Rumble in Kinshasa

Abstract : This article centers on an event that has until now attracted little serious attention from historians or political scientists, yet provides key information about the nature, form, goals and symbolism of a regime that changed the face of postcolonial Africa. The event is the so-called "Rumble in the Jungle" - the only world boxing championship ever to be held on the African continent. The Rumble took place in 1974, in Kinshasa, under the watchful eye of Mobutu Sese Seko, ruler of the country then known as Zaire. The paper is predicated on the notion that, for different constituencies at different times, the Rumble has had different meanings and that, in many instances, these meanings have had profound political implications. At the heart of the match - as it was first imagined, then planned, set in motion and brought into being; as the event itself was experienced by different actors and interest groups; as it was covered, discussed and broadcast, officially and not; as it has been and continues to be remembered and, in the process, thought and rethought - are extraordinarily complex and vexing issues. Concepts of race class and gender; the twinned legacies of colonialism and slavery; neocolonialism; postcolonialism; state-sponsored repression; mayhem born of late capitalism's stranglehold on urban economies from Detroit to Kinshasa and Guangzhou; violence visited on bodies and minds in all of these contexts; constructions of identity, ways of doing, seeing, moving, dressing, talking, writing and singing deployed to counter such violence: the Rumble speaks in direct ways to all of these concern