded the self-improvement practised,a nd the alliancesf orged, by association members as facilitative of democracy and a means of preventing despotic political systems.⁷ In the Belgian Congo associations weres upposedt ob ec lassrooms of civilized social intercourse, ak ind of never-ending preparatory course for apolitical emancipation to come in the distant future. Forthe colonial state, the associations wereimmediatelyuseful as a mechanism of control and domination within elite-makingp olicy.Though sociability and the public sphere werei ntertwinedi nt he BelgianC ongo, much as in eighteenth-century European associations,⁸ the vernacular elite did not "meet itself" in associations.⁹ Forasyet the elite was, or the évolués were, chiefly an imagined community,w hich subsequentlyt ook shape through the associations -as hape, however,that had to jibe with the colonial authorities' desires. Certainly, periodicals had attempted to construct acollective évolué identity.And in the name of the évolués,Congolese authors in these publications had communicated interests and demands to the colonial state that overarched the group's social heterogeneity.The first contours of ap rocesso f" culturals ocialization"¹⁰ among évolués had thus undoubtedlyb egun to emerge in the media. Yetade-clared set of common interests and asimilar social situation did not necessarily lead to the formation of communities that felt related to one another. Évolués werenot all equal. The topoi "évolués" and "African elite" subsumed aheterogenous social formation, united chieflyi ni ts ambivalent relationship to the European population: it took its cultural lead from this social group, but the latter kept its distance through enduringp racticeso fd istinction.I fw ew ish to know whether the évolués sawt hemselvesa sacommunity beyond media discourses, we have to address processes of communitization.¹¹ By what means did the colonial state fosterthe Congolese associations?How weret hey structured?S everal administrative levels of the hierarchicallyo rganized colonial state werei nvolvedi nt he foundingw aveo fa ssociations, which surgedacross the territory from 1944 onwards.Inparallel to the state-sponsored periodicals such as the Voix du Congolais,the General Government took steps to organize the évolués' leisure time. During the war,t he scale of association life had still been highlydependent on the initiative of the local colonial administration. The provincial governors exchanged notes by post on the activities, structure and constitutions of the few existing associations, which had been initiated by representatives of the colonial state.¹² After the war and as an aspect of elitemaking policy,however,the know-how needed to run associations spread via periodicals. By publishing reports and minutes of meetings, they provided ab lueprint for new associations.
After taking office as colonial minister in the summerof1945, LiberalRobert Godding had created asubdivision of the Section de l'Informationpour Indigènes within the General Governmenti nL éopoldville to promotea ssociations for the Congolese elite.¹³ In October 1945, the General Government then made sure the provincial governors grasped the objectiveso ft he new association policy: "It will surely be quite possiblet oe ncouraget he learning circles for évolués  This is not the right placetodeal with the differencesbetween socializationa nd communitization or their conceptual history. Foradiscussion of this topic with reference to research on the bourgeoisie, see M. Hettling, Politische Bürgerlichkeit: der Bürger zwischen Individualität und Vergesellschaftung in Deutschlandund in der Schweiz von 1860 bis 1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &R uprecht,1999), 14 -17;f or ab rief treatment,s ee Schulz, Lebenswelt,72-75.  In December 1944,for example, the district commissioner in Elisabethville, respondingt oa request from the provincial governor,receivedcopies of all the documents concerning the évolué association in Stanleyville fromthe local district commissioner;letter from district commissioner in Elisabethville to district commissioner in Stanleyville, 21 December 1944,A A/GG/6339.  Brausch, Belgian Administration,66.
The genesisa nd control of Congolese associations […], to generate an optimistic and loyal attitude among our évolués,which would prompt as ympathetic reaction from the Europeans."¹⁴ To provide targeted support for associations, in 1946 the colonial government allocated an annual budgeto f5 00,000 francs to each province, with the redistribution of funds to the various districts being left to the discretion of the provincial governors.¹⁵ At times the funding was in place before there was anyone to receive it,because in manyplaces associations had yettobeestablished. The provincial governors delegated this task to the district commissioners and territorial officials subordinatet ot hem. In much the same waya sw ith the periodicals for the vernacular elite, the fosteringo fa ssociations came under the remit of the local colonial officials. They had to attract members from among the local évolué milieu, and, in collaboration with them, draw up aset of rules, come up with aname and find aplace for meetings. These officials weret he associations' patrons and they appointed advisers from among the European population. This was aconsiderable and time-consumingtask, which the local colonial officials took on with varyingdegrees of engagement,whether due to lack of time or unwillingness.¹⁶ By the late 1940s an etwork of associations had alreadys pread across the colony; it had been initiated not just by the colonial state but also by missions, firms and privateEuropean individuals.The missions' lead role in the establishment of Congolese associationsr eveals the national specificityo fB elgium'sc olonial rule. Catholic organizations dominated even in the lively associational landscape of the metropole, which laid the ground for the pillarization of Belgian society.¹⁷ There was, however,n ot ransfero fp arty-affiliated associationst ot he colony. The colonial government envisageda ssociationsa sa na political space in which évolués were to be indoctrinated and supervised by European advisers. If we comparet he foundationo fe lite associations in the Belgian Congo,which intensified from 1945o nwards, with the Gold Coast under Britishr ule, what stands out is thati nt he latter the manyd ebating and "self-improvement"  Governor general, quoted in aletterfromthe provincial governor in Elisabethville to the district commissioner of Katanga, 29 October1 945, AA/GG/6339.  Ibid.  When, for example,one territorial official failed to complyquicklyenough with the district commissioner'sinstructiontoestablish an association, within three months the latter started up the Leopold II -Travail et Progrès Association;l etters from the district commissioner in Elisabethville to the territorial administrator in Elisabethville, 31 October 1945a nd 14 December 1945, AA/GG/6339.  On Belgium'sassociational culture, see M. Reynebeau, Histoire belge: 1830-2005(Brussels: Racine, 2005. clubs servingeducated Africans, which had been active since the 1880s, had alreadygiven waytoother forms of organization. In particular, the political parties that emergedinthe wake of Britain'spost-war reforms had superseded the associations.¹⁸ Similar developments occurred in French African colonies,t hough colonial administrations in AEF, for example, sought to maintain their influence on the educated elite through state-guided education programmes with the help of associations, social centres and media.¹⁹ The total number of évolué associations in the Belgian Congogrew rapidlyin the decade after the war: from 113 associations with 5,609 members in 1946 to 593a ssociations with 33,472 members in 1950.E ight years later1 14,496 Congolese wereo rganized into 2,078a ssociations. In the cities especiallyt here was a large number of évolués associations, with one in ten to be found in Léopoldville in the mid-1950s.²⁰ But these associations werea lsop opulari ns maller settlements and remotev illages. In the administrative records,m eanwhile, the "évolués circles" were categorizedb yt heir focus on entertainment,s port or further education. Of the 490 "évolués circles" officiallyr egistered in 1948, with their 25,014 members, just one quarterw erec lassified as "learning circles," with a total membership of 5,000.B y1 955,t he numbero ft hese learning circles had grown to 204a ssociations with at otal of 14,878 members.²¹ But this classification should not obscure the fact that the associations frequentlyo ffered a mixed programme and were similar in their goals and activities, regardless of whether their patrons were the colonial administration, missions or privateindividuals.The "colonial bloc," consistingofrepresentativesofeconomy, state and church, and thus all those institutions that dealt with or employed évolués,was involved in organized elite sociability.²² In the context of developmental colonialism the number of Congolese clerks in particular grew in firms and the administrative system, as evident in the fact that in late 1957 at hird of associations weresupervised by colonial officials, one in five by missionaries and half by privatei ndividuals, chieflyb usinessmen and other employers. What can we saya bout the structure, activities and objectives of the associations, and about the colonial state'sattempts to influencethem?When it comes to their basic concept and hierarchical structure, the bureaucratic associationsin the Belgian Congoresembled their European counterparts.²³ They had to register officiallya nd adopt ac onstitution as well as setting out their objectives, access criteria, arrangements for electing the committee, membership fees and their use, forms of sanction and in some cases the modus operandi of the affiliated library or bar.I na ddition, the constitution clarified not onlyw hen and how often meetingswereheld but also how they weresupposed to proceed. They usuallybegan with areadingofthe minutes of the last meeting;other typicalactivities included the holding of talks and an associated discussion, preparingf or the next meetingand concluding the evening with board games.The committee, re-elected at regular intervals, included several positions: president,vice-president,s ecretary,t reasurer,l ibrarian and a "special representative for parties."²⁴ The admission criteria werealso laid down in the constitution but varied depending on the association. All former mission school pupils wereautomatically and exclusively members of their associations; some associations catered to members of particularo ccupational groups or to those employed in specific firms. Often, membership was open to all évolués capable of paying the monthly fees. In general, associations were supposedt of und themselvest hrough feebased membership. In some places,c onstitutions stipulated that membership was solelyopen to évolués. It is certainlynoexception, for example, thatthe constitution of the Association des Évolués de Stanleyville (AES) prohibited the socalled Coastmen from joining.D ue to theire ducation, these anglophone immigrants from West Africa, most of whom wereinthe employ of Britishfirms, represented major competition for the local population when it came to the much sought-after jobs in the administration.²⁵ Hence, the constitution of the AES prevented the encounter between the Coastmena nd the Congolese from becoming institutionalized in associations.²⁶ Thiss uited the colonial state, which feared the infiltration of critiquesofcolonialism of West African provenance.²⁷ Elite formationinthe BelgianCongowas anational project,not astarting point for pan-African solidarity.
The colonial ideologyofelite formation was translatedinto cultural practice in the évolué associations. In the debate on the Congolese elite that had been going on since 1944,t he association was viewed as ak ey leisure-time locus, whose goal was to further the évolués' development.W ith its didactic focus, the associations erveda salearning laboratory of colonial subject formation. Heret he ideal type of the "perfected black," as propagated in the media, was supposedt ot ake shape -as an association member.
Elite periodicals such as the Voix du Congolais ceaselesslys ought to persuade their readers to geti nvolvedi na ssociations. In an editorial, editor-inchief Antoine-RogerB olamba called on "the black who is perfecting himself" to join associations as am eans of further education and civilizational perfecting.²⁸ But it was not justt he editorials supervised by the General Government that championed the associations. Some correspondents werea pologists for organized sociability as well. Over an umber of years, Antoine-Marie Mobé, who I have quotedseveral times alreadyand who was active in numerous associations, publishedessays such as "On the truerole of the évolué associations" and "The need for indigenous associations."²⁹ In the style characteristic of official elitemaking policy,M obé assigned associations the following tasks: "Thep erfecting and intellectual, moral and physical developmentoftheir members; close cooperation with our custodians in their demanding work of colonizingand civilizing our country;and functioning as linking element between the masses and the authorities."³⁰  The Coastmen'sd issociation from the évolués and their supposed arrogancet owards them weret he topic of manya rticles.O ne criticism was that the Coastmen felt morec ivilized and left the Congolese in no doubt about this;L .K ingansi, "Ab eaum entir vient de loin," Voix du Congolais no. 63 (June 1951).  By the 1920s, internationallyn etworked anti-colonial groups had alreadyf ormed among educated Africans in the British colonies. West African students began to band together in London and remained in close contact after their return to Africa. This group producedsome of the first politiciansi nW est Africa, such as Kwame Nkrumaha nd Nnamdi Azikiwe. Foradetailed account,s ee Prais, "Imperial Travelers."

The genesis and control of Congolese associations
The rhetoric of self-perfectingwas alsotobefound in the Croix du Congo,in which one contributor related how he had summedu pt he point of association meetingst oa ni ndividual known for griping about these institutions: "To make completeh uman beingso fi ts members: that is their ideal."³¹ The associationst hus gave educated évolués the opportunity to cultivatea n elite self-image. This, however,provoked criticism, as European observers sawit as confirmation of theirf ears thatt he elite was sealing itself off sociallya sa " caste." In the Voix du Congolais,editor-in-chief Antoine-RogerBolamba assailed the tendencyofmany "intellectuals" and "office workers" to refuse membership in their associations to ordinary labourers.³² Bolamba warned these individuals "not to become the coreofapretentious Congolese elite and the living cells of a nascent caste."³³ It is in fact possible to observeinthe BelgianCongothe dynamics typicalo fb ourgeois associations in nineteenth-centuryE urope and other parts of the world, that is, the tendencytooperate on an egalitarian basisinternallya nd an elite basis externally.³⁴ This orientation, however,r an counter to a colonial elite-makingp olicy thata imed to create an ational elite across social boundaries, one that was supposed to simultaneouslys timulate the development of the uneducated masses: "The elites belong to the nation. It is theiro bligation to advancet he social bodyi ni ts entirety,"³⁵ as Jean-Marie Domont,p atron of the Voix du Congolais,wrotetoprogrammatic effect in his book Élite noire.
We can gain af airlyp recise picture of the associations' concrete activities with the help of association news published in the press.I nN ovember 1945, the Voix du Congolais established as pecial section running to several pages that carried reports on association meetings, elections, newlye stablished groups,changes of personnel and programmes. In those cases, in which the secretary or president was not responsible for these reports,anassociation member was appointed press officer. In the 10 yearsb etween October 1945a nd October 1955,the Voix du Congolais publishedat otal of 550 such reports.³⁶ These reports provided information on celebrations, sports events and excursions to other cities. They mirrored an associationl ife dominated by talks givenbyindividual members and locallyresident Europeans or even colonial officials and évolué representativesw ho werep assing through ag iven locality. These talks wereo ften published in abbreviatedf orm in the elite periodicals.  P. Mbaya, "Fréquentez votrec ercle culturel," Croix du Congo (13 July 1952).  Bolamba, "Lesc ercles des évolués," 719.  Ibid.  Hoffmann, Geselligkeit,4 3.  Domont, Élite noire,2 5.  This figure is based on my own quantitative evaluation of the Voix du Congolais.
Thematicallyt hey ranged from customs,t echnological innovations and specialist professional knowledge to personal travel reports, news on colonial development projects and enacted ordinances. These talks not onlyr eflected the spectrum of topics familiar from articles in the évolué media, but also operated within similar limits of the sayable.
Judging by the reports in the newspapers,the associationswerethe scene of criticism of members' immediate living conditions onlyifthis was legitimized by the rhetoric of colonial reform.They werenot platforms for chargedd iscussions of political topics or the pursuit of decolonization in other African countries,or at least nothing of this sort made it to the outside world. If members brought up awkwardt opics at an association, having been influenced, for example, by perusing newspapers aimeda tE uropean readers, the governor general'sa dvice was to discuss "articles containing false ideas" in the clubhouse and to "put them right" ideologically.³⁷ To ensure control of content,s hortlya fter the war the General Government began to send ready-made topics and talks to associations throughout the colonyvia the administrative offices.³⁸ In aletter to the provincial governors, the vice-governor general of the Belgian Congon ot onlye xplained the desired approach to talks, but also their indoctrinating purpose for listeners.W ith its programmatic thrust and paternalistic tone, the letter givesagood impression of how colonial politicians regarded the évolué associations: The talks should be followed, logicallye nough,b yadiscussionl ed by the speaker.This method allows one to put right manyo ft he false ideas prevalent among the évolués. The talks also help liberate the blacks from their intellectual poverty,t he fateo fa ll those whoattended school anumber of years ago. In ageneral sense they impart to the speakers ad esire to read. Libraries should be established in the near futurew here they can obtain books that provide them with an opportunity for further education and meaningful diversion.³⁹ As the colonial governmentsaw it,the associations weresites of the ideological and moral education of Congolese school leavers.T he colonial administration tried to steer the development of the associations through various decrees.⁴⁰ Prior to its foundation,every association had to write to the district commissioner requesting official permission to proceed. In addition to his powers of author- The genesis and control of Congolese associations ization, the district commissioner also had the right to have the associations monitored by the territorial administrators;inspecial cases the provincial governors could alsobring in the Service de sûreté.⁴¹ In general, the territorial officials weret oi nstruct the associations to provide them with the minutes of all meetingsa nd inform them of the location of their clubhouse as well as changes in the constitution and in the composition of their committee, information the official would then submit to the district commissioner.⁴² Significantly, the colonial administration could dissolve associations, temporarilyorpermanently, and this it could do at its owndiscretion or,tocite the euphemistic languageofthe law, if associations "are acting contraryt oc ivilization or represent at hreat to public order."⁴³ Exercisingt he right of control involved at remendousa dministrative effort, featuringr egular correspondence between associations and colonial officials. After every committee election, the associations wererequired to disclose private information about the office-holders,s uch as theirn ames, background, address and occupation, which werethen checked against police records in the districts' administrative offices.⁴⁴ Particularlyi ft hose occupyingt he influential post of president had ac riminalr ecord or were considered seditious and "hostile,"⁴⁵ which was all it took for them to be designated a "communist,"⁴⁶ the colonial authorities raised objectionso rh ad the association'sa ctivities closelym onitored.⁴⁷  On the Belgian security service, which began to operate, mainlyinurban Congo, in 1947, see J. Brassinne and F. Vandewalle, Les rapports secrèts de la sûreté congolaise (Brussels:É ditions Art et Voyages, 1973); A. Lauro, "Suspect Cities and the (Re)MakingofColonial Order: Urbanisation, Security Anxieties and Police Reformsi nP ostwar Congo (1945Congo ( -1960," in Policing New Risks in Modern European History,eds.J.Campion and X. Rousseaux (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). On the example of Burundi, see C. Deslaurier, "Du nouveau pour l'histoire politique au Burundi àl av eille de l'indépendance. La documentation secrète de la Sûreté (1958Sûreté ( -1961," Cahiers du CRA 9( 1998).  As envisagedbythe decree of 11 February 1926;circular fromJ ean Cordy, chef de la population noire in Moyen Congod istrict,t ot he association presidents, In the case of Léopoldville, we have clear evidence that the associations did not always complyw ith their duty of disclosure and that at times colonial officials neglected their monitoring role. When Jean Cordy, newlya ppointed head of the Service de la Population Noire in Léopoldville,requested asituation report on the associational landscape in the capital,⁴⁸ it emergedthat the list of Congolese associationsh ad not been fullyu pdated since 1947. The reason for this review was that in the spring of 1953, the Colonial Ministry,under the leadership of the Parti Libéral,had informed the General Governmentabout anew aspect of the promotion of associations. From now on, urban dwellersinparticularwereto be encouraged to establish so-called mutualités,w hose members savedc ollectivelysot hey could provide mutual support in times of hardship. HereB russels made reference to the likelembe savingsa ssociations alreadye stablished in the cities. Likelembe formed the basis for the establishment of manyofthe so-called "ethnic associations,"⁴⁹ which chieflybrought togetherpeople from the same region of origin and linguistic group for purposes of mutualsupport.The propagation and simultaneous privatization of systems of social security,o fw hich the savingsa ssociations toof ormed part,wereah allmark of developmental colonialism in Africa. Belgium thus availed itself of measures to which Great Britain and France were resorting at the samet ime in their African colonies.⁵⁰ In any case, Cordy'sinternal report came to an alarming conclusion: "The lack of monitoringa lsom eans al ack of moral support.
[ … ]T hese days If ind associations completelyl acking in organization, records and activity."⁵¹ After publishing its report,t he colonial administration mandated "authorized indigenous associations" to complyw ithin three months with their duty to disclose anyc hanges to the territorial administrator.⁵² The membership figures,c ommittee composition, treasury and savingsbooksofall associations wereexamined and thoseassociationse xisting onlyo np aper and no longer holding meetingsw ered issolved.
These attempts to gain an overviewo fa ssociation activities revealed to the colonial administration the shortcomings of association policy and demonstrate that it repeatedlylost control of association activities. The authorities' efforts are  Letter from the General Governmentt ot he governor of Léopoldville province,16M ay 1953, AA/GG/16543.  Verhaegen, "Lesa ssociations congolaises," 391.  See Eckert, "Wohlfahrtsmix," 104-109.  Report on the associational landscape by assistant to the territorial administrator in Léopoldville to head of the Service de la population noire,5August 1953, AA/GG/20171.  Letter fromassistant to the territorial administrator in Léopoldville to head of the Service de la population noire,19A ugust 1953, AA/GG/19596.
The genesisa nd control of Congolese associations paradigmatic of the growinggulf between the colonial state'sa spiration to control Congolese sociability and its capacity to do so, ag ulf opened up by an associational landscape thath ad begun to thrive as the years passed by.
Iwould like to provide ap rovisional summary at this point.F irst,the associations and the press formed two mainstays of acolonial public sphere through which the colonial state sought to maintain its control of Congolese elite formation. The colonial authorities wereeager to ensure that no printed or spokenmaterial should make it into the évolués' publics phere in unfiltered form. The periodicals and associationso ft he elite, moreover,w erec loselyi ntertwined. Typically, authors weres imultaneouslya ssociational activists. The associations sent reports to the press,which in turn despatched articles to the associations as ab asis for discussion.⁵³ European administrators and advisers in the press presided over the state-sponsored associations as patrons.B ut what this public sphere created was by no means onlyaspace that enabled the authorities to control the elite. Despite everything,f or the latter the public sphere also amounted to an increasingly translocal space of encounters and possibilities.
Second, the association was aprivileged zone of contact between Europeans and Congolese. Europeans' prescribed patronage of associations entailed the institutionalization of encounters between colonizers and colonized, which otherwise occurred onlyi nt he workplace within ah ighlyh ierarchical framework. Nonetheless,f or the most part dialogue within the association continued to be one between teachers and students. While carryingo ut research in Stanleyville in 1952, French urban sociologist PierreC lément was surprised by the lack of friendships between Europeans and members of the AES. He himself recruited his personal research assistant from an évolué association, an individual with whom he remained in contact for years and whose career he supported: Patrice Lumumba.⁵⁴ It was guest visitsofthis kind, whether by representativesofthe colonial administration, other European residents or those passingt hrough, that made it easier for association members to make acquaintances and network beyond their quotidian horizons.
Third, for the Congolese elite associational sociability was asocial means of culturalb ourgeoisification: much as in the globalb ourgeois associational culture of the late nineteenth-century,a ssociations offered theirm embers ap lace for further education and self-perfection.⁵⁵ Association meetings, with their pro- The General Governmenti np articular sent articles to the state-sponsored associations.B ut therew as also an exchange between the associations and periodicals run by missionaries.  P. Clément wrotea no bituary of Lumumba in which he described the course of their friendship:P .Clément, "PatriceL umumba (Stanleyville 1952(Stanleyville -1953," Présence Africaine no. 40,1962.  Hoffmann, Geselligkeit und Demokratie,1 7a nd 38. gramme of talks, facilitated discussion of social and culturalissues. It was above all those Congolesew ho were eager to ascend within colonial structures that found in the associations an excellent platform to present themselvest othe colonial administrators as loyal and in away thatelite discourse regarded as civilized. The intellectual activities involved required ac ertain degree of cultural capital as well as augmentingt his capital, which served in significant part as ameans of colonial distinction vis-à-vis the majority of society.Association office holdersi np articular entered into direct dialogue with their European advisers, who were often the local representativeso ft he colonial administration.⁵⁶ Fourth, the associationsp rovided am eeting place for educated Congolese who resided in localities scattered throughout the colonial territory but had made an ame for themselvest hrough their journalisticw ork. Authorsa nd readers gott ok now one another by attendinga ssociationm eetings.I fa ta ll, it was there that members of the imagined community of the évolués could meet.That it was not onlyt hosew ho alreadyk new one another because they had attended the sames chool that forgedr elationships is evident in the friendship between Antoine-RogerB olamba, editor-in-chief of the Voix du Congolais,a nd Antoine-Marie Mobé, the diligent reporter and some-time president of the AES. They first became aware of each other due to their authorial activities for the same publications. When Bolamba stopped off in Stanleyville while travelling through several provinces in 1948, they gott ok now each other in person and subsequentlyk ept in touch.⁵⁷ In 1949,t he Voix du Congolais published ap hotograph of ameeting in Stanleyville showing the pair togetherwith their wivesand children. To this dayM obé'se ldest son recalls how his father would always paya visit to Bolamba duringh is staysi nL éopoldville.⁵⁸ Their example alsod emonstrates thatf riendships between representativeso ft he Congolese elite could function as support networks.F or Mobé'sc areer path, his link with the influential editor-in-chief from Léopoldville paid dividends. Mobé held asenior position in Stanleyville as an officer worker at the postals ervice.When his requestf or transfer to the General Government in Léopoldville was turned down,⁵⁹ Bolamba pulled some strings, so thatin1953Mobé at least obtainedapost in the provin- That the intermediaries used the room for manoeuvret hey werep rovided with is emphasized in several studies,such as A. Eckert, "Cultural Commuters: African Employees in LateColonial Tanzania The genesisa nd control of Congolese associations cial administration of his home region. Working for the provincial governor's Direction des Affaires Indigènes,henceforth Mobé sawtothe sales and distribution, as well as the finances,o ft he Mbandaka journal, which sought to attract the province's évolués readers.⁶⁰ In al etter,B olamba assuredM obé of his ongoing support.⁶¹ Occasional friendlyt urns appear to have strengthened their ties; this at least is one interpretation of Bolamba'sr emark: "Your friend still hasn't givenm yw ife the pillowcase."⁶² Aj ob in exchangef or bedl inen: this appears to be am anifestation of the friendly, symbolicb arteringb etween two leading representativeso ft he elite public sphere.
Fifth, the colonial state provided the Congolese elite with apublic sphere in the shape of media and associations in order to furnish itself with instruments of control. It is, however,r easonable to doubt whether we should even refer to a public sphere in the singular.T he culturala nd social practice of associational sociability created situational spaces of encounter and exchanges pread across the entire colonial territory.Rather than homogenization, associations in the Belgian Congot riggered ap rocess of differentiation, generating several public spheres rather than just one. Through late colonial "social engineering," the authorities attempted to standardize the vernacular elite ideologicallyand culturally in the crucible of the associations, but they faced one major obstacle: the cultural, confessional, linguistic and ethnic heterogeneity of at erritory the size of Western Europe. The associations brought together all locallyr esident évolués, or at least aspired to.L ong-time residents thus encountered Congolese from other parts of the territory whose work had caused them to move. Affiliation to the imagined community of the évolués could createnew forms of social affinity and overarch the manifold forms of identity on offer.The évolués' associational sociability,h owever,d id not necessarilya lways produce social cohesion,b ut also division and exclusion. Rather than overcoming them, the associations accentuated the social order,b ased on colonial distinction.

Cohesion and dissociation among missionarys chool graduates
As ignificant role model for the évolué associationsw eret he missions' postschool institutions. The so-called "alumni associations"⁶³ were the first official Congolese clubs to clothe themselvesi nt he garb of Europe'sa ssociational culture. These alumni associationss erveda sa ne xtension of the mission schools and their programme of evangelization; they constituted ak ey strategic element in the missions' efforts to ensure that their graduates remained permanently committed to ap ious and moral wayo fl ife.
But the launch of the colonial state'sassociation policy in 1945did not spell the end of the alumni associations. In fact,the increasingnumbers of pupils enrolled in schools and school leavers actuallycaused their membership to grow.⁶⁴ These are superficial figures,h owever,g iven that this intake was brought about by the principle of compulsory membership. It is true that every school leaver was automaticallyadmitted, but not everyone participated actively in association activities. Further,m anyi ndividuals were alsom embers of othera ssociations. Nonetheless,a sarule, all those who wered esignated évolués also enjoyed the status of alumni. It is crucial to adopt ad ifferentiating perspective on the mission schools and their associations. The alumni associations wereo rganized into umbrella bodies mirroringt he numerous missionary orders;t herew ere also branches throughout the colonyi nt he various districts, urban settlements and even different urban subdivisions. Likewise, every individual mission school and even some school-leaving cohorts had their post-school counterparts.⁶⁵ The configuration of the alumni associations ultimatelyreflected the relative strength of the missionary orders active in the Belgian Congo. There were eighteen umbrella associations linked with these orders,m osto fw hich, however, brought together justasmall number of former pupils, such as Anepejos,a ffiliated with the Capuchin Fathers, Unelma,a ssociated with the Marist Brothers of the Schools and Les anciens élèves des pères Jésuites,w hich, for example, ran two branches.⁶⁶ It goes without saying that the twor eligious orders with the greatest number of graduates also established the largest and most influential umbrella organizations. These weret he Association des anciens élèves des pères de Scheut (ADAPES) and the Association des anciens élèves des Frères (AS-SANEF), mentioned earlier in connection with the elite periodicals.
When the colonial state launched its programmes to support associations in 1945, the ADAPES had alreadye xisted for 20 years.⁶⁷ Itsc onstitution identified the association'so bjective as achieving "the total wellbeing of its members: their material and moral wellbeinga sw ella st heir development as human beingsa nd Christians."⁶⁸ The Adapesiens werem ore thanareligious society,f or this post-school group was intended to raise its members socially, materially and in terms of their character.I na ccord with the ideologyo fC atholic Action, school leavers functioned as asocial role model, through away of life informed by Christian morality,f or example.
This umbrella body'sp remises werei nL éopoldville; it was established by Raphael de la Kethulle de Ryhovei n1 925. The ADAPES was thus one of the manyr ecreationale stablishments founded by the ever-busy Belgian missionary of noble descent for the urban Congolese population.⁶⁹ The strongp resenceo f the ADAPES in the capital was due to the fact that the Scheutists wereincharge of the diocese of Léopoldville and the graduates of their secondary schools found more employment opportunities there, in the administrative system, than anywhereelse. Reports from 1944 and 1952referred to atotalof10,000 former Scheut pupils resident in Léopoldville, comprisingtwo-thirdsofAdapesiens  Verhaegen, "Lesa ssociations congolaises," 413.  The rootsofADAPES lie in Léopoldville. There,seven years after the establishment of the St. Joseph school, an alumni association called the Association des anciens élèves de l'institut Saint-Joseph àK inshasa was founded. The change of name to the Association des anciens élèves des pères de Scheut highlights the association'se xtension to graduates of other schools run by Scheut missionaries; C. Tshimanga, "L'ADAPES et la formation d'une élitea uC ongo ," in Itinéraires croisés de la modernité Congo belge (1920 -1950) in the colony, of which, however,just 500 or so playeda na ctive part in association life and paidt heir membership fees.⁷⁰ Places on the ADAPES committee weremuch sought-afterand wereoccupied by individuals of importance in the elite'sp ublic sphere. In 1944,f or example, Paul Lomami-Tshibamba,w hose article had kicked off the post-war debate on évolué status, held the office of secretary in Léopoldville.⁷¹ In 1952, Patrice Lumumba and Antoine-Marie Mobé established abranch of the ADAPES in Stanleyville and assumed the officeso fp resident and vice-president.⁷² That Lumumba soughtt of ound this association despite the fact that he had not attended a Scheut school highlights the advantagese ntailed in admittance to the network of alumni.⁷³ Holdingahigho ffice at the ADAPES promised prestige:a part from anything else, office-holders werec entral to the reports producedb yadiverse rangeo fn ewspapers,w hich published photographs and the minutes of meetings.
As mentioned earlier,the ADAPES was part of the Scheut missions' Catholic Action, along with the Croix du Congo newspaper.I tw as thus affiliated with a publication that was primed to carry reports on association activities. Foralumni outside the capital, meanwhile, this newspaper was the onlytranslocal medium of informational exchange. The association leaders thus had great expectations of the publication.These werereflected, for example, in letters of complaint from the ADAPES secretaries to the highest authority of the Scheut missionary order, in which they vented their occasional dismayatt he abridgedp ublication of minutes.⁷⁴ ADAPES meetingsw erea ni ntermittent occurrence and typicallyf eatured talks and discussions. The committee, elected annually on Easter Sunday, met once am onth. The annual celebrations, meanwhile, always took place in a church buildingi nL éopoldville,o nt he first Sundaya fter the Catholic feast dayo ft he association'sp atron saint,S aint Joseph.⁷⁵ They began with an early- morning mass, at which the alumni, together with the pupils,f ormed the choir. In the afternoon there followed ac onvivial party and as hared dinner,t ow hich members and their families as well as religious dignitaries and representativesof the colonial administration were invited. Songs,s peechesa nd Catholic rituals weret he order of the day. The annual celebrations orchestrated ac ommunity of equals and a "cordial atmosphere."⁷⁶ The ADAPES was an extramural locus of colonial subject formation in the spirit of Catholic Action. Association president Jean Bolikango,who had taught at St.Joseph'sSchool since 1926,⁷⁷ thus used the 1952celebration to promotethe ideal of the association member: "At rue Adapessien is someone who takes up every invitation to am eeting.H ei sr eliable, paying the required membership fees on time.
The second major umbrella organization of formerm ission school pupils was the ASSANEF.I tw as founded in 1929,a lso in Léopoldville, and brought together all the associationsf or graduates of the schools run by the Frères des écoles chrétiennes missionary order.⁷⁹ This order had alreadyt aken charge of the ColonieScolaire in Boma in 1909,the boardingschoolfor Congolesechildren whose curriculum was tailored to the needso ft he colonial state and that had previouslybeen run by Scheut missionaries. In 1916,the Frères established adivision within the ColonieScolaire dedicated to the training of "prospective office assistants."⁸⁰ The renown of the Assanefiens waschieflybased on the function of these establishments as official elite training centres for public servants,w ho  To quotea1952r eport on the annual celebration. See A. Ngwenza, "En marge de la fête anuelle de l'ADAPES," Croixd uC ongo,8June 1952.  Mwissa-Camus, L'héritage,7 3-77.B olikango held the presidencyo ft he association from 1942; F. Bontinck, "Lesmissions catholiquesàLéopoldville durant la seconde guerremondiale," in Le Congob elged urant la seconde guerrem ondiale,ed. Académie royale (Brussels:1983), 411.  J. Bolikango, "Qu'est-ceq u ' un Adapessiens," Croix du Congo (8 June 1952).  The colonial administration initiallyr egisteredt he association in 1933 under the name Union-Léo Kinoise;letterfromassociation president Louis Diantama to the district commissioner in Léopoldville, 9M ay 1956,A SSANEF archive.The ASSANEF'sc onstitution reveals the various groups included within it when it was founded in 1932:atheatreg roup, as avings association, sports teams and ab rass band; constitution of ASSANEF,1932, KADOC/P/II/a/4/14/11.  Manuscript for as pecial broadcast on Radio CongoB elge in Léopoldville markingt he feast dayofSt. Jean BaptistedelaSalle, 13 October 1950,ASSANEF archive.In1930, abranch of this official trainingcentre for employment in the colonial statewas established in Coquilhatville in the shape of the Groupe Scolaire.
weree ducated for auxiliary roles within the colonial administration.⁸¹ But by 1910 the missionary order had foundeda nécole professionnelle in Kintambo near Léopoldville that also taught skilled trades. Tena dditional schools had been established by 1956,m ainlyi nÉ quateur and BasC ongop rovinces.⁸² Much as with the ADAPES, for all these educational establishments there wereA SSANEF subgroups.⁸³ The two umbrella organizations also resembled one another in their aims and ideological agenda: the ASSANEF too was committed to strengtheningt he fraternal ties among former pupils, fosteringaCatholic outlook on life and encouragingself-perfection as well as the assumption of social responsibility.⁸⁴ This alumni association grew naturallyinline with the increasingnumber of school leavers. In 1934 the ASSANEF had 1,560m embers,⁸⁵ climbing to no less than 30,000 by 1950.3 ,000 of the latter livedi nL éopoldville, of which 178 worked as office assistants for the General Government and another 300 were employed by the provincial administration.⁸⁶ It is no coincidencet hat some of them represented the corew orkforce of the Voix du Congolais,p ublished by the General Government.I nt he shape of Antoine-RogerB olambaa nd Michel Colin, for example, all the editors-in-chief in the history of the newspaper weref ormer pupils of the Colonie Scolaire in Boma. The association committee featured representativesofthe Congoleseelite who had been exemplary employees of the colonial administration: Antoine-RogerB olamba was an active member and also vice-president from 1956.⁸⁷ Naturally, the Voix du Congolais also reported on ASSANEF activities and meetings. Furthermore, from 1929 on, the aforementioned periodical Signum Fidei served as am edium of exchangea nd community formationf or alumni. It enjoyed wide circulation in Léopoldville in particulara nd had around 400 subscribers in 1945, rising to 3,000 by 1954.⁸⁸ The year 1954 sawseveral milestones in the association'shistory.First,King Baudouin awarded ASSANEF the honorary status of Association Royale.⁸⁹ Second, ac lubhouse was opened in Léopoldville,with ag rand inauguration ceremonyi nl ate October 1954.H enceforth, the so-called Home ASSANEF was one of the largest recreational facilities in the Congolese quarter.I ta ccommodated ah all with seating for at housand people, as tagea nd film projectors, ar estaurant,c onference room,l ibrary and bar.⁹⁰ No other Congolese associationi nt he colonyhad such impressive premises,which had been constructed to the design of aBelgian architect with the aid of abroad network of supporters.The colonial administration had granted favourable purchase conditions,while the building costs were covered by donations from European and Congolese members, who werea warded honorary membership if they contributed 1,000 francs or more.⁹¹ Even the Vatican subsidized the building project to the tune of 100,000 Belgian francs.⁹² In addition to association members and representativeso ft he missionary order,t he opening ceremony, which began with an earlymorning mass accordingtoCatholic protocol, was attended by manyworldly guests as well. The governor general sent an envoy, and the provincial governor was alsoi na ttendance.⁹³ Henceforth, the building was the scene of regular culturale venings, association meetings and series of talks.⁹⁴ The Home ASSA-NEF clubhouse was an expression in stone of the privileged relationship between the Frères des écoles chrétiennes and the colonial state.
Members of ADAPES noted with envy the construction of the clubhouse and the publication of abespoke periodical. In October 1951,its president Jean Boli- kango sent al ettert oG eorges Six, apostolic vicar of Léopoldville,⁹⁵ requesting financial support for the building of an ADAPES clubhouse. He justified his request with reference to the large number of members in the capital and the current plans for the Home ASSANEF.⁹⁶ The associationpresident wasalso keen for ADAPES to have its own periodicalasacounterparttoASSANEF's Signum Fidei. He pointed out that the Croix du Congo,with its general aspirations, could not advance ADAPES'sspecific interests. Bolikango reinforcedhis request for apublicationofthis kind by describing the press as amodern-dayvehicle of the apostolate: "If Saint Paul returned to earth, he would be aj ournalist."⁹⁷ His wishes fell on deaf ears, however.I nstead, the Croix du Congo relaunched the association news section in April 1952, with "The ADAPES Page" Cohesion and dissociation among missionary school graduates reportingmonthlyonthe Scheut mission schools' alumni associations. The associationcommittee, which provided most of the material for this section, intended it to arouse members' enthusiasm, encouragethem to getinvolved and generate more publicity for the association.⁹⁸ The rivalry between the two largest Catholic alumni associationsexemplifies the splinteringofthe évolués as asocial group.⁹⁹ It was not just unequal privileges but also associational sociability that positively fostered these divisions. Anyone todayw ho talks to formera nd still active members of the two associations will be left in no doubt about the rivalry between ADAPES and ASSANEF.A tthe symbolic level, the association members werefighting out abattle for supremacy -and nowhered id it find clearer expression than on the football pitches of Léopoldville.¹⁰⁰ Football had grown in popularity in the BelgianC ongof rom the 1920so nwards and, like other sports,w as supported by the colonial state and missions.¹⁰¹ Physical training through sport was part of the civilizing mission and, with its emphasis on fair play, was not onlymeant to aid the bodilyimprovement of Congolese but also help edify their character.¹⁰² From 1919 on, the Association Royale Sportive Congolaise Indigène (ARSC) provided an overarchingf ramework for organized club sports in Léopoldville.R aphael de la Kethulle of the Scheut missionary order was one of the foundingf atherso ft his umbrella organization and long held the post of president.¹⁰³ In 1924,the ARSC begantoorganize citywide football championships and grew to encompass six leagues, comprised of a total of fifty to sixty teams, whose matches attracted between 3,000 and 15,000  Ngwenza, "En marge."  This discord was apparentlydue in part to personal frictionsbetween Raphael de la Kethulle and FrèreM athieu, the heads of the two alumni organizations;i nterview with André Matingu, Kinshasa, 7S eptember 2010.  Iwas made aware of this stateo faffairs by twoi nterviewees from amongt he ranks of the ADAPESSIENS -Mwissa Camus,who worked as ajournalist in the 1950s for the Courrier d'Afrique, Echo Sports and Croixd uC ongo,a nd André Matingu,who also wrotef or the spectators.¹⁰⁴ The premier league in particulard rew widespread interest within urban society and the media.¹⁰⁵ The various football teams were closelya ssociated with missionary orders,firms and even the armed forces, recruitingplayers from all of them.¹⁰⁶ In institutionalterms, the two most successful clubs wereaffiliated with the two large alumni associations: ADAPES was represented by the Daring team and ASSANEF by the Dragons.¹⁰⁷ Givent he rivalry described above, the encounter between these two teams was more thanasporting showdown. The aggressive partisanship and identification,togetherw ith the symbolic interactions inherent in the sport of football, transformed this event into as ymbolic battle for the status of most successful and prestigious alumni association.¹⁰⁸ The two teams' supporters emphasized the differencesb etween the two rivala ssociationsw ith particularv ehemence. It is thus worth scrutinizing this clash with reference to the season of 1952.
Before the season had even begun, the Croix du Congo and Voix du Congolais tried to calm down the intense feelingst hat had been building since the match between Daring and Dragons during the last season, which had seen instances of unsportsmanlike behaviour and violent clashes on and off the pitch. The Croix du Congo upbraided the fans for their sectarianism and for insultingt he opposing team duringt his match.¹⁰⁹ The Voix du Congolais then appealed to the players,' association leaders' and supporters' sportsmanship and common sense.¹¹⁰ It reminded its readerst hats port was ac haracter-building exercise conducive to "moral and spiritual perfecting."¹¹¹ Whatever the result, sportsmanlike and thus civilized conduct was appropriate: "In victory and defeat,s how yourselves to be sportsmen, évolués,a nd whyn ot civilized men?"¹¹² The two newspapers then carried reports on amatch at the packed Stade Astrid, which Daring won 3 -1, with the son of ADAPES president Jean Bolikango one of those taking to the field for Daring.Onthis occasion, however,the reports werequite partisan and testified to the media'sinstitutionalproximity to the missionary orders. "Daring overwhelms the Dragons and extends its lead,"¹¹³ stated the Croix du Congo,which carriedaeuphoric report on the course of the match. The report in the Voix du Congolais read very differently: with no mention of the result, the focus was on the fans and the manyf ouls on the pitch. Special emphasis was placed on the insults directed by Daring fansa gainst studentso f the école professionelle,who made up much of the Dragon team. "Youare workers we don'tneed,"¹¹⁴ the Daring supporters are said to have shouted. In view of this abuse meted out to ordinary workers, the author underlined that the reaction of the team and its fans had been exemplary: "Fortunately, workers generallys how greater dignity and respond in as imple but intelligent way: 'That's nothing to us, but youw ill always need workers.' Thisr eply, with its common sense, honours them and is proof of their excellent education."¹¹⁵ This was not an isolatedi ncident.S upporterso fA DAPES oftenm ade fun of certain ASSANEF members' status as tradesmen. As mentioned earlier,the ASSA-NEF milieu in the capital included manyi ndividuals in the employ of the colonial administration. Yetthe most important educational establishment run by the Frères des écoles chrétiennes in Léopoldville was dedicated to training for the skilled trades. Forgraduates of the Scheut mission schools,this provided awelcome opportunity for distinction, for the administrative professions werem ore lucrativea nd werec onsidered more prestigious. This selective and elitist selfimageo fA DAPES members is still mentioned in interviews with contemporary witnesses. As they remember it,the Daring football team was made up of intellectuals,who worked as typists and spoke better French than the Dragons players, who worked as tradesmen.¹¹⁶ They also refer disdainfullyt ot he ASSANEF's closeness to the colonial state: the Dragons football club, for example, was funded by the General Government,while ADAPES and its founder Raphael de la Kethulle made financial contributions to the Daring team on av oluntary basis.¹¹⁷ The Dragons' proximity to the colonial state found reflection, not least,i n their strip: the players took to the field in the colours of the Belgiant ricolour, with black trousers and yellow-and-red jerseys,making this connection visible to everyone in the stadium.¹¹⁸ This detour around the football pitches of Léopoldville was intended to bring out how the communitization of the Congolese elite in the alumni associations could lead both to internal cohesion and the drawingo fb oundaries. In particular, the parallel infrastructure of the twol argest missionary orders fostered social and culturalp rocesses of symbolic distinction. Through schools and associations, sports clubs and periodicals, the missionary ordersc reated two milieus with their own media and social spaces. This drawing of symbolic boundaries within the social formationofthe évolués was situationaland occurred, for example, basedonaffiliation with certain schools and occupations.The exclusionary effects thata re always part and parcel of communitization ran counter to the emergence of aC ongolese elite in the alumni associations.

Engaged colonialo fficials and illustrious circles
Évolué associations established on the initiativeo ft he colonial state wered ependent on the engagement of European administrative officials. What was the nature of the relationship between the associations and the colonial administration?T ow hat extent did the associations in Léopoldville benefit from the fact that European officials in the employ of the General Government,w hich was based in the city,weres upposedt om ake good on the promises of late colonial development?A nd what did it mean for associations if Léopoldville,a nd thus apro-reform colonial government,was several hundred kilometres away?In other words, what happened when évolués,insisting on change, had to make do with representativeso ft he colonial administration who took as ceptical view of the state'selite-makingeffortsand believed the local power structure to be under threat?T wo associations, one in Léopoldville and the other in Stanleyville, furnish us with ag ood basisf or ac omparison of locallys pecific associational cultures.F urther,these examples of elite associational sociability make it clear that as ag roup the much propagandized évolués could fissure, not just due to its members' identificationw ith occupational and educational groupings,b ut just as much in light of regionallya nd ethnicallyb asedd istinctions.
In February 1947, the Voix du Congolais reported on the establishment of the

Engaged colonial officials and illustrious circles
As Chefd el aP opulation Noire,Capelle was responsible for the local implementation of elite-makingpolicy.¹²⁰ In his aforementioned studyofthe African quarters he had commended the activities of associations in the capital, which he saw as evidence that Belgian associational culture had taken holdi nt he colony: "One might think thatt he blacksh ad been born in Brussels, so great is their loveo fa ssociations."¹²¹ The association initiated by Capelle sought to bring together the "capital's most educated natives." This select group was ashowcase for the colonial state's association policy. Anyone wishing to become am emberh ad to demonstrate "impeccable conduct" and submit references from two individuals,who had to be on the associationc ommittee or long-standing members.¹²² The list of members reads like a "who'swho" of the elite Congolese public sphere, whose representativesi nL éopoldville occupied senior positions in the colonial working world, but aboveall in the civils ervice. The committee was madeupa lmost exclusively of permanent authorsofthe Voix du Congolais or founding members of the paper.T he first association president,E ugène Kabamba, ag raduateo ft he Colonie Scolaire in Boma,h ad worked for the General Government since 1928 and at the time of the association'sf oundation he was also president of the AS-SANEF alumni association.¹²³ Further,in1947, togetherwith editor-in-chief of the Voix du Congolais,Antoine-RogerBolamba, Kabamba had taken part in the official meeting with the colonial ministerinLéopoldville in order to make the case for the évolués card in the midst of the contentiousdebate on status reform. Another committee memberofthe Cercle d'Études et d'Agréments had attendedthis highlysymbolic meeting:Jean-Pierre Dericoyard, aformeroffice worker from the vicinity of Stanleyville, who ranafurniture business in the capital and had become involved in the General Government's Service de l'Informationp our les Indigènes in 1944.¹²⁴ The association'sinner circle also included Paul Bolya, one of the few Congolese doctor'sa ssistants and by now himself at rainera tt he École assistants médicaux indigènes (AMI)i nL éopoldville.¹²⁵ Antoine Omari, ab ook- keeper at aleadingconstruction firm, assumed the presidencyofthe association in 1952. As acontributor to the Voix du Congolais,hetoo had expressed vigorous support for legal assimilation; in the debate on the reform of immatriculation, he had written articles critical of the resistance emanating from the European milieu of Katangap rovince.
In the Cercle d'Études et d'Agréments,then,Capelle the colonial administrator brought togethern ot just the capital'si ntellectual elite, but also some of the key protagonists in the public debate on post-war colonial reforms.I nC apelle the associationf ound apro-reform colonial official who backedthe official policy of elite promotion both theoreticallyand in practical terms. When Congolese members' demands were consonant with the colonial state'sd evelopmental promises,they were assuredo fC apelle'ss upport.
But even if the relationship between association patron and members with respect to elite-makingp olicy resembled thatb etween lawyer and client,i t was still ateacher-pupilrelationship. Capelle by no means shed the paternalistic attitude so common among Europeans towards their supposed Congolese charges. Association activities, then, wereu nder his direction and oscillated between lectures and programmes of entertainment.¹²⁶ There wereh ighbrow talks that flattered members' elitism: in 1947, aterritorial administrator gave aseries of lectures on sociology; there werep resentations by al egal scholaront he European marriagec ontract and papers on the Belgian ruling house.¹²⁷ Capelle often gave talks himself, for example on Europe'st echnological and industrial development.While European guests discussed the merits of their homec ountries,t he Congolese members presented themselvesa se xperts on their society of origin. Jean Mavuela talked about indigenous customs,A ntoine Omari about the wedding traditions of the Bakusu.¹²⁸ In addition to these educational evenings, Capelle frequentlyorganized activities intended to maintain association members' morale: asightseeing flight with the Belgian national airline Sabena, boat trips, theatre shows and film screenings,with the audience made up of high-ranking members of the colonial government,and trips to the zoo.¹²⁹ The association en- Engaged colonial officials and illustrious circles abled its members to gain temporary access to places thatwereusuallyreserved for Europeans.Nonetheless, the various events werenot aneutral, non-political form of amusement.This wasacolonial programme of persuasion, which presented influential members with Europe'st echnological and culturalp rogress as well as the BelgianC ongo'sc atch-up development thanks to the Ten-Year Plan. These events gave aCongolese elite loyal to the state af oretaste of the colonial world of tomorrow.
That EmmanuelCapelle'searly death in 1953also spelt the end of the Cercle d'Études et d'Agréments¹³⁰ bringsout his decisive influenceonthe fate of this association.N onetheless,o thera ssociations continued to bring representativeso f the vernacular elite together with European actors in the capital. The latter included staff of the General Government and administrative offices,who readily implemented the directivesf lowing from colonial reforms, which included ar espectful approach to the Congolesee lite. It was this milieu thatg aver ise to the  GroupementC ulturel Belgo-Congolais,f oundedi nL éopoldville in 1950,w ith which Capelle toow as associated, until his death, as an honorary member.¹³¹ Leadingm embers weree ditor-in-chief of the Voix du Congolais Antoine-Roger Bolambaa nd André Scohy, an employee of the General Government'sI nformation Service.¹³² To quote its constitution, the association fostered the ever closer convergenceb etween Belgians and Congolese at the culturall evel. It puts emphasis on collegiality and friendship amongi ts members.O nt he basis of respect,r acial non-discrimination and the foundations of the Belgian colonial tradition, abovea ll else the association bringst ogether writers, journalists,a rtists,C ongolese and Belgians in the Léopoldville region.¹³³ SymbolizingB elgian-Congolese convergence, the inaugural meeting took place in one of the poshest restaurantsi nL éopoldville, located in the Parc de Boek in the unpopulatedso-called "neutral zone" between the African and European quarters.¹³⁴ Thiswas wheret he association subsequentlyh eld its meetings, featuring sumptuous dinners, to which twenty-nine Europeans and twenty-nine Congolese werei nvited. Press releases underlined that they sat at the same table.¹³⁵ In addition to shared meals and discussion meetings, the Groupement Culturel Belgo-Congolais launched publicity-generatingi nitiatives. Fore xample, in the presenceo fc olonial notables the associationm embers rededicated the Manneken Pis statue, which stood in the Parc de Boek as ar eplica of the well- Capelle was heavilyi nvolvedint he association in its earlydays. In his roleashead of the Service de la Population Noire,h ew as in contact with the foundingc ommittee to assist it in drawing up ac onstitution; letterf rom Groupement Culturel Belgo-Congolais to Capelle, 14 October 1950,A A/GG/16230. Engaged colonial officials and illustrious circles known Brussels landmark.¹³⁶ Taking up aBrusselstradition of clothing the statue, they gave the "city'sfirst citizen"¹³⁷ some new attire: aheaddress of feathers, adress of woven raffia and ringsdanglingfrom its ankle. In remembrance of the first inhabitants of the area in which the colonial capital had been erected, the Manneken Pis now woret he traditionalg arb of the Bateke.¹³⁸ By demonstratively bringingt ogetherC ongolese and European representativesofthe capital'sculturalscene, the association was consistent with the official rhetoric of reformed colonial policy.¹³⁹ In al etter,the colonial ministert hus praised the "rapprochement between the whites and blacks of the Congo" as  Press release on the dedicationofthe Manneken Pis by the Groupement Culturel Belgo-Congolais,Congopresse, 10 March1 951, AA/A54/Infopresse/51.  Ibid.  Report by press agency AgenceB elge: Nouvellesd ' Afrique: Léopoldville, 30 January 1951.  Today, contemporary witnesses recall fondlyt he openness of the recurringencounters between Europeans and Africans;interview with Camille Auguste Mwissa-Camus, Kinshasa, 24 August 2010. manifest in the association.¹⁴⁰ It was not just the Brussels daily Le Soir,¹⁴¹ but even Drum magazine in South Africa, which opposed the state doctrineofA partheid, that considered the founding of the "multiracial literature and art association" in Léopoldville worthyo falaudatory article.¹⁴² The associations in Léopoldville such as the Cercle d'Études et d'Agréments and the GroupementCulturel Belgo-Congolais developed an appeal extendingbeyond the capital. Numerous reports and items of association news appeared in the Voix du Congolais and Croix du Congo,s ot hat their readersw erev ery well informed about the associational scene of the Belgian Congo.¹⁴³ The propagandistic stagingp resented the capital'sa ssociations to readers as exemplary sites of encounter between European administrators and Congolese elite, as places wherec olonial development was showcased. Through their idealization in the media, throughout the colonythese associations rose to the statusofbenchmark for évolué associations. This awareness of the commitment of the capital'sc olonial administration to the associations encouraged Congolese actorse lsewhere. That their expectations wereq uite oftend isappointed is evident in Antoine-Marie Mobé'st roubled tenure as AES president.

Fighting al osing battle: the évolué association in Stanleyville
"Since our arrival in Stanleyville, when the old évolué associationbegan to staggert owards its demise, we had been unwillingt ob elievew hat the elders here werew ont to tell us about the local authorities."¹⁴⁴ This is how Antoine-Marie Mobé, who has alreadya ppeared in the present studyo ns everal occasions as aCongolese protagonist in the elite-makingprocess, began an entry in his notebook of March 1950.There Mobé described ac onversation with the local territo- Fighting al osing battle: the évolué association in Stanleyville rial official, which finallyp rompted him to resign as president of the AES and end his months-long efforts to set the évolué association on an ew course.
In 1947, after completinghis seminary studies, Mobé had moved to Stanleyville to take up ap restigious job at the postal service.¹⁴⁵ As an up-and-coming évolué,t he revival of the association, which had been founded onlyi n1 944 but was now inactive,¹⁴⁶ provided him with an opportunity to make his mark in an ew environment as ar epresentative of the vernacular elite. Mobé selected the Voix du Congolais as the media platformf or its revitalization.
Mobé had an uanced but unsparingv iew of the AES'sp roblems.I nt he October 1947issue he adduced several reasons for the association'sdissolution and thus exposed the fraught situation in the BelgianC ongo'st hird largest city.¹⁴⁷ First,h ec riticized the tensions between long-established and incomer évolués. He wast hus addressingaconflict that had gone unmentioned in the Voix du Congolais,o ne that ranc ounter to the colonial propaganda of as upra-ethnic Congolese elite. Fullyi nt he idiom of official elite discourse, Mobé called on the residents of Stanleyville to leave such animosities behind them and, as a united elite, to playa na ctive part in the country'sf ate: "We ask our évolué friends to renouncet he spirit of the clan, tribe and region, in order to think exclusively of our community of race and skincolour.May they think about the fact that we all have to make up the Congolese elite and laythe ground for the Congo of tomorrow."¹⁴⁸ But Mobé'sc ritique was also aimeda tt he local colonial administration. As he sawit, the officials weren eglectful of the évolués,sothey too wereresponsible for the fact that Stanleyville was still along wayfrom "unity between us."¹⁴⁹  AfterLéopoldville and Elisabethville, Stanleyville was the third-largest urban settlement in the Belgian Congo, but was in fact amedium-sized town, with apopulation of just 40,000 in the early1 950s. But it grewr apidlyb yt he time of independence in 1960 and alreadyh ad 121,000 inhabitants in 1958. On the development and historyo fS tanleyville, see V. Pons, Stanleyville. An African Urban Community under Belgian Administration (London: OxfordU niversity Press, 1969); H. Lanza, "Stanleyville,ville cosmopolite. La localisation des différents groupes dans l'espaceurbain," in Les mémoires du Congo. Le temps colonial,ed. J.-L. Vellut (Gent: Snoeck, 2005).  On the association'shistory,see Verhaegen, L'Association des Évolués,3-35;Tshonda and Verhaegen, Lumumba:J eunesse,1 99 -205. The fact that the AES is the only évolué association that has been subject to as pecific studyi sd ue to the membershipo fP atriceL umumba, whose life has been the focus of manyh istorians.F or his study, Benoît Verhaegen was able to examine arangeofdocuments in the Kisangani provincial archive that subsequentlyfell victim to looting. At the same time, in his article Mobé advocated the communitization of the évolués into as upra-ethnic group and greater support for associations from the colonial state.
The Voix du Congolais,m eanwhile, conveyedad ifferent perspective on things. The editors added ac omment to Mobé'sa rticle, describing association members as solelyresponsible for its inactivity.The newspaper dismissed his accusation against the colonial administration as an "unfounded assertion."¹⁵⁰ The conflicts in Stanleyville exposed by Mobé made ap oor fit with the idealized worldview of the Léopoldville-based newspaper,w hich preferred to report on the blissful harmonyp revailing in the capital as associations brought together Europeans and Congolese.
Givent hat the local colonial administration was partlyr esponsible for the crisis of the AES, it comes as no surprise that after this rebukeM obé pipedu p once again. In a "rebuttal" published later,h ec omplained about the fact that his critique had been described as baseless and affirmed that he could attest personally to the administration'sfailings.Heexpressed surprise that the évolués of Stanleyville referred to his reporting as courageous. For, as he remarked sarcastically, did the Voix du Congolais not guarantee freedom of expression?Why then should authorshavetofear repression?Byevoking the self-imageofthe Voix du Congolais,M obé lent his critique of the local colonial administration additional legitimacy.H ew as indignant that the officials had failed to respond to the prescribed written requests for association meetings.Those who nonetheless met, Mobé wrote, were viewed as rabble-rousers and threatened with imprisonment.¹⁵¹ This time the editors did not seek to correct Mobé'sc ritique. Instead, two months later the Voix du Congolais reportedt hatt he governor of Léopoldville provinceh ad ordered ar eview of the incidents in Stanleyville.¹⁵² The paper now praised Mobé as an "excellent colleaguea nd friend."¹⁵³ With his appeal for help in the media, Mobé had caught the attention of the colonial government in the capital, which was disgruntled by its officials' failuret os upport,o re ven their tendency to impede, évolué associations in the provincial capitals.
Mobé had thus assuredh imself of the support of the Voix du Congolais and he convincedthe editorial board of the local colonial administration'sshortcom- Fighting al osing battle: the évolué association in Stanleyville ings. The time had come to relaunch the AES. At ac onstitutive meeting in December 1948, Mobé was elected its new president.¹⁵⁴ The Voix du Congolais congratulated Mobé, "whose diligence and tenacity have been crowned with success" and called on the local administration to support the association.¹⁵⁵ That the newspaper publiclyb acked the new president is an indication that the refoundation of the AES had elicited no enthusiasm on the part of Stanleyville's local officials. When the electionr esults and the constitution weres ubmitted to the local territorial official, he refused to authorize the association.¹⁵⁶ He justified this with referencet op rocedural errors and reservations about an association secretary with acriminalrecord.¹⁵⁷ But Mobé wasprepared for this gambit. Twoy ears earlier,the official had used the same argument to forcet he association to cease its activities. Mobé had thus specifiedi nt he new constitution that members' legal transgressions ceased to be relevant if they had maintained a good reputation for as ubstantial period of time.
Four months after Mobé'se lection as AESp resident,t he association was able to meet officiallyf or the first time. While the territorial officials had been unable to torpedo the association itself, they exercised their right to monitor and influencei ts activities. The minutes of the subsequent general meetings bear witness to the severe conflictb etween President Mobé and the colonial officials, who alsos howed up, over the association'so rientation. What Mobé had in mind was abodyinwhich members bettered themselvesand could intervene in publica ffairs.The representativeso ft he colonial administration, meanwhile, favoured ap rogramme restricted to recreational activities.¹⁵⁸ In view of the local colonial officials' resistance at the general meetings, Mobé summarilyc reated an ew bodyt oh elp implement his plans. As the forerunner of a cercle d'études,the comité consultatif was meant to facilitate discussion of pressingsocial problems. It is important to mention that the meetingsof the comité consultatif did not take place in secret.The first meeting, on 25 July 1949,was attended by colonial official Vanstichel, who worked for the provincial governorinthe Service de l'Information et de la Propaganda. At the behest of the colonial government in Léopoldville, Vanstichelh ad been tasked with support- ing the association when the local authorities' resistance first came to light.¹⁵⁹ As Mobé is likelyt ohaves een it,Vanstichelwas an emissary of the Voix du Congolais,who provided him with backing as he set about the controversialprocess of transforming the association into aC ongolese advocacy group.
While the Voix du Congolais presented the Congolesepublic sphere with the AES'sp rogress,a ssociation president Mobé was strugglingb ehind the scenes with the colonial officials,who were seeking to defend their extensive local powers against the critical African elite. Mobé was the loser in this power struggle. It is likelythat his interlocutor in the discussion with the "local authority"¹⁶¹ cited at the start of this section, which led to his resignation, was the territorial administrator of the African quarter,M aurice Buysschaert.¹⁶² According to Mobé's notes,duringthis conversation there was an escalation of the simmering dispute between him and the local administration over the association'scharacter.¹⁶³ The official, these notes record, described the critical association president as a "revolutionary," as as landerer of the administration who had no appreciation of its work at the local level. Rather than merelyd ebating and criticizing, the official had suggested, the association itself ought to takeaction and,for example, help out with the drainageo faflooded riverbank.M obé parried this proposal by echoing the territorial official'ss tatement thatt he local administration had all problems under control. Whythen would it need the association'shelp?The territorial official responded to this provocation by threateningtodissolve the AES.
Regardless of his composed and impersonal tone, Mobé'snotebook entry articulates his shock at the humiliatingtreatment meted out to him as association president: "In light of this talk Ia ssume that this authority is very probablyu naware who it is dealing with! ManyE uropeans still treat us like children. They Fighting al osing battle: the évolué association in Stanleyville think we are devoid of all capacity for reflection and judgement.This at least applies in the case of the aforementioned authority."¹⁶⁴ It is unclear whether Mobé'sa ccusatory lines ever made it beyond the relative safety of his notebook. On the one hand,the interpolated references to articles in the Voix du Congolais createthe impression that Mobé was workingonthe draft of ap ublication.¹⁶⁵ He scored through, reworked or reformulated certain parts several times over.T hat the text was not publishedd oes not mean that Mobé did not send it off,ashis faith in the support of the authorities in Léopoldville seems to have remained firm despite it all. It mayhaveb een one of the articles thats uccumbed to the General Government'sc ensorship for showingi ts colonial officials in toon egative al ight.O nt he otherh and,i ti sc onceivable that Mobé balked at publication out of fear of repression. In his notebook, he remarked thathewould rather not provide adetailed account of the insults he had suffered. He feared that no one would believeh im.¹⁶⁶ When the initial tailwind from Léopoldville had tailed off, Mobé succumbed to the pressuree manatingf rom the local authority and opted to step out of the public spotlight represented by the AES by resigning his post.I no ne of his didactic talks, which he had givens hortlybefore while stillassociation president, he tackled the notion of honour,which, he stated, was an innate aspect of every human being and must be defended against injury.¹⁶⁷ By resigning,Mobé mayin part have been attemptingtoretain his honour as aresponsible citizen -his conversation with the colonial official mayh aveb een as much humiliation as he was willingt ot ake. Forh im, the official'sd emand that he refrain from interfering in the administration'sw ork was an unacceptable capitulation to the local authorities' power.
In Stanleyville, the AES was beset by crisis just ayear after its refoundation, and in Léopoldville issues of the Voix du Congolais went to press that disseminated an antiquated and outlandishaccount of what had happened. The media cov-erageofMobé'sresignation wascharacterized by afailuretomentionthe dispute with the local administration. Reports repeatedlyh ighlighted conflicts between association members as the cause of the new crisis, maintaining an appearance of integrity on the part of the colonial officials.¹⁶⁸ In fact,the Voix du Congolais called on the évolués of Stanleyville to embrace an "entente cordiale"¹⁶⁹ and assailed their envy and bitterness.But even Mobé published no public criticism of the local administration, either in the Voix du Congolais or the Croix du Congo,for which he wrote the "Echos de Stanleyville" section from June 1950.I nstead, he too criticized the association members and,i nparticular, expressed his disappointment at the hostility of the évolués of Stanleyville towardsn ewcomers. In as choolmasterlyt one, Mobé wrote: Maythe residents of Stanleyville, that is, those whorefertothemselvesasnativesofStanleyville and, on the basis of this supposed quality,d isregard and envy all strangers while excluding them from the leadingp osts in their associations,f inallyu nderstand just what they would be capable of achieving without the generous and dedicated collaboration of these so-called strangers.¹⁷⁰ ForM obé, these spats between association members, which occurred on the basis of ethnicity,m eant that the AES had not earned the right to be known as an évolué association: "This is indicative of the fact that they are not yet fullyd eveloped."¹⁷¹ Despite his defeat as association president,M obé by no means abandoned his Sisyphean task as an exemplary and engaged évolué. The formerseminarian made the civilizingmission his personal mission. He continued to champion the self-perfection and continued education of the évolués through the associations,¹⁷² for "the number of the developing who have benefittedf rom schooling and training is still very limited."¹⁷³ Mobé'sr eferences to the need for évolués to work togetherw ith the Europeans to civilize the uneducated masses and modernize the country indicates thathemust have seen the hostile territorial official merelyasalocal Stanleyville aberration.¹⁷⁴ His faith in colonial development appears to have been unwavering. At the sametime, Mobé began to pursue new associational projects less dependent on the goodwill of the local colonial administration. Also, in the summer of 1951, he foundedtwo associations in Stanleyville,both of which he headed as president: first the Association des Postiersd el aP rovince Orientale (APIPO), which, with the tried-and-tested tools of talks and recreational activities, was dedicatedt ot he self-improvement of Congolese postal workers and to fosteringt heir work ethic,¹⁷⁵ and, second, the local branch of the ADAPES, the association for former Scheut mission school pupils. Forhis new association projects Mobé had now found ac lose ally, who supported his foundation of the new bodies and held the post of vice-president in bothofthem. Iamreferringto a2 6-year-old and highlya mbitious colleaguef rom the postal service, who had been on the AES committee since 1951a nd, as ac orrespondent for the Croix du Congo,rapidlymade his entrance into the colonial public sphere: Patrice Lumumba.¹⁷⁶ When Mobé goth imself transferred to Coquilhatville in 1953, Lumumba followed in his footsteps.H et ook over from Mobé as president of the APIPO and ADAPES and continued his work as correspondent for the Croix du Congo in Stanleyville.¹⁷⁷ If we examine Lumumba'so thera ctivities in Stanleyville, we find that he was also heir to the controversial figureo fM obé in another sense: he performedaperilous tightrope act as an exemplary évolué who sought to maintain ab alance, vis-à-vis the colonial authorities, between loyalty and a critical mindset,b etween ambition and challengingv iews. As presidents of the AES, Mobé and Lumumba eschewed blind allegiance to the siren song of colonial change. Instead, they amplified the rhetoric of colonial reform and thus challenged the local representativeso ft he colonial state.
But what does the example of Mobé'spresidency of the AES tell us about the local outworkingoft he state-backed and much propagandized Congolese associations?Itisworth brieflyrecapitulatingthe key conflicts and determining their general significance.
First,the effortsofCongolese to transform évolué associations, sponsored by the colonial state, into sites of elite formation that allowed members to articulate their views and facilitated social participation, entailed ac ertain risk. What the  Ibid., 40 -41.  Tshonda and Verhaegen, Lumumba:J eunesse,2 09 -210. On Lumumba'sw ork as ac orrespondent for the Croix du Congo,s ee: Mutamba-Makombo, Patrice Lumumba.  P. Lumumba, "Nouvelles de l'ADAPES Stanleyville," CroixduCongo (14F ebruary 1954). As president of the APIPO postal association Lumumba edited ap ublication akin to the Voix du Congolais in its orientation and content,though the layout was less professional and most articles were on the work ethic.
General Government propagated with the help of the Voix du Congolais could triggerapower struggle between associationm embers and colonial officials over who was in charge at the local level. Elite actors' insistencet hat the state take steps to develop responsible, politicallym ature citizens laid bare the local balance of power within the framework of colonial rule. The contradiction between theory and practice, inherent in associational culturea sa ni nstitution of state elite formation, can fairlyb ed escribed as glaring. Certainly, Mobé was quite capable of using the Voix du Congolais as apublic platformf or evaluating whether colonial promises had been kept,and his tenacity compelled the editors and the General Government to support him. In Stanleyville,h owever,s uch backing from the capital was of limited use. Mobé had to find out the hard wayw hat it meant to gear one'sa ctions to the promises of colonial reformsa s propagated in the Voix du Congolais. With his combative articles, he made himself vulnerable to repressive measures by the local colonial authority.A nd the territorial officials, with their substantial powers,h ad no intention of allowing Mobé to turn the évolué association into af orum for African critique and demands. While the newspaper in Léopoldville published avowals of solidarity and the General Government despatched ar epresentative of the provincial government'sI nformationD epartment to assist Mobé, ultimatelyt hese acts were merelys ymbolic and turned out to be half-hearted forms of support.
In Stanleyville, the rhetoric of colonial development was subordinatet ot he interests of the colonial order -in reality,the Voix du Congolais was powerless. Those who sawt hemselvesa sm embers of the elite and were eager to improve both their character and social position could rapidlyc ome up against the glass ceilingofthe colonial hierarchy. In the dispute over the AESwecan discern once again the conflict over the local implementation of colonial reforms, along with the concomitant expectations and disappointments of the Congolese elite.
Second, the example of the AES demonstratest hat the social spaces of the évolué associations werep otentiallyc onflictual ones. They werem eetingp laces for graduates of secondary schools and employees in prestigious roles from several different regions, whose othernesswas meant to be overcome through their designation as évolués or elite. The discussion of the treatment of "strangers"¹⁷⁸ in the AESshows that ethnicity and regional background wereparallel and highly potent identificatory conceptsthat undermined the évolués' communitization. Provenance playedam ajor role in the évolué milieus of the colonial cities. A number of studies have revealedt hat ethnicity was accentuated against the background of these heterogenous social spaces of encounter,i fi tw as not in  P. Lumumba, "La question des 'étrangers,'" Croixd uC ongo (18 March1 951).
Fighting al osingb attle: the évolué association in Stanleyville fact experienced in the cities for the first time.¹⁷⁹ As an association president who was alsoanewcomer to the city,Mobé lacked local backing,and here he shared the fate of manyw ell-educated Congolese who were installed in administrative offices throughout the colonyb ut could build up little local support.O vert he course of the 1950s, associational sociability in the cities of the Belgian Congo increasinglytransformed into alaboratory for the cultivation of regional and ethnic patterns of belonging, in which the Congolese elite too, in ac limate of anticolonial politicization, was latert od iscern am eans of enhancing its power.¹⁸⁰

Illegitimatea nd disreputable sociability
The "moralization of leisure time"¹⁸¹ is Tim Couzens'st erm for the practice of colonial officials, missionaries and firms of imparting to the African elite certain values through recreational opportunities. Herea ssociationsp layedaleading role.¹⁸² Certainly, missions and the colonial state expectedr ecreational associations to be an instrument of social control and colonial subject formation. But they werealso an instrument they sometimes -albeit unintentionally -allowed to slip from their grasp. Forhowever much it was meant to control and moralize, this sociability,though to alimited degree, created areas of freedom that at times rancounter to the propaganda of elite-makingpolicy.¹⁸³ What the Congolese elite weres upposedt od ow hen not workingand what they actuallydid weren ot always congruent.
The contested meaning of the term "pleasure," which appeared in the name of many évolué associations in the BelgianCongo, was laid bare in the discourse and practice of associational life.The Voix du Congolais soughttoresolvethe antagonism between edification and entertainment in acomment on areader'sletter whose author complained that the published association news provided more information on electionst han on substantived ebates.¹⁸⁴ Heret he newspaper, close to the colonial state, added its voice to the criticism of the lack of association activity while also lamentingt hat in manyp laces dancing and alcohol weret he order of the day. But the editors did not have af un-free zone in mind either: "The associations should not be puritanical places wherel aughter is forbidden."¹⁸⁵ They called for am iddle course between virtue and entertainment.What this squaring of the circle might look like in practice they left to the associations themselves.
Members of the Cercle Gouverneur Pierre Ryckmans in Lisala, discussed earlier in connection with the visit of Antoine-Roger Bolamba, complained about the misappropriation of association funds. In aletter to the responsible colonial official, they accused the association president of using the membership feest o playt he "grandee" and entertain his lovers.¹⁸⁶ There is as eries of these reports in an alarming tone in the elite newspapers warning of the blurringofthe boundary between the moralizing elite associations on the one hand and the indecent bars on the other. In the Croix du Congo,o ne reader reportedf rom Tshimbane that the associations in the colony's "little outposts"¹⁸⁷ left al ot to be desired, because fewer educated Congolese livedtherethan in the cities. Rather thanacquiring books and improvingt hemselves, members dedicated themselvest oa lcohol and dancing. "Rather than forging the black elites," he wrotew ith a view to the association as the official siteo fe lite formation, "we run the risk of training up developed drunkards."¹⁸⁸ Another reader,while advocating support for the "backwoodsmen," noted that the popularity of alcohol was ap roblem affectingu rban dwellers as well.¹⁸⁹ And yetitseems that the above-mentioned alcohol consumption in the évolué associations was often tolerated as ameans of preventing supposedlyw orse behaviour.E veni na ssociations initiated by missionaries, whose meetingsw ere held on mission grounds,the focus was not always on culturalelevation. In Coquilhatville, for example, the Catholic mission rant he Cercle Excelsior,w ith a substantial membership of 549 in September 1953.¹⁹⁰ Itsa ppeal was mainly due to its primaryr olea sd rinking place. Attaining membership was as imple matter of paying for one'sd rinks. Some members complained to the provincial governora bout "this so-called association that is actuallyabar,"¹⁹¹ contending that nothing was known about the fate of its takingsa nd that it lacked sanitary facilities.
Nonetheless,duringhis visit to Coquilhatville the editor-in-chief of the Voix du Congolais,A ntoine-RogerBolamba, had words of praise for the controversial association: "Thisinitiative by the missionaries keeps manyy oung people away from the seedye ntertainments of the natived istricts, wherea buses of all kinds help bring the lowest of passions to fruition."¹⁹² Bolamba sawt he greater evil in those of Coquilhatville'sassociations thatcaused outragedue to their immoral practices: "Their raison d'être consists in the diversions of singing and dancing,[ … ]a nd their activities […]b oil down to ignominious drinking sessions."¹⁹³ Bolamba'sr emarks are reminiscent of areport produced by the General Government on the "Associations of the Femmes Libres and Bachelors( clerks)" in Coquilhatville'sAfrican districts.¹⁹⁴ It stated thatt he establishment of these illegal associations, with imaginative names such as Alaska and Américaines,was the doing of Congolese office workers employed in the colonial administration, who fit the general conception of av ernacular elite duringw orkingh ours, but took time out from the moral precepts of colonial subject formation when work was over.¹⁹⁵ Accordingtothe report, the association was frequented by un- Handwritten addendum of 5September 1953toareport on the Cercle Excelsior produced by the territorial official of Coquilhatville on 22 November 1950;A A/GG/11600.  Undatedl etterf roma ssociation members to the governor of Équateur province, AA/GG/ 11600.  Antoine-RogerB olamba, "Impressions de voyage," Voix du Congolais no. 49 (May1 950): 214.  Ibid., 213.  Association femmes librese td eg arcons (clercs) du CEC Coquilhatville 1948, AA/GG/12532. We cannot rule out the possibility that Bolamba was the author of the report,g iven that he had stayedi nC oquilhatville for aw eek around the same time, during his tour through the colony; letterfromsecretary general of the General Governmenttothe territorial official in Coquilhatville, 15 September 1948, AA/GG/7921.  Ibid.; Bolamba, "Impressions de voyage," 213. married women and sometimes even underagegirls, who danced and sang "obscene songs" for the male guests.¹⁹⁶ If we consider these examples in the round, it is evidentthat differing ideas about the organization of leisure time and masculinity collided within the associational landscape of the Belgian Congo, ideas underpinning different forms of respectability that coexistedw ithin the vernacular elite.¹⁹⁷ On the one hand,we might refer to the respectability of the exemplary, "genuine" évolués keen to perfect themselves, who wishedt ob ea ppreciated by the European milieu even in their leisure time. On the other hand, we have the respectability of the grandee and snob, which was the antithesis of ad esirable lifestyle in idealistic elite discourse. Ad emonstratived isplayo fu nrulyb ehaviour by association presidents could inspire outragea sw ell as popularity and allegiance among members.¹⁹⁸ In the latter case, recognition from Europeans,observing and commentingonassociational sociability with wagging fingers, seems to have been of secondary importance.
Clearly, not everyone referred to as an évolué and addressed as the subjectof elite formationc ould geta nything out of the official associatione venings, with their edifying talks and debates under the custodianship of European advisers. The social spaces of the bar and the association, kept separate from one another in elite discourse as ideal types, overlapped in culturalpractice. Polygamy,indecent acts and drunkenness could be as much apart of the everydaypleasures of association life as talks and training courses.H ence, as cores ites of colonial elite-making, associations sometimes became the kind of places they weres upposed to keep their members away from.
Among the strangeoutgrowths of the associational landscape, in addition to the disreputable associations, werethose social coalitions thatcalled themselves associations while failingt osatisfy the formal criteria laid down by the colonial administration. Behind this widespread phenomenon layaform of associational  , 1920s-1950s," Journal of Social History 30,n o. 3( 1997. But givent he findingso ft he present study, the question that arises is to what extent,i nR hodesia as elsewhere, this was merelyt he discourse of dissociation typical of the elite,which feared for its respectability because some of its own membersw ere also to be found visitingt hese drinkingh alls.  The latter was the reaction of most membersofthe Cercle VanGele to the removal of their president duet odisreputable conduct.See letter fromBotamba to the policeman in Libenge,16 August 1952; letterf romB otamba to the territorial official of Libenge,1 6A ugust 1952, AA/GG/ 6372. Illegitimate and disreputable sociability mimicry,which provides us with an initial indication of how populara nd worth emulatingthe associations were, even among those individuals who, due to their lack of statusorinadequate education, could not take part in elite socialization. It is important to realize thatt he évolué associations weree ye-catchers in Congolese towns and cities and their events often attracted onlookers.I nL éopoldville, uninvited spectators of associational sociability even had theiro wn nickname, ngembo,a dmirers or bats, because they wered enied access but positionedthemselvesinsuch away thatthey could follow the goings-on undisturbed.¹⁹⁹ To conclude, then, Iwish to explore akey question, one that the meagrematerial evidence does not allow us to answer conclusively but that cannot be ignored: to what extent did the cultural model of aC ongolese elite servea sa role model for broader circles within society?A fter all, officiallyt he goal of elite formationwas for évoluéstoact as disseminators, beyond their ownmilieu, of moral values and away of life that were considered civilized. Ideally,the African elite was at all timess upposedt op rovide what contemporary sociology, with the colonial elite in mind, understood as a "standard setting group."²⁰⁰ In colonial ideology, évolué associations werem eant to function as the poster child for civilized manners and emulate their historicalrole models from Europe, that is, associations that had ensured the spread of bourgeois ideas beyond their own milieu.²⁰¹ In the relevant newspapers,h owever,C ongolese authors repeatedlyc omplained that the elite often failed to function as role models for theirless educated compatriots,p articularlyi nc ontexts of direct interaction. Heret he elite assumed the arrogancec ommon among Europeans towards those referredt oa s indigènes. Due to theirs imple clothing,r epresentativeso ft he vernacular elite treated them as uncivilized, avoided contact,paraded theirsupposed cultural superiorityb ys peakingg randiloquent French and used theire ducational edge to position themselvesa ss uperior.²⁰² But just because the Congolese elite failed  MaîtreT aureau began to talk about these uninvited spectators when presented with ar elevant photograph. Interview with MaîtreT aureau,K inshasa, 2S eptember 2010.M aîtreT aureau was af amous figure in the recreational culture of Léopoldville in the 1950s and organized, for example, beauty and dancingcompetitions in the Parc de Boek, with guests includingsenior officials in the colonial administration. The local press called him the "Elvis Presley of Léopoldville"; "Au baptême de notre fils 'Congo,'" Congo (6 April 1957): 6.  Nadel, "Concept of Social Elites."  On the appeal of bourgeois culture, see for example Kaschuba, "Bürgerlichkeit," 110.  On these incidents,see n.n, "Lesnoirs exploitent les noirs," Voix du Congolais no. 23 (February 1948) to exhibit the kind of conduct apologists for elite formationconsidered exemplary does not mean they lost their aura as persons worth emulating.
Iwill brieflyi llustrate associational mimicry through examples thatt akeu s to Stanleyville and Léopoldville. The first example is from astudybyV aldo Pons, who carried out eighteen months of field researchi nS tanleyville in 1952. Pons undertook as ociological studyo fn ew cities in colonial Africa, an emerging line of research at the time thatw as institutionalized chieflyb yM ax Gluckman and A. L. Epstein in Manchester²⁰³ but was also prominentlypursued by George Balandier.²⁰⁴ Urbanization in Africa was ad evelopment that,a fter the Second World War, engendered agreat need for expert knowledge on the part of the colonial administration, which social scientists werehappy to provide.²⁰⁵ Pons was one of several sociologists who, commissioned by UNESCO,carried out research in Stanleyville on processes of social adaptation in the urban context.²⁰⁶ The Belgian colonial government'sd ecision to welcome the international team of researchers to its territory not onlyf urnished it with moreh egemonic knowledge, but also signalled to the anti-colonialist UN,a ss ponsor of the project,that the Belgian Congoh ad nothing to hide.
Pons followed the "community studyapproach"²⁰⁷ common at the time and investigated the social networks and communication processes in asettlement of ordinary workers. Though the residents could not be considered members of the educated évolué milieu of Stanleyville, Pons was struck by the great significance ascribed to the different levels of civility in everydayconversation: "It was common to hear two men discussingathird in terms such as he is 'av ery civilized man,' he is 'onlyalittle civilized,' he is 'not quite civilized,' he was 'civilized long ago,' and so forth."²⁰⁸ Interviewees qualified people'sp ersonal lifestyle either as backward, using the Lingala term kisendji,orascivilized, kizungu,which  The research projects of the Manchester School, but also of the Rhodes-LivingstoneI nstitute, arec onsidered keyf orerunners of modern urban anthropology.F or an overview,s ee U. Hannerz, Exploring the City.I nquiries Towarda nU rban Anthropology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 119 -162.  G. Balandier, Sociologie des Brazzavilles noires (Paris:P ressesd eS ciences Po, 1955).  Urban researchers wereone of the groups of experts active in colonial Africa after 1945. See Cooper, Decolonization,3 73.  The research findings areb roughtt ogether in an anthology;D .F orde, "Introduction," in Aspects sociaux de l'industrialisation et de l'urbanisation en Afrique au Sud du Sahara,e d. D. Forde( Paris:U NESCO,1956).  Pons, Stanleyville,5and 132.  Ibid., 11.
Illegitimate and disreputable sociability means 'western' or 'European' in Swahili and in this case essentiallydenoted an urban wayo fl ife.²⁰⁹ Pons then observed social practicesa nd symbolic acts, with the help of which ordinary workers assured themselveso ft heir civility.Asix-member group of neighbouringm asons and carpenters between 26 and 50 yearso f age, for example, gottogetheratirregular intervals for meetingsthat they called "association" and at which they had discussions, joked and drank. We have Pons to thankf or ad etailedd escription of the fun had by this group giving theirg ettogethers the sheen of official associationmeetings.All thosepresent receivedan honorary title. There was ap resident,g overnor and district commissioner,a s well as posts such as secretary and chairman, though members constantlyswapped roles.Anyone arriving late or being called away toosoon by his wife had to payafine. Though everyone livedclose by,aself-proclaimed secretary informed members of the next meeting by post.²¹⁰ While Homi Bhabha discerns elements of mimicry and mockery in colonial subjects' appropriation of European ways of life,²¹¹ here this performance seems to be extended -to ordinary workers who playfullyu surp the posturing of the Congolese elite.
ForP ons,this associational mimicry represented an attempt at self-reassurance and symbolic self-valorization: "the members of the 'club' sawt hemselves as a 'civilized' group acting in a 'civilized' way."²¹² His studythus showsthat associational sociability was receivedwell beyond elite circles,asaform of social interaction associated with civility and prestige in the colonial situation.
But it was alsot he fascination exercised by ostentation and the appeal of holding office that fostered associational mimicry.A ni ncident in the African quarter of Léopoldville bringst his out once more. In the spring of 1953, the colonial administration followed up al ead concerning an unregistered group by the name of the Association of Gentlemen London Stell.²¹³ Itsi nvestigation brought to light am ajor misunderstanding.The responsible colonial official encountered aseven-member group of young Congolesewho, as members of asavingsa ssociationt hat had in reality been dissolved, gave each other imaginative and grandiose titles in the French language, though the official believed they wereunaware of the terms' actual meaning. There was,for example, a "secretary of defence," a "secretary of the interior" and a "representative of great enjoyment  Ibid., 11-12 and 51. in Africa." In accordance with the regulations, the astonished official submitted his reporttothe local police, but he expressed opposition to the kind of criminal prosecution these young men would likelyf ace due to their unauthorized association: "All this shows that these lads deservesix years of primary school rather than two months in prison." ²¹⁴ It is conceivable thatt he official'sb afflement at the Association of Gentlemen London Stell was matched by its members surprise at the colonial administration'sinterest in their harmless associational mimicry.InLéopoldville, however,the authorities kept aweather eyeevenoninsignificant bars if an unknown association was said to be gatheringt here. On closer consideration, however, such cases mostlyinvolvedagroup of bar-goers who, afterbeing paid, collectively handed over acertain amount to the proprietor so they could afford alcoholic drinks even at the end of the month, and in so doing addressed each othera s president or secretary.²¹⁵ The colonial state'sc ontrol mania wasaresulto ft he authorities' fear that one of the many unofficial associations might be camouflagef or ap olitical and anti-colonial movement.Knowledge of this state of affairs must have spread among the Congolese elite: one respected resident of Léopoldville'sAfrican quarter,for example, playedonthis fear of subversive groups in order to ensure that the local administration prohibited an association he had come to find disagreeable.²¹⁶ He was outraged by its dance events that,a ccordingt oh im, disturbed not just the public peace but also domestic peace. To demonstrate to the colonial authorities the need for prompt action, he portrayedthe disreputable revellers as the supposednucleus of an armed independence movement of the kind thatwas in the ascendant at the time in other colonies: "Thinko ft he MAU-MAUm ovement in KENYA. If they had seen it comingi tw ould not have happened. But they waited too long to act."²¹⁷ That unofficiallye stablished associations evaded the authorities' control is indicative not so much of anticolonial politicization or clandestine meetings as of the unintended side-effects of colonial subject formation, which sought to organize évolués' free time with the help of associations. The association became the shorthand symbol of the prestigious sociability of urban Congolese and was detached from its origin as ak ey site and instrument of control within the  Letter fromassistant to territorial administrator A. Croonenborgh to R. Huberty,head of the framework of colonial elite-making. Through its culturalappropriation by awide rangeo fs ocial strata, the term "association" became synonymous with more or less regular meetings, which did not prevent people from imitating bureaucratic procedures from the world of associations or from marking social hierarchies through the ascription of associational posts. But the colonial administration learned onlyr arely of such situational and fluid forms of communitization. It is thus difficult to assess the precise extent to which the culturalc oncept of the association spreadt hroughout society.The state project of fosteringC ongolese associations slipped right out of colonial officials' hands: it was so successful that they could no longer control it.
In sum, colonial subjectf ormationi nt he social spaces of the associations was an ambivalent and highlyc onflictual process. First,t he associationsf ailed to achieve the declared goal of "social engineering," namely,tocreateavernacular elite as as ociocultural meltingp ot.F irst and foremost,a ssociational sociability fostered ap rocess of splintering within that social group thatw as in fact supposed to grow together as aC ongolese elite. The self-description as évolués mayhavebeen suited to the formulation of collective claims vis-à-vis the colonial state, as in the case of the introduction of status reform, but it was not an effective means of collective identification. Togetherness was less likelyt ohighlight the prospect of affiliation to the Congolese elite than to foreground ashared background and ethnicity,c ommon life paths and school careers,o ccupations and leisure pursuits, as well as notions of masculinity and morality.The imagined community of as upra-ethnic elite, which drew its social cohesive force from loyalty to the colonial state,was propagandized in the media²¹⁸ but thwarted in the social world.
Second, the colonial state failed to getw hat it wanted: total control of the communitization of the Congolese population and the organization of their leisure time. Thesociability of the elite, whether in évolué associations or unofficial gatherings,s ometimes evaded direct control and bore witness to its members' culturalt enacity.
Third, judgedagainst the expectations raised in the elite periodicals, the évolué associations could cause disappointment in practice. The media portrayals of privileged sites of encounter between Europeans and Congolese and of al ively elite public sphere were not always congruent with what afair number of ambitious association presidents experienced. Even in the associations themselves, representativesofthe elite had very limited scope to help shape the Congo of tomorrow.
Considering these examples as awhole, we are left with the impression that their European patrons preferred to let associations getout of control rather than facing up to the demands made of the colonial state by critical presidents.Colonial officials' laisser-faire attitude towards associations thatwereplaces of entertainment more thans ites of character-building,a nd their authoritarian crackdowns on critical association members, are testimonyt ot he priorityg iven to maintaining power.T he acceptance thato rganized leisure pursuitst ended to bring about the opposite of moralizationw as moret han as ign of the colonial state'slimited resources.Ultimately, its tacit tolerance entailedpolitical benefits. It corroboratedt he idea that the évolués' development still left much to be desired and that their ownc onduct ranc ounter to their demand for legal equality with Europeans.This observation of the Congolesee lite'sl ack of maturity was more conducive to the stabilization of the colonial order than the painful -because politicallybinding -admission that these might after all be potentiallyresponsiblea nd engagedc itizens. In ac ontext in which Belgium, by ratifying the UN Charter, had committed to gearing the colonized society'spolitical participation to its maturity,the colonial authorities' loss of control over Congolese associational sociability was one thing abovea ll else: ac ontrolled loss of control.
Nowherew as discontent at the évolué associations' failings expressed as much as in the relevant elite periodicals.I nt he Voix du Congolais,f or instance, Antoine-RogerBolamba deniedpassive and nonconformist association members the right to call themselvese lite and enjoythe status of évolué: "Ihope that the commissions tasked with issuing the Carte du Mérite Civique take applicants' lifestyle into account."²¹⁹ This quotation speaks to the fact thatn ormative elite discourse on civilizational maturity was crucial to the awardingo fe lite status. What the associations clearlyi llustrated was thatt he is and the ought of elite formationc ould often be poles apart.