Congo

by David Van Reybrouck

  In the cities we have seen magnificent houses built for the whites, and hovels for the black, that a black was not allowed into the so-called “white” movie theaters, restaurants and shops, that a black man traveled in the hold of the riverboats, beneath the feet of the white man in his luxury cabin.10

  It was, indeed, a memorable text. Like all great speeches, it clarified the abstract course of history with the use of a few concrete details, and he illustrated the great injustice with a host of tangible ones. But Lumumba’s timing was highly unfortunate. This was the day on which Congo won its independence, but he spoke as though the elections were still in full swing. Too focused on attaining immortality, too blinded by the romanticism of Pan-Africanism, he who was, after all, the great advocate of unity in Congo forgot that on this first day of autonomy he should be leading his country to reconciliation rather than divisiveness. He professed to be the voice of the people—that fit with the exalted rhetoric of the day (the People, the Yoke, the Struggle, and, of course: the Liberation)—but the people did not stand unanimously behind him. After all, he had won a little less than a third of the votes. Lumumba’s speech was therefore a great one in terms of import, but a problematical one in terms of its effect. And compared with the truly grand speeches of history—Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from 1863 (“a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”), Winston Churchill’s first speech as prime minister on May 13, 1940 (“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat”), the speech given by Martin Luther King in 1963 (“I have a dream”), the words with which Nelson Mandela lectured the judges on democracy in 1964 (“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”), or the acceptance speech with which Barack Obama thrilled the world in 2008 (“Change has come to America”)—Lumumba’s address contained more of a look back than a look forward, more rage than hope, more rancor than magnanimity, and therefore more rebellion than statesmanship.

  JAMAIS KOLONGA WITNESSED IT ALL from the front row. He heard how the Lumumba supporters in the audience interrupted the speech eight times with a hail of applause, but he also saw the “chilly looks of the invitees and the king’s paleness.” He saw Baudouin lean over to Kasavubu to demand an explanation, but Kasavubu didn’t move a muscle: neither of them had been informed of Lumumba’s initiative. His text had been handed out to the journalists under embargo, but neither the king nor the president had seen it. Afterward, Baudouin was furious and deeply offended. For him it must have been a painful replay of his own coronation. Then, at the height of the ceremony ten years earlier, the Communist senator Julien Lahout had shouted out “Vive la république!” That too was intended to be a festive day, a confirmation of his royal dignity, but then too the ceremony had been ruined by a leftist firebrand who had butted in and claimed all the attention. One week later Lahaut had been mowed down in his doorway by a group of unknown assailants, under circumstances as vague and violent as the fate that awaited Lumumba six months later.

  Baudouin wanted to return to Belgium immediately. He no longer had any desire to visit the Pioneer Cemetery or the equestrian statue of Leopold II. But Belgian Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens intervened and during lunch demanded that Lumumba give a second, more friendly speech. And so it came about: Eyskens wrote the text, Lumumba read it aloud drily, Baudouin stayed to the end of the day.

  It would be a mistake to assume that all of Congo rejoiced at its prime minister’s daring words. Fourteen million people rarely share the same opinion. Kolonga, in any case, found it troubling: “Lumumba was no diplomat, he was far too categorical. Kasavubu, now that was a gentleman. He wanted some of the whites to stay on as deputy director in the provinces, for agriculture, for finance. But our constitution gave too much power to the prime minister. It also made our president after the image of the Belgian king: he ruled, but did not govern.” As a native of Bas-Congo, he felt more sympathy for Kasavubu. For many Bakongo, Lumumba was no hero. “Kasavubu was calm, cultivated, and respectful,” old people in Bas-Congo say even today. “Lumumba was empty-headed, affected, and rude. He was the source of our problems. The way he talked to the king, that was irresponsible! He should have said: ‘You people are independent now, so come on, get to it!’ instead of pointing out the minor problems of the past.”11 Almost all older citizens in Boma, Matadi, and Mbanza-Ngungu (former Thysville) can still get wound up about this. “It all started then. Lumumba’s speech angered the Belgians. The king didn’t even want to stay for the banquet. Kasavubu didn’t want to chase away the Belgians, but Lumumba wanted to wipe the slate clean. It was a very bad start. And I say that truthfully, not just for ethnic reasons.”12

  Even Lumumba’s fervent supporters had their misgivings. Mario Cardoso, who came from Stanleyville, Lumumba’s home town, and who had been his personal representative during the economic round table in Brussels, told me: “I was in the audience and I was struck dumb. Lumumba acted like a demagogue. I was a member of the MNC, but our campaign hadn’t been about what he was saying. Some of the deputies applauded, but I didn’t. He’s committing political suicide, that’s what I thought.”13

  In other parts of Congo, however, the incident received little attention. In Elisabethville, the day was calm and festive. Moïse Tshombe, who’d had to be satisfied with the position of provincial governor, reemphasized the importance of warm and friendly ties between Belgium and Congo. During the independence day celebrations in the mining town, a children’s choir sang a few hymns. Colonials, who still had to get used to the fact that they were suddenly ex-colonials now, joined the party in the native districts and were welcomed.14 Elsewhere in the country, too, mass was celebrated, cantatas were sung, and tribute was paid. The news about Lumumba’s speech was heard only later. Very few people disagreed with what he said, but many wondered whether it had really been necessary. One capital city inhabitant said: “A birth is always accompanied by painful contractions. That’s the way it goes. But once the child is born, it is smiled upon.”15

  AND SO WENT THE FIRST DAY of a liberated Congo. There were parades and games, folk dancing and fireworks. The party was to last for four days, from Thursday to Sunday. Congo began its existence with a long, free weekend. There were sports contests at Stade Baudouin (Kasavubu was supposed to hand the trophy to the winners, but Lumumba grabbed it away from him and did it himself).16 There was a bicycle race through the streets of the city (the most Belgian of all sports, but the first three places went to Congolese cyclists). And above all there was beer, lots of beer, a great deal of beer. It was the end of the month and everyone had just been paid. The walls of the bars were lined with crates. After a few days the new government ordered that all points of sale for alcohol be closed between six in the evening and seven in the morning. The partying got a bit out of hand, but it was innocent enough. There was some rioting in Kasai, but there were no attacks on Belgians, no lynchings, no raping, no looting of European homes.

  But on that first day of independence, there was one man who—by his own account—laying groaning in pain on the floor of a prison cell: Longin Ngwadi! The man from Kikwit, the believer who had wanted to become a priest but was not allowed, Élastique, the star player for Daring Club, the former houseboy to Governor General Léon Pétillon, the man who had traveled to Belgium not to see the Expo; he, of all people, was the new state’s first dissident. “My belly was swollen like a balloon. I was bleeding from my nose and anus. I peed blood, I passed terrible gusts of wind. I was handcuffed, as though I had stolen something.” At four in the morning, while Kolonga was busy gussying up for the big day and Lumumba was still working on his speech, Longin had already been lying there for hours, bemoaning his fate. The day before he had been arrested by the provincial governor, Jean-Baptiste Bomans. “They came to get me with two jeeps full of soldiers. ‘You’re insane,” Bomans told me. ‘I’m not insane,’ I said, ‘I’m normal. King Baudouin is my brother. Do what
ever you like, I am a prophet, like Elijah or Jeremiah.’”

  After months of searching in 2008, when I finally met found Ngwadi in Kikwit, he was washing himself in the river. To welcome me, he put on his most cherished piece of clothing: a shirt with a leopard-skin pattern to which he had pinned a photograph of Lumumba standing beside Antoine Gizenga. Gizenga was his big political hero, a man from his region who had been deputy prime minister under Lumumba and who, at the moment we met, was sitting out his final days as prime minister under Joseph Kabila. Papa Longin Ngwadi was one of the most colorful Congolese I had ever met, and not just because of his amazing life story. Even his gaudery was breathtaking. Around his neck, on that first day we met, he wore a big crucifix, alongside a medal of St. Theresa with the Infant Jesus, a medal of the archangel Michael, a blue cross of Lourdes, an old ICSA door key bearing the stamp “made in Italy,” which he described as “the key to heaven,” a hammer that was his allusion to the name “Jean Marteau, the nickname for Kamitatu,” that other great politician from his region, and a whistle, “because when I have a vision, I call everyone together to pass on the message.”

  Ngwadi’s fantasy knew no bounds. He claimed that he was the man behind that stunt half a century earlier: “Yes, I am the one who took Baudouin’s sword.” For a long time I thought that he was telling the truth. His high, prominent forehead and oval eyes, after all, strikingly resembled those of the man in the famous picture. But meanwhile we know that there are many stories in circulation about that incident. Any number of elderly Congolese claim to know who stole the sword, and why, while the actual culprit died long ago. Those stories, even if they are usually only that, form a rich source of information about the memories of decolonization. “Baudouin was an icon,” Ngwadi said, “a chouchou; he was straightforward, very young and very handsome.”

  After Ngwadi returned from his Belgian adventure and Pétillon was no longer governor general, he too became caught up in the fever of emancipation. He had an eye for its mystic dimensions in particular. He wandered the streets of Léopoldville and went each day to the Église Saint-Pierre, in the borough of Limete. Monseigneur Joseph-Albert Malula celebrated mass there. Malula, an extremely intelligent man who had witnessed the struggle for independence from close at hand and had even been involved in the manifesto issued by Conscience Africaine, was enthroned as bishop in 1959. Later he would become the first cardinal from Congo and a direct opponent of Mobutu.

  “I went to his church every day. When I prayed, everything became light. I had the power of the spirit and the vision of history. All the prayers came as though I’d known them beforehand; I sang all kinds of new hymns, I broke through all the secrets, I saw flowers, lots of flowers. Tiens, I said, so God has given me peace. I went and told Malula about that. He gave me a ballpoint pen and a little notebook and asked me to write down my visions.”

  Today, Ngwadi is still a deeply religious man. His whole life is saturated with spirituality. He prays constantly, never fails to start a conversation by blessing his visitors with hairspray or perfume, and raises his hands to heaven to ask for protection. For him, religion and politics are joined at the hip. One day, still woozy from the cloud of cheap women’s perfume, I walked with him along the street market in Kikwit, a long ribbon of merchandise that extends along the main street of the lower city all the way to the bridge over the Kwilu. Every five minutes he would stop, blow his whistle, and shout in Kikongo to anyone who would hear: “Children of Kikwit, if you still don’t believe in my powers, look at this visitor. I asked Gizenga to send me a white man, and here he is!” Half an hour later, his son had to ask him to edit this particular vision, because not everyone was an adherent of Gizenga’s and that could compromise my safety. On the market, just before the bridge, was a sinister stand selling fetishes, herbs, masks, and monkey skulls. No one stopped there. “Don’t look at it,” his son said to me, “that brings bad luck.” But Ngwadi examined the wares attentively, obviously feeling more powerful than all this sorcery. At home he had a magic sword he’d made himself. He had decorated an old umbrella stick with artificial flowers, bits of copper wire, a picture of Christ with flowers, and a banner bearing the acronym of the Palu, the Parti Lumumbiste Unifié, Gizenga’s current party. The reference to the magic sword of half a century earlier was loud and clear. In his “junk art,” memory and mysticism mingled effortlessly.

  I found a good spot and waited for Baudouin at the station, close to the railroad workers’ monument. Everyone wanted to see him, he was a handsome boy, but there were soldiers with rifles everywhere. It was impossible, but my power allowed me to slip past. I wanted to give the king some flowers, to show my love for him, but then I saw that long, shiny sword and I took it pour la folie, just for fun. I got five meters away, then I heard the soldiers loading their weapons. King Baudouin said: “No guns.” I walked back to him and said: “I wish you a fine visit to Congo. The Lord was the one who urged me to take your sword. We will travel to parliament together as good acquaintances. It is time that we become independent. The European women are like the Virgin Mary, but later the good Lord will grant us the peace to be able to marry white women. Belgium is far away, as far as heaven, a common property where there must be black people as well. A common market. The blacks will go to Belgium. I am not insane, I am normal. I give you your sword back.” Baudouin replied: “No one may hit you! I am going to give you a gift. Don’t forget me. It’s true, later you will marry a white woman, on condition that you learn French.” But he left the same day, without giving me a gift. He never kept his promise.

  Whether this remarkable conversation actually took place is very much in question. In it, mysticism and eroticism collide ingeniously with European current events (the common market!) and Belgian linguistic rivalry (learning French!). But that a man with a rather idiosyncratic way of thinking remembered independence, fifty years after the festivities, as a promise never kept says a great deal in itself. Today, through the fissures in his bizarre fable, there shines the light of a profound truth: independence should have been a gift, but it remained an empty promise.

  MAP 7: THE FIRST REPUBLIC: SECESSIONS AND UPRISINGS

  CHAPTER 8

  THE STRUGGLE FOR THE THRONE

  The Turbulent Years of the First Republic

  1960–1965

  EVERYONE KNEW THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE A GOOD DEAL OF improvising during that first period after independence. That things would not run smoothly as burnished silk was only to be expected. But that Congo, during the first six months of its existence, would have to deal with a serious military mutiny, the massive exodus of those Belgians who had remained behind, an invasion by the Belgian army, a military intervention by the United Nations, logistical support from the Soviet Union, an extremely heated stretch of the Cold War, an unparalleled constitutional crisis, two secessions that covered a third of its territory, and, to top it all off, the imprisonment, escape, arrest, torture, and murder of its prime minister: no, absolutely no one had seen that coming.

  And it would take a long time for things to get better. The period between 1960 and 1965 is known today as the First Republic, but at the time it seemed more like the Last Judgment. The country fell apart, was confronted with a civil war, ethnic pogroms, two coups d’état, three uprisings, and six government leaders (Patrice Lumumba, Joseph Ileo, Justin Bomboko, Cyrille Adoula, Moïse Tshombe, and Évariste Kimba), two—or perhaps even three—of whom were murdered: Lumumba, shot dead in 1961; Kimba, hanged in 1966; Tshombe, found dead in his cell in Algeria in 1969. Even Dag Hammarskjöld, the secretary general of the United Nations, the man who headed a reluctant world government, lost his life under circumstances that still remain unclear—an event unparalleled in the history of postwar multilateralism. The death toll among the Congolese population itself during this period was too high for meaningful estimates.

  Congo’s First Republic was an apocalyptic era in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Both politically and militarily, the cou
ntry was plunged into total, inextricable chaos; at the economic level, the picture was clearer: things simply went from bad to worse. Yet Congo had not fallen prey to wild irrationality. The misery of the first five years was not the product of a renaissance of barbarism, of the revival of some form of primitivism repressed during the colonial years, let alone of any opaque “Bantu soul.” No, here too the chaos was a result more of logic than of unreasonableness, or rather of the collision of disparate logics. The president, the prime minister, the army, the rebels, the Belgians, the United Nations, the Russians, the Americans: each of them wielded a form of logic that seemed consistent and cogent within the confines of their own four walls, but which often proved irreconcilable with the outside world. As in theater, tragedy in history here was not a matter of the reasonable versus the unreasonable, of good versus bad, but of people whose lives crossed and who—each and every one of them—considered themselves good and reasonable. Idealists faced off with idealists, but when believed in fanatically all forms of idealism lead to blindness, the blindness of the good. History is a gruesome meal prepared from the best of ingredients.

  The turbulent first five years of Congo can be divided into three phases. The first ran from June 30, 1960, to January 17, 1961, the day on which Lumumba was murdered. During the first six months, the house of cards of the colonial state collapsed, and “the Congo crisis” dominated world news week after week. The second phase coincided with the years 1961–63, and was marked primarily by the Katangan secession. It ended when the rebel province, after forceful UN military intervention, rejoined the rest of the country. The third phase started in 1964, when a rebellion broke out in the east and spread across half the country. The central authorities regained control of the territory only with the greatest of difficulty. The year 1965 was to have witnessed a return to normalcy, but ended unexpectedly on November 24 with Joseph-Désiré Mobutu’s coup d’état, a putsch that defined the country’s history. Mobutu remained in power for the next thirty-two years, until 1997. That was the so-called Second Republic, a regime that, strictly centralized at first, ultimately developed into a dictatorship.