Beaucoup d’interventions dans nos radios de la diaspora, où plusieurs tendent à prendre tous les congolais pour des bantous, révèlent une partie de notre faiblesse culturelle et nous choquent, nous, congolais non-bantous.
L’ignorance de notre pays et de nos origines, il est vrai, est entretenue par un enseignement au relent colonial et explique cet état de chose démobilisateur, mais ne justifie pas la négation de l’appartenance culturelle d’un congolais par un autre congolais. Cette ignorance de la multiculturalité du Congo peut choquer certains esprits immatures lorsqu’elles s’attendent prendre pour ce qu’ils ne sont pas.
Il m’a paru utile de participer à la correction de cette négation, souvent non malveillante, mais pas toujours, du congolais non-bantou ; en faisant connaître les sources de la gente de mes pères, les alurs, une tribu répartie entre la RDC, l’Uganda et le Soudan, mais dont les attaches vont au-delà de cette région.
Nous remarquerons que ceux qui pensent que tout le Congo ne sont pas tous bantous. Ce qui prouve en suffisance leur ignorance de leur propre source culturelle. C’est donc aussi l’occasion de les aider à prendre conscience du ridicule de leurs allégations prenant parfois de allure tapageuses.
Qui sont les alurs, ces nilotes ou nilotiques que l’on trouve dans le territoire de Mahagi, dans le district de l’Ituri, dansla province Orientale ?
Surtout, que ceci ne nous divise pas, mais nous permette au contraire de prendre nos places véritables et de bâtir une république forte, où chacun connaît et respecte l’autre, dans sa culture ou encore tout simplement dans son appartenance linguistique.
Nous avons, pour la facilité, copié-collé ici, des extraits d’articles de Wikipédia, pour ceux d’entre nous qui souhaite connaître non seulement les alurs, mais aussi le group linguistique luo auquel ceux-ci appartiennent.
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Alur are an ethnic group who live mainly in the Nebbi, Zombo, and Arua districts in northwestern Uganda, but also in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, north of Lake Albert. They are part of the larger Luo group, and their language is closely related to Acholi. Some Alur speak Lendu.
The Alur Chiefdom is probably the only one that was unaffected by the Ugandan ban on traditional monarchies in 1966.
Luo peoples
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The Luo (also spelled Lwo) are an ethnic linguistic group located in an area that stretches from South Sudan and Ethiopia through northern Uganda and eastern Congo (DRC), into western Kenya, and ending in the upper tip of Tanzania. These people speak an Eastern Sudanic (Nilotic) language, a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. According to various classification schemes, they are sometimes referred to as River-Lake Nilotes or Western Nilotes, which also includes the Dinka–Nuer language group. People who speak Luo languages include the Shilluk, Anuak, Acholi, Jo-Luo, Lango, Palwo, Alur, Padhola, Joluo (Kenyan and Tanzanian Luo), Bor, and Kumam.
Contents
- 1 Origins in South Sudan
- 2 Ethiopia
- 3 Uganda
- 4 Kenya and Tanzania
- 5 Luo sub-groups
- 6 Internationally notable Luo people
- 7 References
Origins in South Sudan
According to ethnologists, linguists and their oral history, the Luo are part of the Nilotic group of tribes who separated from the East Sudanic family of tribes about 3000 BCE.[citation needed] Bethwell Ogot places the area of origin of the Luo in South Sudan.[1]
More than eight centuries ago, the Luo peoples occupied the area that now lies in eastern Bahr el Ghazal in present day South Sudan. The reason for their dispersion from this area is not known for certain, though it is widely believed to have been the Arab Conquest. Internal contradictions or population explosion could have driven them from this region. The Luo moved to nearly all the countries neighbouring Sudan, resulting in many separate groups with variation in language and tradition as each group moved further away from their kin.
A branch of the Luo, the Shilluk (or Chollo) nation, comprising more than one hundred clans and sub-tribes, was founded by a chief named Nyikango sometime in the middle of the 15th century. They evolved a nation with a feudal-style system. Nyikango and his nation moved northward along the Nile (towards Kush. The rest of the Luo groups rejected Nyikango’s idea and kept a south and westwards migration.
Ethiopia
The Anuak are a Luo people whose villages are scattered along the banks and rivers of southwestern area ofEthiopia, with others living directly across the border in southernSudan. The name of this people is also spelled Anyuak, Agnwak, and Anywaa.
The Anuak who live in the lowlands of Gambela are also distinguished by the color of their skin and considered to be black Africans as opposed to most other Ethiopians living in the highlands who are of lighter color.
There has been overt racial discrimination and marginalization by this government and by other ethnicities based on skin color. It has affected the Anuak’s access to education, health care and other basic services as well as limiting opportunities for development of the area.
The Anuak of Sudan live in a grassy region that is flat and virtually treeless. During the rainy season, this area floods, so that much of it becomes swampland with various channels of deep water running through it.
Uganda
Around 1500, asmall group of Luo known as the Biito-Luo led by a Chief called Labongo whose full title became Isingoma Labongo Rukidi (sometimes named as Mpuga Rukidi), encountered Bantu-speaking peoples living in the area of Bunyoro. These Luo settled with the Bantu and established the Babiito dynasty, replacing the Bachwezi dynasty of the Empire of Kitara. Labongo, the first in the line of the Babiito kings of Bunyoro-Kitara, was according to Bunyoro legend the twin brother of Kato Kimera, the first king of Buganda. These Luo were assimilated by the Bantu, and they lost their language and culture.
Later in the 16th century, other Luo-speaking people moved to the area that encompasses present day Southern Sudan, Northern Uganda and North-Eastern Congo (DRC) – forming the Alur, Jonam and Acholi. Conflicts developed when they encountered the Lango who had been living in the area north of Lake Kyoga. Lango also speak a Luo language. According to Driberg (1923), Lango reached easternprovince ofUganda (Otuke Hills) having traveled southeasterly from the Shilluk area, and that Lango language is similar with that of the Shilluk language. Lango people identify with the Luo peoples, refuting the Ateker connection.
Between the middle of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century, some Luo groups proceeded eastwards. One group called Padhola (or Jopadhola – people of Adhola), led by a chief called Adhola, settled in Budama inEastern Uganda. They settled in a thickly forested area as a defence against attacks from Bantu neighbours who had already settled there. This self-imposed isolation helped them maintain their language and culture amidst Bantu and Ateker communities.
Kenya and Tanzania
Main article: Luo people (Kenya and Tanzania)
Between about 1500 and 1800, other Luo groups crossed into present-day Kenya and eventually into present-day Tanzania. They inhabited the area on the banks of Lake Victoria. According to the Joluo, a warrior chief named Ramogi Ajwang led them into present-dayKenya about 500 years ago.
As in Uganda, some non-Luo people in Kenyahave adopted Luo languages. A majority of the Bantu Suba people in Kenya speak Dholuo (albeit mostly as a second language).
The Luo in Kenya, who call themselves Joluo (aka Jaluo, « people of Luo »), are the fourth largest community in Kenya after the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Luhya. In 1994 their population was estimated to be 3,185,000 [1]. In Tanzania they numbered (in 2001) an estimated 280,000 [2]. The Luo in Kenya and Tanzania call their language Dholuo, which is mutually intelligible with the languages of the Lango, Kumam and Padhola of Uganda, Acholi of Uganda andSudan and Alur of Uganda andCongo.
Luo sub-groups
This includes peoples who share Luo ancestry and/or speak a Luo language.
- Shilluk (South Sudan)
- Pari (Sudan andSouth Sudan)
- Thuri (South Sudan)
- Alur (Uganda and DRC)
- Acholi (South Sudan andUganda)
- Lango (Uganda)
- Kumam (Uganda)
- Jopadhola (Uganda)
- JoLuo (Kenya andTanzania)
- Jo-Luo (Sudan)
- Anuak (Ethiopia,Sudan)
- Mabaan (South Sudan)
- Funj (Sudan)
- Jumjum (Sudan)
- Blanda Boore (Sudan)
- Jonam (Uganda)
- Chope (Uganda)
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Internationally notable Luo people
- Barack Obama, Sr., Economist, Harvard University Graduate, father of U.S. President (Kenyan)
- Raila Amolo Odinga – Prime Minister ofKenya, Leader of theOrange Democratic Movement Party (Kenyan).
- Milton Obote, Former Ugandan Prime Minister and President ofUganda (Ugandan)
- Tito Okello, Former President ofUganda and Army Commander-Deceased (Ugandan)
- Bazilio Olara-Okello, Former president of Uganda-Deceased (Ugandan)
- Janani Luwum, Former Archbishop of theChurch ofUganda (Ugandan)
- Tom Mboya – Politician, Pan-Africanist, assassinated in 1969 (Kenyan)
- George Ramogi – Musician (Kenyan)
- Joseph Kony, Leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Notorious rebel group inUganda(Ugandan)
- Okello Oculi, Novelist, Poet, and Chronicler (Ugandan)
- Jaramogi Oginga Odinga -Independence Fighter, First Vice President of IndependentKenya (Kenyan)
- Ramogi Achieng’ Oneko, Freedom fighter Veteran (Kenyan)
- Olara Otunnu, Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (Ugandan)
- Robert Ouko – Kenyan Foreign Minister, murdered in 1990 (Kenyan)
- Okot p’Bitek, poet and author of the Song of Lawino (Ugandan)
- Ayub Ogada, Singer, Composer and Performer on the nyatiti, the Nilotic lyre ofKenya (Kenyan)
- Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of thechurch ofUganda (Uganda)
- Johnny Oduya, a defenseman for the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL
- Thomas Risley Odhiambo, entomologist and environmental activist(Kenya)
- Ramogi Achieng Oneko,Independence Freedom Fighter and Politician (Kenya)
- Betty Bigombe, Former Ugandan Politician, a senior fellow at the U.S Institute of Peace (Uganda)
- Matthew Lukwiya, Epidiomologist, Died while fighting to eradicate the ebola pandemic in northernUganda (Uganda)
- Adongo Agada Cham, He is the 23rd King of the Anuak Nyiudola Royal Dynasty ofSudan &Ethiopia (Sudan/Ethiopia)
- Amos Otieno Odenyo – Chairman of Social Sciences, York College (City University of New York), World Education – Board of Trustees (Boston), and co-author of “Staring at the Nyanza Sun: A Kenyan-American Memoir.”
- William Ouko, Kenyan High Court Jugde. Swore in President Mwai Kibaki in 2003. (Kenya)
- Francis Amos Raballa Oke Kagwa nyakwar Ogalo – Civil Engineering Expert – Development Bank of Southern Africa
References
- ^ « History of theSouthern Luo: Volume 1 Migration and Settlement »
This article’s citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009)
- Re-introducing the « People Without History »
- Towards a Human Rights Approach to Citizenship and Nationallity Struggles in Africa
- The making of the Shilluk kingdom, A socio-political synopsis
- About Kenya
- The Luo
- Ogot, Bethwell A., History of the Southern Luo: Volume I, Migration and Settlement, 1500-1900, (Series: Peoples of East Africa), East African Publishing House,Nairobi, 1967
- Johnson D., History and Prophecy among the Nuer of Southern Sudan, PhD Thesis, UCLA, 1980
- Deng F.M. African of Two Worlds; the Dinka in Afro-Arab Sudan, Khartoum, 1978
- History of the Anuak to 1956, by Professor Emeritus – Robert O. Collins.
- The pride of a people: Barack Obama, the ‘LUO’, by Philip Ochieng, Nation Media Group, January, 2009.
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