----- Original Message -----
From: African Viewpoint
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 10:16 AM
Subject: [Network Africa Sweden] fwd: Profile:Patrice Lumumba
The Passing of Patrice Lumumba
>
>By John Henrik Clarke (1961)
>
>(John Henrik Clarke was United Nations Correspondent
>on African Affairs, World Mutual Exchange, and
>International News Features.)
>
>The life of Patrice Lumumba proved that he was a
>product of the best and worst of Belgian colonial
>rule. In more favorable circumstances, he might have
>become one of the most astute national leaders of the
>twentieth century. He was cut down long before he had
>time to develop into the more stable leader that he
>was obviously capable of being. When the Congo emerged
>clearly in the light of modern history he was its
>bright star.
>
>His hero was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, and the model for his
>state was Ghana. "In a young state," he had said,
>paraphrasing a similar statement made by Dr. Nkrumah,
>"you must have strong and visible powers."
>
>
>At the beginning of his political career he was
>pro-Western in his outlook. "Mistakes have been made
>in Africa in the past, but we are ready to work with
>the powers which have been in Africa to create a
>powerful new bloc," he said at the beginning of 1960.
>"If this effort fails, it will be through the fault of
>the West."
>
>As a reformer he was somewhat of a republican in his
>approach. "Our need is to democratize all our
>institutions," he had said on another occasion. "We
>must separate the Church from the State. We must take
>away all power from the traditional chiefs and remove
>all privileges. We must adapt socialism to African
>realities. Amelioration of the conditions of life is
>the only true meaning independence can have."
>
> His resentment of Belgian authority was unyielding in
>most cases. Mostly because he believed that
>paternalism was at the base of this authority. This
>by-product of colonialism never failed to stir a rage
>within him. On the other hand, his reaction to the
>Belgian Missionary attempt to enforce Christianity on
>the Congo was one of indifference. He had been
>subjected to both Catholic and Protestant mission
>influence, without showing any particular affection
>for either. His parents were devout Catholics. Being
>neither an atheist nor anti-Christian, he yet
>considered submission to a religion to be a curb to
>his ambitions. Rebellion was more rewarding and less
>wounding to his pride. During his long and lonely rise
>from obscurity to the Congo's first Prime Minister, he
>taught himself never to completely trust power in the
>hands of others. This attitude is reflected in the
>suspicion that developed between him and the UN Forces
>in the Congo.
>
>His conflicts with the other Congo politicians was due
>mainly to his unyielding belief in the unitary state,
>and partly to his lack of experience in explaining,
>organizing and administering such a state.
>Nevertheless, he was the only Congolese leader with
>anything like a national following; a point too often
>overlooked. His greatest achievement in the early
>difficult months of Congo independence was in
>maintaining, with only a few defections, the
>solidarity of his widely disparate coalition
>government.
>
>Lumumba belonged to the company of Kwame Nkruman,
>Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika, Tom Mboya in Kenya, and
>Sékou Touré. These leaders believe that the only way
>to build an effective modern state free from t he
>shackles of narrow tribal loyalties is to create a
>single, strong central government. This firm stand
>joined the issues in the Congo and created both the
>supporters and the opposition to Lumumba.
>
>He argued his case at the Round Table Conference that
>gave the Congo its independence in 1960. He laid it
>before the electorate in June 1960, and won an
>indecisive victory. Finally he tried to force it on
>his Federalist opponents when he took control of the
>first independent government. Most of Lumumba's
>critics considered this to be his greatest error. He
>tried to cast the Congo into the tight mould of Ghana,
>rather than into the larger, more accommodating mould
>of Nigeria. The argument is interesting though useless
>now.
>
>Patrice Lumumba's body now lies a-mouldering in some
>unmarked and inglorious Congo grave.both his truth and
>spirit go marching on, much to the discomfort of his
>murderers.
>
>No other personality in African history has leaped so
>suddenly from death to martyrdom. In death he might
>have already made a greater contribution to the
>liberation and understanding of Africa than he could
>have make had he lived. In his short lifetime the
>stamp of his personality was pressed firmly into the
>African continent. He was purely an African of the
>mid-twentieth century. No other place and no other set
>of circumstances could have charged his life and
>caused his death in the same unique and tragic way. In
>death, he cast forth a spirit that will roam the
>African land for many years to come.
>
>For a long time the Congo appeared to be a peaceful
>island untouched by African anticolonialism. In the
>twelve brief years between 1946 and 1958, the Belgians
>began to lose what had appeared to be an impregnable
>position. Some important events occurred in Africa and
>the rest of the world, and broke up the trinity in
>Belgium's alleged "perfect colony." A change of
>political direction in Brussels and mounting
>nationalist pressure coming from within Africa helped
>to end the illusion that all was well and would stay
>well in the Congo. At last the Belgians began to have
>some second thoughts about their policy in the Congo.
>The missionary-trained evolved, the supposedly
>emancipated, Westernized middle class had found their
>voices.
>
>Certain fundamental problems formed the core of the
>colonial dilemma in Africa; although Belgian colonists
>chose to ignore this fact. The same problems existed
>in the Congo as elsewhere in Africa. Freedom,
>self-determination, hatred of racial discrimination,
>and white settlement without assimilation made the
>Congo people feel unwanted in their own country,
>except as servants for white people.
>
>It was within this order of ideas that the Belgian
>Socialist Party attempted to change the trend of
>Belgium's colonial policy and devise a more humane
>approach to the problems of the Congo people. The
>accelerated economic development in the Congo during
>the war and after the war had changed the structure of
>the Congolese community. The black population of
>Leopoldville rose from 46,900 to 191,000 between 1940
>and 1950. By 1955, the black population of
>Leopoldville had reached some 300,000. The mass exodus
>of Congolese from rural areas and their concentration
>in urban centers created new problems. The
>detribalized workers did not return to their
>respective villages when the city no longer afforded
>them employment.
>
>It was incumbent upon the Belgium Socialist Party to
>define its position in relation to the Congo. As far
>as basic premises were concerned, the party did
>recognize "the primacy of native interests; and the
>aim of its activity will be to prepare the indigenous
>population gradually to take charge of its own
>political, economic, and social affairs, within the
>framework of a democratic society." Further, the Party
>expressed its "uncompromising opposition to any kind
>of racial discrimination" and advised a raise in the
>standard of living of the people of the Congo. Only
>those whites who are prepared to work for the
>realization of these aims and who constitute the
>administrative personnel of the indigenous population
>are to enjoy the support of the government. This
>preparation for self-government presupposes the
>political organization of the Congo, i.e., the
>initiation of the native into citizenship. With this
>proposal the Belgian Socialist Party admitted that the
>Congolese were not accepted as citizens in their own
>country. This fact had been the cause of a broadening
>dissatisfaction among the Congolese since the early
>part of the twentieth century. With the relaxing of
>political restrictions this dissatisfaction began to
>manifest itself in a form of embryo nationalism. The
>future Congolese leaders had already begun to gather
>their first followers. All of the early political
>parties in the Congo were the outgrowth of regional
>and tribal associations. Patrice Lumumba was the only
>Congolese leader who, from the very beginning of his
>career, attempted to build a Congo-wide political
>organization.
>
>During his short-lived career Patrice Lumumba was the
>first popularly elected Congolese Government Prime
>Minister. Like a few men before him, he became a
>near-legend in his own lifetime. The influence of this
>legend extended to the young militant nationalists far
>beyond the borders of the Congo, and it is still
>spreading.
>
>Of all the leaders who suffered imprisonment at the
>hands of the Belgians before 1960, Lumumba had the
>largest number of followers among the Congolese
>masses, mainly because he had more of the qualities of
>character with which they liked to identify. As a
>speaker he was equally effective in French, Ki-Swahili
>or Lingola. The devotion of the rank and file of his
>party. Movement National Congolais (MNC) to Patrice
>Lumumba was not a unique phenomenon. What is more
>significant is the fact that he was able to attract
>the strongly expressed loyalties of a
>tribally-heterogeneous body of the Congolese. This
>made him the only national political leader. While
>other politicians tended to take advantage of their
>respective associations as the path to power, Lumumba
>took the broader and more nationalistic approach and
>involved himself in other movements only indirectly
>related to politics.
>
>In 1951, he joined the Association des Evolves de
>Stanleyville, one of the most active and numerically
>important of all the clubs in Orientale Province. He
>was in the same year appointed Secretary-General of
>the Association des Postiers de la Province
>Orientale-a professional organization consisting
>mostly of postal workers. Two years later he became
>Vice-Chairman of an Alumni Association consisting of
>former mission students. In 1956 he founded the Amicle
>Liberale de Stanleyville.
>
>Patrice Lumumbe is a member of the Beteteta tribe, a
>Mongo subgroup. He was born on July 2, 1925, in
>Katako-Kombe in the Sunkuru district of the Kasai
>Province. In growing up he only received a primary
>education. Very early in life he learned to push
>himself beyond the formal limits of his education. He
>made frequent contributions to local newspapers such
>as Stanleyvillois and the more widely read
>publications, Vois du Conlais and Croix du Congo.
>Unlike the vast majority of Congolese writers of the
>period who placed major emphasis on the cultural
>heritage of their own tribes, Lumumba's early writings
>emphasized-within the limits of Belgian official
>restrictions-problems of racial, social, and economic
>discrimination.
>
>On July 1, 1956, the career of Patrice Lumumba was
>temporarily interrupted when he was arrested on the
>charge of embezzling 126,000 franc ($2,200) from the
>post office funds. He was sentenced to serve a
>two-year prison term. On June13, 1957, the sentence
>was commuted on appeal to eighteen months, and finally
>to 12 months after the Wolves of Stanleyville
>reimbursed the sum in question. Subsequently, Lumumba
>left Stanleyville and found employment in Leopoldville
>as the sale director of the Bracongo (polar beer)
>Brewery.
>
>Leopoldville became a good vantage point for Lumumba's
>Congo-wide activities. He had now entered into the
>crucial phase of his political career. In 1958, while
>combining the functions of vice-chairman of a liberal
>friendship society, the Circle Liberal d'Etudes et
>d'Agreement, with those of the president of the
>Association dis Batelela, of Leopoldville, he joined a
>Christian Democratic Study Group, the Centre d'Etudes
>et de Recherches Sociales, created in 1955 by the
>Secretary General of the Jeunesses Ouvieres
>Christiennes, Jacques Meert. Among the more prominent
>members of this organization were Joseph Ileo (now
>[early sixties] Prime Minister in the Kasavubu
>government) and Joseph Ngalula.
>
>Joseph Ileo was editor-in-chief of the bi-monthly
>Conscience Africaine. He had already acquired a wide
>reputation among Congolese when he decided, in July of
>1956, to publish a nationalist inspired manifesto
>which contained a daring 30-year plan of emancipation
>for the Congo.
>
>Both Ileo and Ngalyla were Anxious to broaden the
>basis of the Movement National Congolais, a moderate
>nationalist organization created in 1956. Patrice
>Lumumba, then regarded as one of the eminent spokesmen
>of liberal ideas, joined the MNC.
>
>Once affiliated with this and other groups, Lumumba
>readily asserted himself and became the dominant
>figure. Shortly after proclaiming himself chairman of
>MNC's Central Committee, he formally announced on
>October 10, 1058, the foundation of a "national
>movement" dedicated to the goal of "national
>liberation." His action at this moment was prompted by
>two important developments affecting the Congo. One
>was the forthcoming visit of a parliamentary committee
>appointed by the former Minister of the Congo, Mr.
>Patillon, for the purpose of "conducting an inquiry
>concerning the administrative and political evolution
>of the country." Another was the creation of a
>Movement Pour le Progres National Congolais in late
>November, 1958, by the Congolese delegates to the
>Brussels Exposition. Lumumba moved in and around these
>groups and quickly projected himself into the role of
>a dynamic and radical nationalist leader.
>
>A high point in his political development came in
>1958, when he was permitted to attend the Pan African
>Conference in Accra, Ghana. Here he became a member of
>the Permanent Directing Committee. Patrice Lumumba had
>now projected himself upon a political stage of
>international importance. In addition to whatever
>personal counsel he might have received from Ghana's
>Prime Minister, Nkrumah, there is little doubt that
>the Accra Conference was an important factor in
>shaping Lumumba's long-range objectives and further
>sensitizing him to the philosophy of Pan-Africanism.
>
>When he returned home, the emancipation of the Congo
>from Belgium's tutelage assumed first priority among
>his activities. In March, 1959, when Belgium had
>already announced its intention to lead the Congo
>"without fatal procrastination and without undue
>haste" toward self-government, Lumumba went to
>Brussels where he delivered several lectures under the
>auspices of Présence Congolese, a Belgian organization
>dedicated to the promotion of African culture. On this
>occasion, Lumumba indiscreetly turned on his host and
>sponsors and deplored the "bastardization and
>destruction of Negro-African art," and "the
>depersonalization of Africa." He reaffirmed his
>Party's determination to put an end to the
>"camouflaged slavery of Belgian colonization" and
>elect an independent government in 1961. With this act
>of boldness, Patrice Lumumba had set the stage for
>most of his future troubles and probably his future
>death.
>
>After the target-date for independence had been
>approved by the Movement National Congolais, new
>troubles began for Lumumba and his supporters. Now
>that the contestants for power were close to their
>goal the competition between them became fiercer.
>Delegates to the Luluabourg Congress, in April 1959,
>ran against the demands of other nationalist groups
>anxious to put themselves forward as the
>standard-bearers of independence. Several of Lumumba's
>earlier supporters withdrew from the MNC and formed
>their own parties. With the date for Congo
>independence practically rushing upon him, Lumumba set
>out to rebuild the Movement National Congolais. He
>involved himself in every phase of his party's
>activists, organizing local sections of the MNC and
>recruiting new supporters.
>
>On November 1, 1959, a few days after his wing of the
>MNC held its congress in Stanleyville, Lumumba was
>arrested for the second time and charged with having
>made seditious statements. He was sentenced to six
>months in jail. After serving nearly three months of
>his sentence he was released when a delegation of
>officials from the MNC notified the Belgian government
>that they would not participate in the Brussels
>Roundtable Conference unless Lumumba was set free.
>Soon after his release, Lumumba's party was victorious
>in the December elections. As expected, Stanleyville
>proved to be the main Lumumba stronghold in the Congo.
>In Stanleyville his party won ninety per cent of the
>votes.
>
>
>
> Lumumba's status and influence continued to rise. As
>a representative of Orientale Province, he was
>appointed to the General Executive College, an interim
>executive body established after the Brussels
>Roundtable Conference. Trouble continued to brew
>within the ranks of his party. Victor Nendaka,
>vice-chairman of the MNC, broke with Lumumba for what
>he termed the "extreme left wing tendencies" of the
>party leader. In 1960, he organized his own party.
>Once more Lumumba reshuffled the party personnel and
>strengthened his position. The MNC emerged from the
>next electoral struggle as the strongest in the House
>of Representatives, with 34 out of 137 seats. In the
>Provincial Assembly of Orientale, Lumumba's party held
>58 out of 70 seats. In the assemblies of Kivu and
>Kasai Provinces, 17 out of 25 seats were secured.
>
>Lumumba employed several techniques to mobilize his
>support and activate the rural masses. First there was
>the careful selection of party officials and
>propagandists at the Lodja Congress, held March 9-12,
>1960. These delegates of the Bakutshu and Batetela
>tribes agreed that they would entrust the defense of
>their interests to the political party which held a
>dominant position in the region. Namely, that was
>Lumumba's party, the MNC. The party's success among
>the Bakutshu and Batetela tribal associations was
>mainly due to Lumumba's tribal origin and the
>anti-Belgian orientation acquired by these tribes in
>resisting the penetration of Western rule.
>
>Lumumba and the MNC improved their techniques of
>building up functional organizations, in order to
>unify the political actions of the MNC. These
>organizational networks embraced a variety of interest
>groups and cut across tribal lines. Through a tactical
>alliance with minor parties, Lumumba tried to
>transform the MNC into an integrating structure where
>both sectional and national interests would be
>represented. This program received its formal sanction
>at the extraordinary congress of the MNC, held in
>Luluabourg, April 3-4, 1960. This was a major landmark
>in the history of Lumumba's party. Once more he had
>proven to be the most able of all Congolese leaders.
>
>As the Congo crossed the threshold of independence,
>new troubles developed within the ranks of the MNC.
>Communication between Lumumba and some of the leaders
>of the party broke down. The Congo's most vital
>instrument of stability, the Force Publique,
>collapsed. The number and complexities of the issues
>now confronting Lumumba absorbed most of the time he
>formerly devoted to party activities. Now that the
>pomp and ceremony of the Belgian's handing over power
>to elected Congolese leaders was over, one struggle
>for Lumumba was over, but a new and bitter one was
>beginning.
>
>His devotion to the idea of a united Congo was now
>more firm. He was one of the few Congolese politicians
>who had any conception of the Congo as a strong
>centralized state. Tshombe thought first of carving
>himself out a state in Katanga where he could be the
>boss, with Belgian help. Kasavubu cherished the dream
>of restoring the ancient empire of Bakongo. Other
>Congolese politicians were still involved in their
>tribal ideals and hostilities.
>
>Lumumba was neither kind nor cautious toward the
>Belgians during the independence ceremony. This might
>have been one of his greatest mistakes. He announced
>too many of his future plans; which included not only
>the uniting of the Congo by giving assistance to the
>nations around him (especially Angola) who were still
>under European rule. Whoever made the decision to kill
>Lumumba probably made it this very day. He had crossed
>the path of the unseen power manipulators who wanted
>to control the Congo economically even if they were
>willing to let Lumumba control it politically. Instead
>of saying, "Thanks very much for our independence. We
>appreciate [what] all you Belgians have done for our
>country," Lumumba said in effect, "It's about time,
>too! And it's a pity that in a half-century you didn't
>see fit to build more hospitals and schools. You could
>have made much better use of your time."
>
>Lastly, when the Force Publique revolted in the first
>days of July, Lumumba tried earnestly to be equal to
>this and other emergencies exploding around him. He
>faced the risks of his high position with real
>courage. Frantically, he moved over his large country
>trying to restore order. Several times he escaped
>death by inches. Once he was saved by a Ghanaian
>officer. Once his car was stoned by a mob. This did
>not keep him from trying to restore order to his
>troubled country. In the middle of July when the
>structure of order in his country was deteriorating
>into chaos, Lumumba flew off for a grandiose tour of
>the United States, Canada, North, and West Africa.
>This was another one of his unfortunate mistakes. In
>his absence confusion became worse.
>
>In his dealings with the United Nations he never knew
>exactly what he wanted; showing no steady policy
>toward the UN, he confused both his friends and
>enemies who grew impatient with his erratic behavior.
>When the disintegration within his country reached
>dangerous proportions he asked for military from the
>United Nations. Within about three days the UN troops
>were on the spot. When Lumumba found that the UN
>troops could not be used as a private army to put down
>his political opponents he became disenchanted with
>their presence in his country.
>
>By now Lumumba had quarreled with nearly every leading
>politician in the Congo. His continued erratic action
>shook the confidence of the outside world and of many
>of the African leaders who had wished him well and
>hoped that he could restore order rapidly. A power
>struggle had erupted in the Congo. Concurrent with
>this struggle Belgians were working behind the scenes
>to reconquer the Congo economically; their Congolese
>puppets, bought and paid for in advance, were deeply
>engrossed in their self-seeking venture.
>
>In the last weeks of his life, when he was being
>dragged around with a rope around his neck, while his
>captors yanked up his head for the benefit of newsreel
>cameras, he still carried himself with great dignity
>as well as courage. When he was beaten up on the plane
>which carried him to be handed over to his arch enemy,
>Tshombe, he did not cry out nor plead for mercy. When
>Tshombe's troops beat him again, in the Elizabethville
>airport, he asked no one for help or pity. He was
>carried off by Tshombe's troops and their Belgian
>officers on a journey from which he was certain never
>to return alive. Lumumba's conduct in the midst of
>these scenes will always stand to his credit in
>history. These traits of independence and courage in
>his personality went into the making of his
>martyrdom-a strange and dangerous martyrdom that makes
>Lumumba a more effective Africa nationalist in death
>than he was in life.
>
>Some of the people who are now most vocal in their
>praise of the dead Lumumba include many who in the
>past criticized some of his actions and speeches most
>savagely while he was still alive. Patrice Lumumba was
>pulled from power mostly by his own people, who were
>being manipulated by forces of change and power alien
>to their understanding.
>
>In the killing of Lumumba, white neo-colonialists and
>their black African puppets frustrated the southward
>spread of independence movements. Lumumba had pledged
>to give assistance to the African nations to the east
>and the south of the Congo who are still struggling to
>attain independence, particularly Angola. Lumumba was
>a true son of Africa, and in his short unhappy
>lifetime he was accepted as belonging to all of
>Africa, not just the Congo.
>
>The important point in the Lumumba story, briefly
>related, is this: He proved that legitimacy of a
>postcolonial regime in Africa, relates mainly to its
>legal mandate; but even more, legitimacy relates to
>the regime's credentials as a representative of a
>genuine nationalism fighting against the intrigues of
>new-colonialism. This is why Lumumba was and is still
>being extolled this "best son of Africa," this
>"Lincoln of the Congo," this "Black Messiah," whose
>struggle was made noble by his unswerving demand for
>centralism against all forms of Balkanization and
>rendered heroic by his unyielding resistance to the
>forces of neo-colonialism which finally killed his
>body, but not his spirit. This man who now emerges as
>a strange combination of statesman, sage, and martyr,
>wrote his name on the scroll of African history during
>his short and unhappy lifetime.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help STOP SPAM: Try the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[log in to unmask]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|