Making sense of Lumumba and Leopold II’s Letters to Africa

IN last week’s article, I attempted to characterise of the DRC’s recent elections in the context of the competing post-colonial ideologies in Africa.

I also went further to share insights on the African National Congress’ 107th Anniversary celebrations ahead of the impending South-African elections.

The idea was to locate the ANC’s reconstruction agenda within the matrices of ideas militating against the nationalist movements in Africa. To this end, the internal centres of command in the nationalist movement are failing to consolidate the sentimental entry points of power consolidation.

Poverty is wrestling with the day to day manoeuvres of the nationalists to liberate Africa. Ethnic and ideological tensions are further dividing us in perpetuation of the Berlin agenda. Democracy is arrested and abused across our political divides. Having used the Congo as my critical lens of analysis last week, it only makes perfect sense to draw lessons from Patrice Lumumba who lost his life to Africa’s true liberation as he challenged the proxies of neo-colonialism in Congo.

January 18 marked the 58th Anniversary of Lumumba’s execution. On that day, in 1961 he fought against the West’s uttermost commitment to dehumanising Africa. With his life, Lumumba’s soul fought the legacy of King Leopold II of Belgium.

Those acquainted with history remember Leopold II’s ugly command to Missionaries to wipe out the Africans through physical and cultural violence as early as 1831. It was in that letter where the plan to tear Congo apart was declared. King Leopold’s letter set out the terms of Congo’s dismemberment project which in any case reflected the West’s profound hate of Africa.

The command summarised the adopted culture of White genocide and African morality assassination. King Leopold II’s instruction depicts the interwoven material philosophy of colonisation as clearly embedded in religion, capital accumulation and the racial ordering of humanity –marked by a chasm of the zone of being and the zone of non-being.

Patrice Lumumba was one of the few who rose to challenge the foundation of this system, thus leading to his murder in the hands of the Belgian imperialists. Before his gruesome killing he wrote the following to his wife Pauline:

My Dear Wife,

I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them.

All through my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and I have devoted all our lives.

But what we wished for our country, its right to an honourable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and their Western allies who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organisation in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance.

They have corrupted some of our compatriots and bribed others. They have helped to distort the truth and bring our independence into dishonour. How could I speak otherwise? Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the imperialists, it is not I myself who count. It is the Congo; it is our poor people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage from beyond whose confines the outside world looks on us, sometimes with kindly sympathy but at other times with joy and pleasure.

But my faith will remain unshakeable. I know and feel in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, both internal and external, and that they will rise as one man to say no to the degradation and shame of colonialism, and regain their dignity in the dear light of the sun.

As to my children whom I leave and whom I may never see again, I should like them to be told that it is for every Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstructing our independence and our sovereignty for without justice there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.

Neither brutality, nor cruelty, nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakeable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregarding sacred principles.

History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or at the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.

Do not weep for me, my dear wife. I know that my country, which is suffering so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty.

Long Live Congo, Long Live Africa Patrice.

While Leopold II’s instruction was followed to the core and thus the success of the colonial project, one wonders if Congo and Africa heed to Patrice Lumumba’s instruction. Did Lumumba’s message find long-term relevance in shaping nationalism, pan-Africanism and all the redemptive diagnostic concepts to our self-determination?

However, Fanon thinks otherwise, in his view our epistemic deafness has only generated “the pitfalls of national consciousness.” Sincere commitment to the founding nationalist values of our countries have been bartered for parochial political leanings as well as mass subscription to neo-liberal propensities largely depicting Africa’s entrapment in organised anti-nationalist democracy and good governance mantra.

Fanon’s contribution to the decolonisation debate was largely grounded on the failure of the potential post-colonial state in eradicating the institutionalisation of the colonial power structure.

Fanon’s condescension for the national bourgeoisie ascends from his consciousness of how their primary goal of decolonisation is not essentially transforming the political system and improving the situation of the majority.

Fanon further problematises the supposedly decolonial national bourgeoisie, defined by its Eurocentric education and culture, credited with founding the political parties, which give rise to the country’s future leaders and those that negotiate the terms of decolonisation with the colonist country. However, the societal and financial well-being of the national bourgeoisie prevents them from supporting a violent insurgence (which might dismantle their self-serving status).

In fact, “once a party has achieved national unanimity and has arose as the outstanding negotiator, the colonialist begins his manoeuvring and delays negotiations as long as possible” in order to “whittle away” the party’s demands. Consequently, the party must eliminate itself of extremists who make the granting of liberation charters problematic.

Lumumba’s letter of passion to Congo and Africa mirrors the benchmarks with which today’s generation can evaluate their level of zeal in contributing Africa’s liberation and development. The postindependence political dispensation we celebrate today was hinged on multiple aspirations namely the attainment of majority rule, liberty, freedom and equality, liberation, independence, democracy, power to the people, equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities, non-racism and non-sexism, among many other tenets of the African dream. Therefore, as we look back at the life and sacrifice of revolutionaries and luminaries like Lumumba and many others can we celebrate Africa’s pace towards self-actualisation.

Fanon posits that the path to decolonisation is simply a cloaked form of the former colonialism. Prior to decolonisation, the “mother country” realises the inevitability of “freedom,” and thus drains most of the “capital and technicians and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure”. The young, supposedly independent nation, therefore, is forced to preserve the economic conduits recognised by the colonial regime.

The national bourgeoisie, in their incomplete and lifeless state, do not have the means to provide either capital or classy and refined economic leadership to the new republic, and must therefore have faith in colonial bankers’ loans and counsel, which all aim at forcing the new nation to remain hooked on its former coloniser just as it was during the colonial period.

The desire to end this dependence on the colonial powers leads the new country to attempt the impossible and rapidly develop an idealistic, organic, nationalist form of capitalism that is thoroughly diversified for the purpose of economic and political stability.

Furthermore, Fanon projects that after colonisation the national bourgeoisie occupy the posts once reserved for colonists from within their party ranks. Thus, the party becomes a “screen between the masses and the leadership”, and party die-hard revolutionaries are neglected as the “party itself becomes an administration and the militants fall back into line and adopt the hollow title of citizen”.

Therefore, it is only through a violent insurrection aimed at destroying everything touched by colonialism that a new species of new (decolonial) beings will be produced. On the other hand, Fanon prescribes the need to obliterate the religious and tribal divisions aggravated by the colonists.

The depreciation of these divisive attitudes will facilitate urgency of harmony to be realised by the masses. The individualism espoused by the colonists will succumb to the quest of the colonised for Pan-Africanism and revisiting the legacy of nationalism. Africa has a magnanimous reformation path to define herself outside the terms set out by the colonialists. Africa must secure a space for her rebirth out of poverty, corruption, nepotism, crime, war and tribalism.

What a great day will that be when we reflect on the warnings of Lumumba and Fanon as memory leaflets to construct the urgency of nationalist consciousness. Now is the time for Africa to unite against the forces of coloniality.

The nationalist movements must reaffirm their place in defending the long lasting principles of rejecting colonial supremacy. At the centre of the nationalist movement’s intuition to power capture must be the great desire make ends meets towards advancing poverty eradication, promoting social equality, peace and stability.

Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent researcher and a literature aficionado interested in the architecture of governance in Africa and political theory. EVERY Zimbabwean enjoys inherent freedoms as enshrined in the National Constitution.

Everyone has a right to life and security and the Government upholds its constitutional mandate of ensuring that all peace loving Zimbabweans are protected and their property rights guaranteed by law. Demonstrations are a constitutional right and any group of people has unhindered right to demonstrate.

Cause for concern arises when a demonstrating group of people becomes a threat to other citizens. When do other citizens forfeit their rights to demonstrators? When do demonstrators circumvent peace to kill, steal and loot private property? Are there superior and minor rights?

No one has qualms with demonstration to express displeasure over certain issues but the concern emerges when demonstrations become violent and misguided to innocent people. How does a poor vendor lose her airtime to demonstrations? How do demonstrators loot clothes at flea markets? How do demonstrators dissatisfied with fuel price increase justify looting from a privately owned Tuck-shop? What has a vendor who loses her wares to do with the fuel price increase?

Demonstrators must emerge smart. Genuine demonstrators must exonerate themselves and rid acts of thuggery, robbery and private property destruction. Organisers must expose these social miscreants of criminal disposition who mask and ride over a demonstration to execute their nefarious and criminal activities of stealing cash, food and destroying private property. As we emerge from this orgy of violence, budding business people are accounting on sad loses inflicted upon their businesses where undeterred thugs violently broke into shops where they stole virtually everything they could lay their hands upon

They even had the audacity to steal some drugs and accessories from pharmacies.

With huge consignments of drugs stolen in the wake the public is exposed to drug abuse as some of these stolen drugs will find their way to the unsuspecting public. What does a looter knows about a doctor’s stethoscope, drugs, injections or thermometer that gets looted?

The aftermaths of this barbaric act are too ghastly to contemplate.

It is the people in the locality who will suffer. The people have no pharmacies and clinics to get treatment and medical help.

The looters are gone but it is the people who have nowhere to buy soap or matches. The looters have left leaving a trail of miseries.

Did the looters achieve their intended goal of liberating the people as they claimed? Who does looting drugs, food or killing innocent lives liberate the people? How do pseudo demonstrators become the liberators of the people?

As things appear the only thing left behind by looters is a legacy of poverty, joblessness, hunger and a trail of destruction upon innocent people.

In future organizers of such demonstrators must effectively weed their midst of criminals hijacking noble actions to perpetuate their criminal dispositions.

Masukume Nelson, Inyathi Centre Bubi