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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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Letter to
Pauline
from Camp Hardy Prison
By
Patrice Lumumba My dear companion,
I write you these words without knowing if they will reach
you, when they will reach you, or if I will still be living when
you read them. All during the length of my fight 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 myself have consecrated our lives. But what we
wish for our country, its right to an honorable life, to a
spotless dignity, to an independence without restrictions,
Belgian colonialism and its Western allies--who have found
direct and indirect support, deliberate and not deliberate,
among certain high officials of the United Nations, this
organization in which we placed all our confidence when we
called for their assistance--have not wished it.
They have corrupted certain of our fellow countrymen, they
have contributed to distorting the truth and to besmirching our
independence. What else might I say? That dead, living,
free, or in prison on the order of the colonialists, it is not I
who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom
independence has been transformed into a cage where we are
regarded from the outside sometimes with benevolent compassion,
sometimes with joy and pleasure.
But my faith will stay unbreakable. I know and I feel to the
depth of my being that sooner or later my people will get rid of
all their interior and exterior enemies, that they will rise up
like a single person to day no to a degrading and shameful
colonialism and to reassume their dignity under a pure sun.
We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people
from every corner of the world will always be found at the side
of the Congolese. They will not abandon the fight until the day
comes when there are no more colonizers and mercenaries in our
country. To my children whom I leave and whom perhaps I will see
no more, I wish that they be told that the future of the Congo
is beautiful and that it expects from them, as it expects from
each Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstruction
of our independence and our sovereignty; for without dignity
there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and
without independence there are no free men.
No brutality, mistreatment, or torture has ever forced me to
ask for grace, for I prefer to die with my head high, my faith
steadfast, and my confidence profound in the destiny of my
country, rather than to live in submission and scorn of sacred
principles. History will one day have its say, but it will not
be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United
Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the
countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets.
Africa will write its own history, and it will be, to the
north and to the south of the Sahara, a history of glory and
dignity.
Do not weep for me, my dear companion. I know that my
country, which suffers so much, will know how to defend its
independence and its liberty. Long live the Congo! Long live
Africa!* *
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Lumumba: A Film by Raoul Peck
Raoul Peck tells the story
of the African freedom fighter
Patrice Lumumba
with fire and grace. The opening scene sets the vérité tone with
the sound of a saw cutting through bone; two Belgian soldiers
are breaking down Lumumba's body and incinerating it in a
ten-gallon drum. From there, the film backtracks to the origins
of the Congolese independence movement and proceeds to explain
how a man's legacy could be considered so threatening. Peck
handles all of this, including the atrocities, with refinement,
and lets the drama of Lumumba's story run smoothly, free of
heavy historical detail. Eriq Ebouaney is extraordinary in the
lead role, the production feels emotionally true, and the
speeches generate spontaneous applause. Only the ending comes
off as too hopeful, as we know that with Lumumba's death, the
regime of Mobuto began. In French and Lingala.—Michael
Agger,
The New Yorker
Made in the tradition of
such true-life political thrillers as MALCOLM X and JFK, Raoul
Peck's award-winning LUMUMBA is a gripping epic that dramatizes
for the first time the rise and fall of legendary African leader
Patrice Lumumba.
When the Congo declared its independence from Belgium in 1960,
the 36-year-old, self-educated Lumumba became the first Prime
Minister of the newly independent state. Called "the politico of
the bush" by journalists of the day, he became a lightning rod
of Cold War politics as his vision of a united Africa gained him
powerful enemies in Belgium and the U.S. Lumumba would last just
months in office before being brutally assassinated. Strikingly
photographed in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Belgium as civil war
once again raged in the Congo, the film vividly re-creates the
shocking events behind the birth of the country that became
Zaire during the reign of Lumumba's former friend and eventual
nemesis, Joseph Mobutu. This is the English-dubbed version of
the film.—Amazon.com
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Cuba An African Odyssey
is the previously untold story of Cuba's support for African
revolutions.
Cuba: An African Odyssey is
the story of the Cold War told through the prism of its least known
arena: Africa. It is the untold story of Cuba’s support for African
revolutions. It is the story of men like Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar
Cabral, Agosthino Neto and of course Che Guevara who have become icons,
mythical figures whose names are now synonymous with the word
revolution. This is the story of how these men, caught between
capitalism and communism, strove to create a third bloc that would
assert the simple principle of national independence. It is the story
of a whole dimension of world politics during the last half of the 20th
century, which has been hidden behind the facade of a simplistic
understanding of superpower conflict.
Cuba: An African Odyssey will tell the inside story of only three of
these Cuban escapades. We will start with the Congo where Che Guevara
personally spent seven months fighting with the Pro-Lumumbist rebellion
in the jungle of Eastern Congo. Then to Guinea Bissau where Amilcar
Cabral used the technical support of Cuban advisors to bleed the
Portuguese colonial war machine thus toppling the regime in Europe.
Finally, Angola where in total 380,000 Cuban soldiers fought during the
27 years of civil war. The Cuban withdrawal from Angola was finally
bartered against Namibia’s independence. With Namibia’s independence
came the fall of Apartheid… the last vestige of colonialism on the
African continent.
Cuba: An African Odyssey unravels episodes of the Cold War long
believed to be nothing but proxy wars. From the tragicomic epic of Che
Guevara in Congo to the triumph at the battle of Cuito Carnavale in
Angola, this film attempts to understand the world today through the
saga of these internationalists who won every battle but finally lost
the war.
Credits:
Written, directed and narrated by Jihan El-Tahri / Edited by Gilles
Bovon / Photography by Frank-Peter Lehmann
Sound
Recordists: James Baker, Graciela Barrault / Produced by Tancrède
Ramonet, Benoît Juster, Jihan El-Tahri
Source:
Snagfilms
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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and
Heroism in Colonial Africa
By Adam Hochschild
King Leopold of
Belgium, writes historian Adam Hochschild in this grim
history, did not much care for his native land or his
subjects, all of which he dismissed as "small country,
small people." Even so, he searched the globe to find a
colony for Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other
European powers for overseas dominions in Africa and
Asia would leave nothing for himself or his people. When
he eventually found a suitable location in what would
become the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire and now
simply as Congo, Leopold set about establishing a rule
of terror that would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8
million indigenous people, "a death toll," Hochschild
writes, "of Holocaust dimensions." |
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Those who survived went to work
mining ore or harvesting rubber, yielding a fortune for the Belgian
king, who salted away billions of dollars in hidden bank accounts
throughout the world. Hochschild's fine book of historical inquiry,
which draws heavily on eyewitness accounts of the colonialists'
savagery, brings this little-studied episode in European and African
history into new light.—Gregory McNamee
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 |
Panel on Literary Criticism
26 March 2010
National Black Writers Conference
Patrick Oliver, Kalamu ya Salaam,
Dorothea Smartt, Frank Wilderson discuss
the use of literature to promote
political causes and instigate change
and transformation. The event is at the
Medgar Evers College at the City
University of New York.
C-Span Archives
Panel on Politics and Satire
26 March 2010
National Black Writers Conference
Herb Boyd, Thomas Bradshaw, Charles
Edison and Major Owens discuss how
current events are reflected in the
writings of African Americans. The
event is at the Medgar Evers College at
the City University of New York.
C-Span Archives |
Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
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update 26 July 2008 |
