It is linguistic due to his analysis of handwriting in History of Zaire
Tshibumba shows how the forms of genre can work to offer space for Tshibumba to define himself as a historian by being a produce of ordered and organized knowledge. His writing style was generically regimented, reflecting Tshibumba's pictorial style of historical representation. It is not so much fact as voice (interpretation). This goes as well for Tshibumba's paintings (Blommaert, 2004, 6).
Given the criteria laid down by Blommaert and Moten, we can now further analyze painting number 34 where Tshibumba is giving voice to the suffering man. Whether or not a single living person that can be given a name is represented here, it is an archetype of a whole people's sufferings over the whole modern history of the Congo. Rather, what is historically true is the suffering of the Congolese people, a truth that is conveniently ignored in the Western media, much of which is dominated by former colonialists. This then takes us to the reason for Tshibumba's style. Most written history is written by the victor. Tshibumba diverges from the official...
Therefore, it stands as true record of the totality of the historical suffering of the Congolese people as a whole in both the colonial and postcolonial periods. The advantage of visual over textual language is that it is harder to disregard the visual than the written language.
Conclusion
Truly, Tshibumba expresses visually what would otherwise be censored or forgotten. Popular art represents the history of the oppressed, written of and for the oppressed by someone who endured this suffering together with the common people. While his writings may not be as well-known, his paintings certainly can not be forgotten easily and stand as silent witness to the sufferings of the Congo throughout time.
Works Cited
Blommaert, J. (2004). Grassroots historiography and the problem of voice: Tshibumba's histoire du zaire. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1), 6-23.
Moten, F. (2003). Not in between: lyric painting, visual history, the postcolonial future. The…
