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Books on and by Patrice
Lumumba
Lumumba (Panaf, 1973) /
The Assassination of Lumumba (De Witte, 2001) /
Lumumba Speaks: Speeches and Writings, 1958-1961
Congo, My Country (1966) /
The Martyrdom of Patrice Lumumba (1971) /
Lumumba: A Biography
(McKown, 1969)
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Lumumba A Biography
By Robin McKown This is the story of an extraordinary man--a
driving, dynamo of a man who needed only a few hours a night of
sleep, who made friends easily and remained fiercely loyal to
them, a man who was able to hold large crowds captive with his
oratory, a man who evoked both worship and loathing. It is the
story of an illiterate peasant's son, largely self-educated, who
became a powerful force in the Congo's struggle for independence
from Belgium, who was chosen his country's first Prime Minister,
and whose eloquence and courage made him a figure of world
renown.
It is the story of
a man who was martyred by the many forces at war in his new
nation, a man who at the age of 35 was brutally murdered by
political rivals but whose name has become a symbol of liberty
throughout Africa. A man who dreamed that someday the Congo
would be ruled "not by the peace of guns and bayonets but
by a peace of the heart and of the will."
--Publisher, Doubleday & Company,
Inc.
Introduction
Patrice Lumumba's place in African history is
in several ways unique. Few leaders rose to international
prominence so rapidly and so dramatically. The passions he
aroused--among both his supporters and his detractors--were
probably unrivaled by any other leader. To some he was the ideal
of a nationalist hero; to others he was a cruel, unprincipled
opportunist. The crisis through which the Democratic Republic of
the Congo passed when he was its Prime Minister not only changed
the course of its history, but also that of all Africa and even
the whole world.
Lumumba first achieved prominence by leading
the largest Congolese nationalist political party and then, in
June 1960, becoming the country's first Prime Minister. Unlike
many other African leaders who took up the reigns of government
after their countries achieved independence, Lumumba had not
been able to forge a single and united nationalist movement.
There were over fifteen significant political
parties in the Congo, and their leaders were naturally in
competition with one another. Thus, in order to obtain a vote of
confidence from the newly elected parliament Lumumba had to make
many compromises and to take leaders of many other parties into
his cabinet. All this meant, that, although he was the
outstanding leader, he did not have, nor could he expect to
have, complete authority or tight control over political affairs
during the difficult early days of independence.
But the problems Lumumba faced in parliament
and in the cabinet were small when compared with the mutiny
which broke out among the soldiers of the Congolese army only a
few days after independence was proclaimed. In quick succession,
this was followed by a complete breakdown of public security,
the rapid departure of most of the white residents of the Congo,
the return of the Belgian troops, serious attempts of secession
by some of the most wealthy regions of the country, massive
interference in the Congo's internal affairs by foreign powers,
and finally the arrival of the United Nations "police
force."
In the countryside the mutinous troops
molested the civilian population (both black and white), looted
and destroyed property, and threatened to reduce the country to
a state of total chaos. In many places civil administration
broke down, and in some, rival ethnic or political factions
fought each other, resulting in considerable casualties.
Looking back, it seems absurd that anyone
expected Lumumba and the other leaders of the Congo Government
to find a way which would rapidly put the whole situation right.
he was caught between forces he could not control. At first he
tried to order the soldiers to return to discipline. When this
not did not work but caused many of them to look upon him as an
opponent, he tried to appease them by giving promotions and
sending white officers home.
When the Belgian troops returned, he tried to
rally nationalistic discipline, but at the same time he entered
into negotiations with Belgian representatives for a temporary
presence of Belgian troops so that order could be restored. The
Congo Government also invited the United Nations to send troops
to the Congo so that order could be reestablished and so that
the national unity could be preserved.
But in the summer of 1960 the UN did little
to counteract the secession of Katanga and other regions. When
his appeals to the West and to the UN for effective help
to end secession went unheard, Lumumba tried to obtain help from
other African states and from the Soviet Union. But this in turn
gained him little more than the distrust and opposition of
Western states who throughout this period maintained a great
deal of influence in the Congo.
On another level, one of Lumumba's greatest
handicaps was the fact that even in the face of all these
problems the Congolese were not really united. Personality
conflicts and ideological conflicts among the leaders, ethnic
and regional divisions, meant that Lumumba had to worry as much
about patching up the unity of his government as about mutiny,
order, secession, and foreign interference.
These stresses soon created a rift between
Lumumba and President Kasavubu, and the result was that he was
dismissed as Prime Minister in September, a little over two
months after he had attained that position. For a while he
contested this decision, but the political situation both inside
the Congo and internationally turned more and more against him.
In the end his personal safety was
increasingly threatened in Leopoldville (today Kinshasha) and
he, therefore, tried to escape to the northeast of the country
where his strongest support has always been located. In a
sequence of events full of drama and pathos he was caught and
imprisoned by the Congolese army and later turned over to his
worst enemies and put to death.
One of the strange things about Lumumba's
career is how he has been pictured in different parts of the
world. In the West, he has the reputation of having been
something of a "devil." There are probably two reasons
for this. First, he was, as he said himself, willing to deal
with anyone, and when this included the Soviet Union it gained
him the usual antagonism. But this alone does not go anywhere
near enough to explaining the really passionate anger he
aroused.
The second reason may be more important. Up
to 1960, up to the Congo's achievement of independence, the
African nationalist movement had developed and gained its
objectives, with few exceptions, in a generally orderly and
peaceful manner. Then came the Congo with its chaos and a Prime
Minister who, despite his frequent powerlessness, was unwilling
to let the UN or other outside forces take over the leadership
of the country. He was blamed for the chaos and for not taking
"good advice."
Later, the world began to understand that
when a society goes through a crisis like the one which had
occurred in the Congo it takes more than the proper orders by
its leaders to put things right again. Some of Lumumba's
successors took a lot of advice, and some of them were
positively pro-Western, but conditions in the Congo were often
worse than they were under Lumumba.
There were times when the army harassed more
civilians, there was more chaos and fighting, and there was more
bloodshed. Furthermore, in other parts of Africa many of the
problems which the Congo faced in its first days of independence
later made their appearance and it was seen that other leaders
were also had put to deal with them.
Thus, those who followed Lumumba received a
far more sympathetic hearing, were treated with more sympathy,
than he had been.
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Robin McKown's biography of Lumumba has
performed a double service. first, here is a comprehensive
Western study which is sympathetic to Lumumba. This is something
which needed to be done. Second, it is the only complete
biography of Lumumba presently in existence. The latter part of
his life has of course been discussed in many places, but Robin
McKown has also researched the early period, which is important
if one is to start understanding this extraordinary man. No
doubt Lumumba will remain a controversial figure, but his book
will hopefully help to balance what is known and thought about
him.
--Herbert F. Weiss, Associate Professor,
Department of Political Science, Brooklyn College
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo
is more than three times the size of Texas and nearly
eighty times the size of Belgium, which controlled its
destiny for over seventy-five years.
Within its boundaries are jungles,
snowy peaks, volcanic mountains, enormous lakes, deep
grottoes, and weird savanna landscapes of anthills and
baobab trees. The Congo River, with its tributaries,
lays a mesh of waterways across the land. The river of
fiction and legend, 2700 miles long and shaped like a
giant question mark, begins as a tiny stream in the
south-central African highlands, flows north over rapids
and waterfalls and through grassy savannas and
woodlands, arcs westward, moves with a wide and majestic
flow through green equatorial forests, and turns into a
wild and raging torrent as it cuts into the Crystal Mountains on the
last lap of its journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
In the fertile Congolese soil flourish fruit trees and
plants from far parts of the world--coconut palms and
breadfruit trees from Oceania; potatoes, corn, peanuts,
red peppers, pineapples from South America; rice,
bananas, sugar cane, oranges and lemons from Asia; juicy
papayas from Mexico. |
It has been estimated that, with proper cultivation, enough
foodstuff could be raised on the Congo's arable land to feed all
of Africa.
The underground wealth of the Congo is
fabulous: gold in the mountains of Kivu; industrial diamonds in
southern Kasai (more than 75 percent of the world's supply);
bauxite, a basic element in aluminum production, in the Lower
Congo; and in Katanga in the savanna country, copper, cobalt,
uranium, tin, zinc, silver, tungsten, radium, along with
lesser-known elements invaluable in modern technology: bismuth,
manganese, beryllium, germanium.
For untold millenniums these vast treasures
lay hidden awaiting the skills needed to exploit them. They
could have served to build a civilizations of unrivaled
splendor; instead, they would prove the Congo's curse.
Patrice Lumumba was born in the Congo and
grew up in it. Its tragic history was his heritage. To
understand Lumumba, what he was and what he became, a glimpse at
this history is a prerequisite.
There was a time when the Congo belonged
wholly to the animal kingdom. Vast herds of elephants roamed
across it. Thousands of ungainly hippopotami bathed in the river
waters. Leopards, lions, antelope, will boars, giraffes,
cheetahs, zebras, the shy okapi, the white rhinoceros and the
black rhinoceros, lived tranquilly or ferociously, in accord
with their natures.
Gorillas chose haunts in the mountain forest.
Monkeys chattered noisily in the trees at the brilliant
feathered birds overhead. Butterflies fluttered in clouds of
color, their hues matching the pastel shades of marshland
flowers. the animals are still in the Congo, though in far
lesser numbers; it is definitely no longer their country.
The first known human habitants were the
Pygmies--tiny, industrious, cheerful people who dwelt in the
rain forests and lived on roots and grubs and whatever else they
could find to eat. They shot game with bows and arrows dipped in
poison for which they alone knew the antidote. When the food
supply gave out in one place, they moved somewhere else, cleared
ground and built new homes from pliable branches and leaves. The
Pygmies are still in the Congo too; they have steadfastly
resisted all attempts to make them conform to modernity.
The black people, the Bantu, began migrating
to the Congo some 2500 years ago. No one knows just why, though
there is a theory that they left the Sahara region as it turned
into a desert. Among them were Lumumba's ancestors. These black
people, who are actually dark brown, make up the majority of the
modern Congolese. The Hamites, also dark-skinned, arrived later
from the neighborhood of Ethiopia. They include the Batutsi, the
tallest people in the world, who settled down on the high
eastern rim of the Congo basin.
The immigrants developed the art of forging
iron axes, spears, and hoes. They built homes of strong vines or
mud bricks, which they sometimes decorated with handsome
geometric patterns. They became farmers, fishermen, and hunters.
From the leaves of the raffia palm they wove finely textured
cloth, and they made lovely pottery and baskets, purely for
utility.
They devised musical instruments and created
an incredible variety of dances for religious ceremonials, for
war preparations, or for celebrations and pleasure. They carved
sculpture which Western experts would one day rank among the
world's masterpieces. (Congolese masks and statuettes inspired
Picasso and other modern artists.) They invented a drum carved
out of a log, called a tom-tom, by which they could talk to
neighboring villages. It was their telegraph.
They wore few clothes, for the Congo is a
tropical country, but, like Europeans and Americans, they loved
personal adornment. This took the form of fine tattoo markings
on face and torso, and of war paint. they created an infinite
number of elaborate headdresses and headgear, and forged brass
necklaces and leg bands, also for beauty.
Their way of living was communal. they
divided into tribes; there are some two hundred major ones.
Lands were held in common for the benefit if all. private
property was unknown. When disputes between tribes could not be
settled by discussion, they fought wars, like people everywhere
since time immemorial.
Customs and legends varied from tribe to
tribe, with certain similarities. the belief in a supreme being,
a life force, was widespread. Men were expected to pay a
"bride price" to the parents of their future wives,
the opposite of the European dowry. In most tribes it was normal
for a man to have several wives. Strict obedience was expected
of children. A few tribes were not averse to eating their
enemies; indeed; they would denounce as barbarous the European
wars where men killed even when they were not hungry.
In time, tribes grouped together to form
kingdoms. one of these was the Kingdom of the Kongo, which
stretched along Africa's western coast on both sides of the
mouth of the Congo River. late in the fifteenth century, the
King of the Kongo received a delegation of the oldest people any
Congolese had ever seen. these strangers had light skins and
black beards. They wore an astonishing amount of clothing.
The visitors came
from Portugal. one of them was Diego Cão, a navigator who is
credited with having discovered the Congo River in 1482. . . .
---Robin McKown "Congo Backdrop"
(excerpt chapter 1) Source: Robin McKown,
Lumumba: A Biography. New York:
Doubleday & Company, 1969. * *
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update 26 July 2008 |
