e have to accept our history — the good and the bad of it. We need to know our past, to build our future and to live in the present. — Juliana Lumumba.

Patrice Lumumba’s uncompromising stance in condemnation of colonial dispensation and the courage to articulate the denunciation of Belgian atrocities, describing it as “the humiliating slavery that was imposed on us by force” stunned Belgians.

Never before had a black African dared to speak with such audacity in front of the Europeans. Lumumba, who had been described as an ‘illiterate thief’ in the Belgian press, was seen as having humiliated the king and other Belgian dignitaries.

The Americans plotted Lumumba’s removal from power and his subsequent execution because of a possible pivot towards the Soviet Union.

His propensity for uncompromising anti-colonialism sealed his fate. It is appropriate to emphasise here that the erstwhile colonial territories can have a true realisation of freedom only by developing an anti-colonial sensibility.

A structural continuity from the colonial dispensation impedes the evolution of authentic (collective) self among the post-colonial citizens.

According to De Witte’s book, The Assassination of Lumumba, “realising that bodies could be discovered, a decision was taken to make them disappear once and for all. There must be no trace left.” Armed with saws, sulfuric acid, face masks and whisky, Police Commissioner Gerard Soete led a team to move, destroy and dispose of the remains.

He later described the process as travelling “to the depths of hell”. That, indeed, was the worst retribution to fall on any historical personality. With the loss of memory, the legacy of a political leader gets truncated. This risks impeding the creation of a political tradition, a vital component in the establishment of a polity.

But Lumumba is remembered. His legacy has been revived, primarily by his daughter, Juliana, the youngest of his children. She was a prime mover in the campaign to get Lumumba’s tooth back to Congo. She went to Belgium to receive it. Juliana was less than five years old when Lumumba became prime minister.

She said he “belongs to the country, because he died for Congo… and for his own values and convictions of the dignity of the African person”. In a neo-colonial setting, it is difficult and daunting to cherish one’s values and convictions. The person saying this can lose their life. The only values and convictions permissible for us to embrace are embedded in a colonial past.

Lumumba is remembered. His legacy has been revived, primarily by his daughter, Juliana, the youngest of his children. She was a prime mover in the campaign to get Lumumba’s tooth back to Congo. 

Until nearly 40 years later, Soete publicly acknowledged that he was involved in the destruction of the body and that he still actually had a tooth in his possession. It could not be known, however, what he did with the tooth. After word about the claim reached Congo and Lumumba’s family, a complaint was filed and following four years of legal battle, a court ruled that it should be returned to the Lumumba family.

As a part of the campaign to get the tooth back Juliana wrote a moving and poetic open letter to King Philippe. “Why after terrible murder, have Lumumba’s remains been condemned to remain a soul forever wandering, without a grave to shelter his eternal rest? With the return of the tooth, the former prime minister will have a final resting place in a special mausoleum in the capital, Kinshasa.”

Congolese historian and the country’s UN ambassador, George Nzongola Ntalaja said, “it is a comfort for the family and the people of the Congo because Lumumba is our hero. We would like to give him a decent burial.”

Even after the burial there was a need to reckon with the past. In a talk to the BBC, Prof Nzongola-Ntalaja said, “Belgium refuses to take responsibility for something they know they did, so it is not totally satisfactory.” The fact speaks volumes about the hubris of a country that counts little in the international setting.

In the campaign against Lumumba, the international establishment had quite effectively colluded with its “local handlers.” The most prominent of them was Joseph Kasa-Vubu, the first president of Congo (from 1960 until 1965). The Western powers and Western media loved him and spoke very highly of him.

The next was Moïse Kapenda Tshombe, a businessman and politician with very strong business connections with the metropolitan world. He served as president of the secessionist state of Katanga from 1960 to 1963 and as prime minister of Congo from 1964 to 1965.

The most important of the triumvirate that conspired to oust Lumumba was Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (October 1930 – September 7, 1997). Mobutu was a military officer-turned politician. He was the president of Congo from 1965 to 1971, and later Zaire from 1971 to 1997. He also served as chairman of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968.

During the Congo Crisis, Mobutu, then chief of the army staff, deposed Lumumba in 1960. He was supported by Belgium and the United States. Mobutu helped install a government that arranged for Lumumba’s execution in the early 1961. He continued to lead the country’s armed forces until he took power in a second coup in 1965. He was the longest-serving dictator and once, one of the richest men in the world.

Post script:

I profoundly regret an error in my piece published in TNS on June 26. I was quoting Dr Absar Ahmad who wrote about Dr Gulzar Haider, who “writes enlightening pieces under the rubric of Distant Thunder.” Those writings of Dr Haider had been published in a magazine called Afkar Inquiry.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore