“We are not your monkeys anymore”
The Centre Tricontinental has described the historical resistance of the Congolese in the dossier The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth (the Congolese people struggle for their wealth) (July 2024, No. 77). During the colonialism, the panic among the peasants by the Force Publique of Belgium was responded collectively by attacking the plantations and railway stations.
In 1915, led by spiritual leader María N’koi, they rose up to fight colonial taxes. The authorities arrested and exiled N’koi and the rebels had to take refuge in the mountain. In the Katanga mines, the colonizers feared that the recruited slave miners would become working-class conscious. To avoid this, they used genocidal violence based on the myth of African “barbarism”, but “the African working class continued to grow.”
The newly appointed Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), denounced in his first speech 80 years of oppression, before Belgian King Boudewijn, and said clearly: “We are not your monkeys anymore”
In 1940, Germany occupied Belgium and revolutionized the idea that the European metropolis was invincible. Until then, the Congolese called the Belgian state Bula Matadi (“The Breaking Stone”, nickname of Henry Morton Stanley). In 1941 they started a strike at the Kikole mine in Katanga: “If the blacks in Kenya and America have defeated the whites in Europe, why can’t we defeat them here?” they said. By the end of the Second World War, the discontent of the citizens was general. By the end of the 1950s, Belgium had completely lost control over its colony. On 30 June 1960, the British gained independence.
The newly appointed Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), denounced in his first speech 80 years of oppression, before Belgian King Boudewijn, and said clearly: “We are no longer your monkeys.” Lumumba's attitude in defense of social justice seemed not to like too much the Americans and Belgians with interests in the mines of the Congo, and the leftist leader was tortured and removed with the help of the CIA and the Belgian secret services.
The murders of Lumumba, the provisional secession of Katanga, the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko... failed to put an end to the message. Today, Centre Tricontinental notes that the struggle for real sovereignty and dignity continues, even more so when “an innovative Pan-Afrikanism is transforming West Africa.” The dossier reminds Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), the Caribbean anti-colonialist revolutionary: “The fate of all of us is at stake in the Congo.”
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