Congo (43 page)

Jean Mayani was a warm supporter who spoke just as fervently of Lumumba in 2008 as he had in 1958. I listened to him for one whole morning at his house in Kabando, a borough of Kisangani. As early as 1959 he had served as MNC party secretary for his district; one year later he was Lumumba’s chief deputy during the municipal elections. Mayani spoke clearly and analytically:

Listen, there was no extreme racism back then, but there was a clear division. In the shops, in the neighborhoods, in the schools, and even in the graveyards there was a form of apartheid. We were very impressed by the
évolués
who had a certificate of civil merit or a registration card. They enjoyed social advantages, they went to the European schools. But still, what a difference with the colonial policies of the French! The blacks in the French colonies could go to France to study. [Léopold Sédar] Senghor [later president of Senegal] was a member of parliament in Paris and became a deputy minister. So I was very interested in the MNC’s arguments. In 1958 I was one of the first supporters here in Kisangani. I still remember the first meetings in the
cité
. We met at bars and sports parks. Lumumba talked about the history and the outrages of colonization. He was truly, unbelievably courageous. He told things the way they were: the suffering, the banishment of Kimbanguists, the racial hatred, the lack of humanity, the forced labor in the mines, road construction, and the railroad. The crowds became completely enraptured by a leader like that.
³⁹

Old Raphaël Maindo agreed completely. He thought back to those days nostalgically. “When Lumumba spoke, no one wanted to go away. Even when it was raining, even at night, the people stayed and listened.” Unlike Jean Mayani, he had not been a party leader, but a grassroots militant: he sold membership cards. “That was very easy. Everyone wanted one. Even women joined. I held membership card number 4. They cost twenty francs, the same price all over the country. We traveled everywhere, sometimes seven hundred kilometers (430 miles) away. We had cars.”
⁴⁰
For many Congolese, buying one of those cards was more than a political act, it was an impassioned form of self-confirmation and pride.

In December 1958 Lumumba went to Ndijili, Léopoldville’s airport. He was on his way to the Ghanese capital of Accra. One year earlier Ghana had become the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence. President Kwame Nkrumah enjoyed a heroic status that extended from Senegal to Mozambique. He was the embodiment of Pan-Africanism, the dream of a free and peaceful Africa joined in solidarity, which was why he had called together leaders and thinkers from all over the continent. Kasavubu went to the airport too, but the customs service—probably with forethought—balked at accepting his vaccination card: the colonial government had not forgotten his incendiary speech at the mayoral inauguration. Lumumba and two of his confidants were the only Congolese representatives in Ghana. The Accra Conference made a deep impression on him, more than any book he had read. He spoke there with intellectuals and activists and saw that they were interested in what he had to say. He encountered Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda, the future presidents of Tanzania and Zambia respectively, and [Ahmed] Sékou Touré, the first president of Guinea-Conakry. The social-climbing
évolué
of yore became a self-aware African, proud of his roots, his country, and the color of his skin. The Belgian Congo seemed to Lumumba more and more like an anachronism that kept the people under its thumb for no valid reason. He would liberate his country from fear and shame.

I
T IS
J
ANUARY
4, 1959, and it is bitterly cold in Brussels. A quiet Sunday morning, frozen solid. The streets are covered in a treacherous layer of sleet. There is almost no traffic. Down the chic tree-lined streets of Elsene, close to the abbey of Ter Kameren, a car rolls slowly past the stately homes. Behind the wheel is Jef Van Bilsen, the man whose thirty-year plan has—according to many—unleashed the hounds of hell. But he is also the Belgian with the best contacts among the Congolese elite. Almost no one is better informed about what is going on among the
évolués
than he. Early that same morning, he had received a call from Arthur Gilson, the Belgian minister of defense, with the urgent request to come to his home. Gilson has spent the entire weekend after New Year’s fretting over the text of a government white paper. During the final months of 1958, a government task force had traveled throughout Congo, taking inventory of the population’s wishes. A laudable initiative, except for the fact that there was not a single Congolese in the group. Their report was nonetheless intended to result in a forceful statement that would outline the foundations for a new colonial policy. A number of cabinet ministers had reviewed the text during the Christmas holidays, but were stymied. As was the defense minister. Perhaps Van Bilsen could take a look at it? On that peaceful Sunday morning in the minister’s study, Van Bilsen tries to explain that such a crucial statement is useless unless it speaks of independence and proposes a concrete date on which that is to take place. The minister is flabbergasted. “What followed was a discussion, or something that more closely resembled a mummery, concerning what was deemed desirable from a Congolese point of view and what was feasible from a Belgian point of view,” Van Bilsen says later.
⁴¹
The deadlock remains unresolved. Without having achieved what he came for, he shuffles back to his car.

It is January 4, 1959, and it is blazing hot in Léopoldville. The rainy season is not over, not by a long shot; the air is sticky and close. At the governor general’s residence, everything is being prepared for the annual New Year’s reception in the garden.
⁴²
Glasses are being polished, tasks handed out. The new governor general’s name is Rik Cornelis, he does not yet know that he will be the last. Some Belgians are still in bed, sleeping in after a late night of dancing at the Palace or De Galiema. Others are enjoying a breakfast of bread and strawberry jam. The more adventuresome among them have already been for a swim, or played tennis at the
cercle sportif
(country club). It is going to be a stylish reception. A few Congolese have also been invited, as is fitting within the philosophy of the Belgian-Congolese Community. A few of the native mayors will be there. In his New Year’s address, the governor general will undoubtedly talk about the major challenges of the coming year. The champagne will flow, the crystal will gleam. Speakers will “express hope” and “underscore faith,” and many will speak of “mutual understanding,” all of course “in a spirit of friendship.”

It is January 4, 1959, and a few kilometers across town, in Bandalungwa, a housing tract recently built for for
évolués
, Patrice Lumumba has been invited to dine at the home of a new friend. During his time in prison, he had regularly read articles in the newspaper
Actualités Africaines
by a certain Joseph Mobutu, the soldier who became a journalist and visited the Expo. After his release, Lumumba makes friends with him. He goes to visit his home regularly and enjoys the splendid meals Mobutu’s wife makes for them. During this Sunday lunch, the two make plans for that afternoon. At two o’clock, at the YMCA in the center of the
cité
, they know that the Abako has planned a meeting. Last week, Lumumba spoke to a crowd of seven thousand listeners about his trip to Accra. It was his best performance yet. The people were wildly enthusiastic. Afterward, the crowd had chanted “Dipenda, dipenda!” a corruption in Lingala of the word “independence.” That is probably why the city’s first mayor, the Belgian Jean Tordeur, has decided at the last minute to ban today’s meeting. A security measure; he doesn’t feel like dealing with rabble-rousers. Lumumba and Mobutu decide to go and take a look anyway. They don’t have a car, but Mobutu has a scooter. That is the image on which we will freeze: Mobutu and Lumumba, together on the scooter, two new friends, the journalist and the beer marketer; one is twenty-eight, the other thirty-three. Lumumba is sitting on the back. They ride together in the muggy afternoon air and talk loudly, to be heard above the sputtering of the exhaust.
⁴³
Two years later, one of them will help to murder the other.

It is January 4, 1959, and the crowd is flowing into the Stade Roi Baudouin for a major match in the Congolese soccer competition. The huge stadium is only a few hundred meters from the YMCA. Twenty thousand supporters have come from far and near.
⁴⁴
They are wearing colorful shirts and
pagnes
. Some of them have feathers in their hair and stripes painted on their faces, like in the old days, broad white stripes of clay that glisten in bright contrast to their cheeks and foreheads. They dance defiantly, wide-eyed. It is frightening to see. The steep concrete grandstands around the field fill with people and rhythmic beats. There are tom-toms and drums, whooping and screeching. It’s as though there’s a war on. It’s like the banks of the Congo in the 1870s, when Stanley and his men first sailed by in their metal boat. The throb of the war drum, the thousands of enraged voices, the dancing that grows wilder all the time, the eyes of the warrior. In the catacombs of the stadium the players tighten their shoelaces and slide shin guards into their socks. Elsewhere in the city, at the governor’s residence, the champagne bottles have been removed from the cooler and are lined up, sweating in the sun.

It is still January 4, 1959, and on Avenue Prince Baudouin, close to the YMCA, Kasavubu tells the drummed-up crowd that the meeting, unfortunately, has been canceled. There are loud murmurs and protest, pushing and shoving. As a pacifist and admirer of Gandhi, he urges his supporters to remain calm. That seems to work, even without a microphone. He is the leader, he is the chief, he is the mayor. Relieved and reassured, he returns home.

But it is January 4, 1959, the day that everything changes, although you wouldn’t say so yet. Congo is going along with the times, it seems. Léopoldville is the second city in the world with a gyrobus, an electric bus with antennae on the roof that charges its motor at the stops. The first city with such futuristic public transport was in Switzerland, but now these buses zoom around the
cité
too.
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A few thousand Abako supporters remain moping around the spot where their meeting was to have been held. A white gyrobus driver gets into an argument with one of them and raises his fist. Futurism meets racism. Right away, the blows rain down on him. The genie has left the bottle. There are fistfights, there is shoving. The police arrive, black constables, white commissioners. It’s because of New Year’s, the police think, the people are still drunk or already broke, one of the two. Two commissioners deal out punches. That is not a good idea. “Dipenda!” the cry goes up. “Attaquons les blancs! Let’s get the white men!” Panic breaks out. The police fire warning shots in the air. Farther along, one of their jeeps is overturned and set on fire. At that moment the soccer stadium empties out—commotion, ecstasy, frustration, sweat—and the supporters join in with those who had been waiting to attend the Abako meeting. Soccer is gunpowder. In 1830 Belgium became independent after an opera performance; in 1959 Congo demands independence after a soccer match. A scooter comes racing up, with two young men on it. They can’t believe their eyes. In the last few years, both of them have worked their way up by educating themselves, but now they see the rage of the masses from which they have withdrawn. They no longer look down on them, as
évolués
are wont to do, but feel a sense of solidarity. The elite and the masses have found each other at last.

Léopoldville at that moment has four hundred thousand inhabitants, twenty-five thousand of whom are Europeans. There is a bare-bones police force of only 1,380 officers.
⁴⁶
There is no national guard. The very next level of law enforcement is the army. The city’s barracks house some twenty-five hundred troops, but they have been trained to wage war abroad, not to repress uprisings among their own people. The police do their best to handle things, but within a few hours the entire
cité
is in an uproar. Cars belonging to white people are covered by a downpour of stones. Windows shatter. Fires break out everywhere. The police turn their guns on the demonstrators. Puddles of dark blood gather on the asphalt, reflecting the flames. Thousands and thousands of young people begin looting. All things Belgian become their targets. Catholic churches and mission schools are vandalized; neighborhood centers where sewing classes are held are stripped. Around five o’clock, a few youth gangs descend on the shops belonging to the Greeks and the Portuguese, places where the people otherwise do their shopping. The looters strike ruthlessly and run off with meters of floral fabrics, bicycles, radios, salt, and dried fish.

At the governor general’s New Year’s reception, the telephone rings. “Ça tourne mal dans la cité. Things are getting ugly down in the
cité
.” Heavy rioting has broken out in a zone ten or twelve kilometers (about 6.2 to 7.5 miles) long. The city’s European district has been locked down. The army moves in, first with tear gas, then with guns. Demonstrators are being mowed down. “That was like using a hammer to kill a mosquito,” people realized afterward.
⁴⁷
Some of the colonials, however, are so furious that they take their hunting rifles down off the wall to go out and “help.” Years of piled-up contempt and fear, especially the latter, burst loose. At around six, when darkness falls, relative calm descends on the city. The fires smolder on. At the European hospital, dozens of white people show up for treatment. Outside, before the door, their elegant cars are parked in the darkness, dented, scratched, and ruined. At the villas, for the first time in years, the women have to do their own cooking: the boy has disappeared completely.