Conclusion

Ethnicity is both a principle and an ideologically lived experience which gives structure to and is structured by the political culture of domination that two competing poles of social control—the modern évolués and the 'traditional authorities'^[67] —split between them in the Congo. It should also be remembered that the reproduction of this culture's specific contents is guaranteed by the survival practices of its basic components, which for ethnicity are represented by modern nuclear families.^[68] Finally, it is the state and its practices leading to proletarianization which constitute an indispensable element of this political culture which is characterized by two civilian societies (white and native) that were made in the colonial state, and by a state without a political society. It is in this way that ethnicity as nationalism is Janus-like in character,^[69] showing a profile of resistance from one side and a profile of oppression on the other.