Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Politike Bishimbo: Humour, Statehood and Social Ambivalence in the 2023 elections of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Author: Silke Oldenburg with Christian Mwemezi Ngangura)

The journalists ask, “Shako, who are you going to vote for?”. Shako responds, “In the presidential election, I will vote for my father; in the national election, I will vote for my mother; and in the provincial election, I will vote for my brother – everyone is running for office.”

This description refers to the opening sequence from a popular YouTube video released in August 2023 by Eastern Congolese musician Master B Shako, just four months before the national elections of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) on December 20, 2023. The video, titled Politike Bishimbo, is a 5.35-minute satirical clip. The title means “The Politics of Beans” in Kishi, the local language spoken predominantly in the South Kivu province of DR Congo. The clip quickly went viral, drawing significant public attention.

CC-BY-4.0: Screenshot by Silke Oldenburg from video „Master B Shako – Politike Bishimbo, Official Music Video“, YouTube / Master B Shako, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lygbKW8-yT8

Humour and protest, often intertwined (Görkem 2015), are two of several ways in which ordinary people perform citizenship. This analysis uses Master B Shako’s Politike Bishimbo as an example to explore how humour, in the context of the Congolese elections of 2023, simultaneously reflects, critiques, and reinforces statehood. By exposing the absurdity of political promises, Shako’s piece underscores the paradox of participating in democratic performances that critique yet reaffirm the system itself.

Approaching Elections in DR Congo 

“Do elections matter?”, Theodore Trefon asked during DR Congo’s 2011 presidential and legislative elections, and the question seemed equally relevant in the context of its national elections in 2023 (Trefon 2013). Since the first election in 2006, corruption in the electoral process has affected not only the campaign periods but also the organization and conduct of elections. Accusations of fraud, vote-buying, results manipulation, and intimidation of voters or candidates have been widespread. Furthermore, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), responsible for organizing elections, has often been criticized for its lack of transparency and its ties to the ruling power (Walsh 2024).

Adding to an already complex political history and landscape, armed groups, particularly in Eastern DR Congo, have made certain areas inaccessible for peaceful elections, exacerbating a climate of tension and violence. In DR Congo’s fourth national election since 2006, the country elected a president alongside national, provincial, and local representatives. Despite all obstacles, nearly 41 million voters registered. They had to choose from around 100,000 candidates (representing more than 70 political parties) participating in the elections across the various levels (Stearns 2024).

Politike Bishimbo plays with this excessive number, giving an ironic twist to what is happening in DR Congo’s elections. Beans, a humble staple food, symbolize the abundance and randomness of candidates vying for political positions at all levels. While this could be interpreted as an inclusive gesture, implying that, in theory, anyone can run for office, it simultaneously underscores the nepotism, lack of genuine choice, and systemic dysfunction within the state. Political promises, often unmet, have fuelled widespread frustration among citizens whose living conditions have rarely improved, despite repeated electoral cycles promising peace, progress, and poverty reduction.

The Politics of Beans: Humour and Statehood 

In this heated pre-electoral atmosphere, Master B Shako released his video. In it, he appears in a clearly staged setting, dressed as a general and seated at a desk, posing as an authoritative figure. The entire scene, including the eager “journalists” who question him, is deliberately orchestrated to parody the spectacle of political performance. He delivers the punchline featured in the opening vignette, when the staged reporters ask him, “Shako, who are you going to vote for?”. Over the course of the video, Shako sings in Swahili about the multitude of people from different social layers running for office – the neighbour, the teacher, the mother, the bishop – highlighting the absurdity of unqualified individuals seeking leadership positions while the country is facing extreme crises. He sings, “Everyone is a politician, the country is collapsing, but everyone is a politician. There is a lot of famine, unemployment, no peace, no development, no good governance, but everyone is a candidate.”[1]

The video plays with the “politics of beans” as a metaphor for both the basic everyday needs of the populace and their minimal expectations of the state. Just as beans are an easily accessible staple food for everyone in the DR Congo, Shako highlights the irony of a system where everyone seeks to participate out of self-interest, regardless of their ability to lead. Here, the metaphor of the beans shifts from inclusion to trivialization. Using both lyrics and popular dance moves, Shako critiques the current situation of the state by pointing to citizens’ experiences with dysfunctional infrastructures and armed conflict (Oldenburg and Kambale 2023). Here, humour as practice serves as a socio-political tool to critique and influence public perceptions of statehood and authority, while offering an educative message.

A key lyric, the imperative of “Tulime mashamba, tuachane na politique” (“Let us cultivate our fields and abandon politics”), suggests a pragmatic shift from political engagement to self-reliant survival strategies. This lyric encapsulates improvisation as a mode of survival amid ineffective governance, embodying a subtle form of resistance (Scott 1986) while also alluding to the famous Congolese “Article 15”: “Débrouillez-vous”, meaning “Fend for yourself as the state won’t do it”. The song portrays a country rich in land and resources, yet plagued by famine and poverty, where people must turn to their neighbours for basic necessities like flour. Despite the abundance of agricultural lands and wealth, the focus shifts away from political solutions to individual survival, as “everyone is a candidate,” but no one is addressing the real issues.

However, advocating for farming over politics does not necessarily imply a rejection of statehood per se. The Congolese state has been labelled as failed, weak and dysfunctional in too many publications to quote. In 2009, Herbst and Mills even famously announced that “There is no Congo”. Local acronyms like “Rdcédé” (a pun on the French acronym for DRC and “décedé”, meaning “deceased”) or “République Démoniaque du Congo” (the “Demonic Republic of the Congo”) playfully reflect this moribund perception. Yet, the DR Congo persists as a point of reference (Englebert 2003), with many Congolese expressing a profound sense of national identity and pride. This sentiment becomes particularly visible during elections, when the dynamics of citizenship and the relationship between citizens and the state come under scrutiny. Paradoxically, despite the many challenges and dysfunctions of the state, citizens continue to show up to vote, not only motivated by clientelist politics or personal gain but also by a sense of pride and perhaps a quiet hope that their vote, however small, might still influence change.

The Ambivalence of Humour

Lauren Berlant’s conceptualization of ambivalence offers a nuanced framework for understanding this dynamic. Ambivalence is often framed negatively, as a sense of alienation or disconnection. However, Berlant proposes that we rethink ambivalence as a dynamic force, pulling people in many directions, both positive and negative, and as central to the “affective infrastructure that importantly holds up one’s world” (2022: 27). This perspective aptly describes the relationship many Congolese have with their state: desiring stability and governance while resenting its failures. This ambivalence creates a complex intimacy, marked by both hope and disillusionment. 

Humour, as reflected in Politike Bishimbo, embodies this ambivalence, revealing both the potentialities and the making of meaning of an absurd context. In times of elections, voting, as Jaffe notes, transcends individual rights (2015: 130). It serves as an expressive act of collective belonging to political communities such as the Congolese state. By mocking the political landscape where Shako votes for his father in the presidential elections, his mother in the national elections and his brother in the provincial elections, and where political positions are pursued for personal gain rather than for public services and improving conditions, Shako’s lyrics simultaneously critique the system and maintain engagement with it.

This ambivalence reflects Berlant’s notion of “cruel optimism,” wherein citizens rely on the idea of a functioning state while recognizing its blatant inadequacies (Berlant 2011). The refrain, “Shako uta voter nani?” (“Who will you vote for?”), underscores this paradox. While many feel trapped in a corrupt and repetitive system, the question itself implies an enduring attachment to the political process, participating in elections as an act of hope for meaningful change.

In this way, Politike Bishimbo uses humour to explore how people perceive and relate to their state in a context of chronic crisis (Vigh 2008). Humour allows citizens to embrace the absurdity of their state, through providing equally entertainment, solace and social critique. By reflecting shared struggles playfully, humour strengthens social bonds and affirms a sense of community. It critiques the state while simultaneously reinforcing a fragile sense of attachment to it, illustrating the complex relationship between disillusionment and hope. 

Ultimately, humour in Politike Bishimbo not only critiques the Congolese political system but also highlights the creativity and perseverance of its citizens. It represents an enduring engagement with statehood, marked by both cynicism and a tentative optimism – a collective improvisation in the face of chronic crisis. 

Artist

Master B Shako (2023): Politike Bishimbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lygbKW8-yT8 (last accessed: 20.11.2024).

References

Berlant, Lauren (2011): Cruel Optimism, Durham: Duke University Press. doi:10.1215/9780822394716

Berlant, Lauren (2022): On the Inconvenience of Other People, Durham: Duke University Press. doi:10.1215/9781478023050

Englebert, Pierre (2003): Why Congo Persists: Sovereignty, Globalization and the Violent Reproduction of a Weak State, in: QEH Working Paper Series: Oxford. https://www.qeh.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_docs/qehwps95.pdf (last accessed: 20.11.2024).

Görkem, Şenay Yavuz (2015): The Only Thing Not Known How to be Dealt With: Political Humor as a Weapon During Gezi Park Protests, in: HUMOR 28, no.4, p. 583-609. doi:10.1515/humor-2015-0094.

Herbst, Jeffrey and Mills, Greg (2009): There Is No Congo, in: Foreign Policy, March 18, 2009. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/03/18/there-is-no-congo/ (last accessed: 20.11.2024).

Jaffe, Rivke (2015): Between Ballots and Bullets: Elections and Citizenship in and Beyond the Nation-state, in: Citizenship Studies, 19 no.2 p. 128-140. doi:10.1080/13621025.2015.1005941

Oldenburg, Silke and Kambale, Wassy (2023): From ‘Goma veut de l’eau’ to ‘Kabila doit partir’: Perspectives on Youth, Urban Protest and Armed Conflict in Goma, Eastern DR Congo, in: Kniknie, Sam and Karen Büscher, eds., Rebellious Riots: Entangled Geographies of Contention in Africa. Leiden: Brill, p. 180–208.

Scott, James (1986): Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, doi:10.1017/S0041977X00040167. 

Stearns, Jason (2024): DR Congo Elections: How Félix Tshisekedi Won Chaotic Poll, BBC, 3 January 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67833216 (last accessed: 20.11.2024).

Trefon, Theodore (2013): Uncertainty and Powerlessness in Congo 2012, in: Review of African Political Economy 40(135), p. 141-151. doi:10.1080/03056244.2013.762148.

Vigh, Henrik (2008): Crisis and Chronicity: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuous Conflict and Decline, in: Ethnos, 73 (1), p. 5-24. doi:10.1080/00141840801927509. 

Walsh, Declan (2024): The Overlooked Crisis in Congo: ‘We Live in War’, New York Times, December 17, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/world/africa/democratic-republic-of-congo-elections.html


[1] Kila mutu politicien, inchi inaanguka, mais kila mutu politicien. Njala mingi, chomage, usalama ujenzi hakuna, uongozi bora hakuna, mais kila mutu candidat.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Silke Oldenburg (November 20, 2024). Politike Bishimbo: Humour, Statehood and Social Ambivalence in the 2023 elections of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Author: Silke Oldenburg with Christian Mwemezi Ngangura). Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved January 21, 2026 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/4473


You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.