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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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*
Independence
Day Speech
(June 30, 1960)
By Patrice Lumumba Men and women of the Congo,
Victorious fighters for independence, today
victorious, I greet you in the name of the Congolese Government.
All of you, my friends, who have fought tirelessly at our sides,
I ask you to make this June 30, 1960, an illustrious date that
you will keep indelibly engraved in your hearts, a date of
significance of which you will teach to your children, so that
they will make known to their sons and to their grandchildren
the glorious history of our fight for liberty.
For this independence of the Congo, even as
it is celebrated today with Belgium, a friendly country with
whom we deal as equal to equal, no Congolese worthy of the name
will ever be able to forget that it was by fighting that it has
been won [applause], a day-to-day fight, an ardent and
idealistic fight, a fight in which we were spared neither
privation nor suffering, and for which we gave our strength and
our blood.
We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of
fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a
noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the
humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force.
This was our fate for eighty years of a
colonial regime; our wounds are too fresh and too painful still
for us to drive them from our memory. We have known harassing
work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us
to eat enough to drive away hunger, or to clothe ourselves, or
to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as
creatures dear to us.
We have known ironies, blows that we endured
morning, noon, and evening, because we are are Negroes. Who will
forget that to a black one said "tu," certainly not as
to a friend, but because the more honorable "vous" was
reserved for white alone?
We have seen our hands seized in the name of
allegedly legal laws which in fact recognized only that might is
right.
We have seen that the law was not the same
for a white and for a black, accommodating for the first, cruel
and inhuman for the other.
We have witnessed atrocious sufferings of
those condemned for their political opinions of religious
beliefs; exiled in their own country, their fate truly worse
than death itself.
We have seen that in the towns there were
magnificent houses for the whites and crumbling shanties for the
blacks, that a black was not admitted in the motion-picture
houses, in the restaurants, in the stores of the Europeans; that
a black traveled in the holds, at the feet of the whites in
their luxury cabins.
Who will ever forget the massacres where so
many of our brothers perished, the cells into which those who
refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation
were thrown [applause]?
All that, my brothers, we have endured.
But we, whom the vote of your elected
representatives have given the right to direct our dear country,
we who have suffered in our body and in or heart from colonial
oppression, we tell you very loud, all that is henceforth ended.
The Republic of the Congo has been
proclaimed, and our country is now in the hands of its children.
Together, my brothers, my sisters, we are going to begin a new
struggle, a sublime struggle, which will lead our country to
peace, prosperity, and greatness.
Together, we are going to establish social
justice and make sure everyone has just remuneration for his
labor [applause].
We are going to show the world what the black
man can do when he works in freedom, and we are going to make of
the Congo the center of the sun's radiance for all of Africa.
We are going to keep watch over the lands of
our country so that they truly profit her children. We are going
to restore ancient laws and make new ones which will be just and
noble.
We are going to put an end to suppression of
free thought and see to it that all our citizens enjoy to the
full the fundamental liberties foreseen in the Declaration of
the Rights of Man [applause].
We are going to rule not by the peace of guns
and bayonets but by a peace of the heart and will [applause].
And for all that, dear fellow countrymen, be
sure that we will count not only on our enormous strength and
immense riches but on the assistance of numerous foreign
countries whose collaboration we will accept if it is offered
freely and with no attempt to impose on us an alien culture of
no matter what nature [applause].
In this domain, Belgium, at last accepting
the flow of history, has not tried to oppose our independence
and is ready to give us their aid and their friendship, and a
treaty has just been signed between our two countries, equal and
independent. On our side, while we stay vigilant, we shall
respect our obligations, given freely.
Thus, in the interior and the exterior, the
new Congo, our dear Republic that my government will create,
will be a rich, free, and prosperous country. But so that we
will reach this aim without delay. I ask all of you, legislators
and citizens, to help me with all your strength.
I ask all of you to forget your tribal
quarrels. they exhaust us. They risk making us despised abroad.
I ask the parliamentary minority to help my
Government through a constructive opposition and to limit
themselves strictly to legal and democratic channels.
I ask all of you not to shrink before any
sacrifice in order to achieve the success of our huge
undertaking.
In conclusion, I ask you unconditionally to
respect the life and the property of your fellow citizens and of
foreigners living in our country. if the conduct of these
foreigners leaves something to be desired, our justice will be
prompt in expelling them from the territory of the Republic; if,
on the contrary, their conduct is good, they must be left in
peace, for they also are working for our country's prosperity.
The Congo's independence marks a decisive
step towards the liberation of the entire African continent
[applause].
Sire, Excellencies, Mesdames, messieurs, my
dear fellow countrymen, my brothers of race, my brothers of
struggle--this is what I wanted to tell you in the name of the
Government on this magnificent day of our complete independence.
Our government, strong, national, popular,
will be the health of our country.
I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women
and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of
creating a prosperous national economy which will assure our
economic independence.
Glory to the fighters for national
liberation!
Long live independence and African unity!
Long live the independent and sovereign Congo!
Source: Robin McKown, Lumumba: A Biography. New York:
Doubleday & Company, 1969. *
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update
1 September 2008 |
