Let’s do a trip down memory lane. Several years ago we published a post on the song “Les Immortels” / “The Immortals“ written and composed by the late Congolese singer Franklin Boukaka. The song honored the great Moroccan leader Mehdi Ben Barka, African resistants, and world revolutionaries. For those who do not know or remember Franklin Boukaka, you have probably heard his song “Aye Africa” which has been repeated by so many singers on the continent (one of my favorite renditions is the one by the group Bisso na Bisso). Franklin Boukaka was a freedom fighter, a poet, composer, activist, and fought for the independence of Africa both politically and in all his songs. He was ahead of his time, and a new patriot. So sad that he was murdered during the coup that deposed Ange Diawara during the night of 23-24 February 1972. He was clearly a threat to many.
Mehdi Ben Barka
As the title says it all, The Immortals honors our great leaders of the past, those who fought for our liberties, and who have become martyrs. They are now immortal. The song was so popular in those days that it was sung in schools. No wonder Boukaka was murdered for this. Please find below, the English version. Enjoy!
« The Immortals » by Franklin Boukaka
Africa mobimba e ……… The whole of Africa Tokangi maboko e …….. crossed her arms Tozali kotala e …….. We observed powerless Bana basili na kokende … The loss of her children Bana basili na kotekama e … The traffic of her children Na banguna a ……………… near ennemies Tolati mokuya ata maloba te … Silent, we have carried the black veil of mourning Congo na bana Africa baleli … Congo and Africa burst into tears
(2X) Oh O Mehdi Ben Barka … Oh ! Mehdi Ben Barka Mehdi nzela na yo ya bato nyonso … Mehdi, your way is that of all humanity Mehdi nzela na yo ya Lumumba … Mehdi, your way is that of Lumumba Mehdi nzela na yo ya Che Guevara … Mehdi, your way is that of Che Guevara Mehdi nzela na yo ya Malcolm X … Mehdi, your way is that of Malcolm X Mehdi nzela na yo ya Um Nyobé … Mehdi, your way is that of Um Nyobé Mehdi nzela na yo ya Felix Moumié … Mehdi, your way is that of Felix Moumié Mehdi nzela na yo ya Nguyen Van Choi … Mehdi, your way is that of Nguyen Van Choi Mehdi nzela na yo ya Tsoroki … Mehdi, your way is that of Tsoroki Mehdi nzela na yo ya Camilo CienFuegos … Mehdi, your way is that of Camilo CienFuegos Mehdi nzela na yo ya Hoji Ya Henda … Mehdi, your way is that of Hoji Ya Henda Mehdi nzela na yo ya Camilo Torres … Mehdi, your way is that of Camilo Torres Mehdi nzela na yo ya Abdel Kader … Mehdi, your way is that of Abdel Kader Mehdi nzela na yo ya Coulibaly … Mehdi, your way is that of Coulibaly Mehdi nzela na yo ya André Matsoua … Mehdi, your way is that of André Matsoua Mehdi nzela na yo ya Simon Kibangu… Mehdi, your way is that of Simon Kibangu Mehdi nzela na yo ya Albert Luthuli… Mehdi, your way is that of Albert Luthuli Mehdi nzela na yo ya Boganda … Mehdi, your way is that of Boganda Oh ya Tiers-monde … Oh ! Third world Oh ya libération ya ba peuple … Oh ! that of the liberation of the people
Words: An old man, whom I consider always young, said to me one day : « My son, all men should die one day ; but not all deaths have the same meaning »
In1890, George Washington Williams wrote an open letter to King Leopold II about the atrocities being committed in his name in the Congo in the exploitation of rubber: it took the proportions of a genocide, as almost15 million peoplewere maimed or murdered at the hands of King Leopold II. To read the full letter, please consultBlackPast. Below are some excerpts from the letter.
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George Washington Williams, “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo By Colonel, The Honorable Geo. W. Williams, of the United States of America,” 1890
Good and Great Friend,
King Leopold II
I have the honour to submit for your Majesty’s consideration some reflections respecting the Independent State of Congo, based upon a careful study and inspection of the country and character of the personal Government you have established upon the African Continent.
It afforded me great pleasure to avail myself of the opportunity afforded me last year, of visiting your State in Africa; and how thoroughly I have been disenchanted, disappointed and disheartened, it is now my painful duty to make known to your Majesty in plain but respectful language. Every charge which I am about to bring against your Majesty’s personal Government in the Congo has been carefully investigated; a list of competent and veracious witnesses, documents, letters, official records and datahas been faithfully prepared, which will be deposited with Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, until such time as an International Commission can be created with power to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, and attest the truth or falsity of these charges.
Map of Congo by Stanley
… When I arrived in the Congo, I naturally sought for the results of the brilliant programme: “fostering care”, “benevolent enterprise”, an “honest and practical effort” to increase the knowledge of the natives “and secure their welfare”. I had never been able to conceive of Europeans, establishing a government in a tropical country, without building a hospital; and yet from the mouth of the Congo River to its head-waters, here at the seventh cataract, a distance of 1,448 miles, there is not a solitary hospital for Europeans, and only three sheds for sick Africans in the service of the State, not fit to be occupied by a horse [“Afrique 50” The First French Anti-Colonization Documentary]. …
I was anxious to see to what extent the natives had “adopted the fostering care” of your Majesty’s “benevolent enterprise” (?), and I was doomed to bitter disappointment. Instead of the natives of the Congo “adopting the fostering care” of your Majesty’s Government, they everywhere complain that their land has been taken from them by force; that the Government is cruel and arbitrary, and declare that they neither love nor respect the Government and its flag. Your Majesty’s Government has sequestered their land, burned their towns, stolen their property, enslaved their women and children, and committed other crimes too numerous to mention in detail. It is natural that they everywhere shrink from “the fostering care” your Majesty’s Government so eagerly proffers them.
There has been, to my absolute knowledge, no “honest and practical effort made to increase their knowledge and secure their welfare.” Your Majesty’s Government has never spent one franc for educational purposes, nor instituted any practical system of industrialism. Indeed the most unpractical measures have been adopted against the natives in nearly every respect; and in the capital of your Majesty’s Government at Boma there is not a native employed. …
… From these general observations I wish now to pass to specific charges against your Majesty’s Government.
Map of the Congo Free State in 1892
FIRST.—Your Majesty’s Government is deficient in the moral military and financial strength, necessary to govern a territory of 1,508,000 square miles, 7,251 miles of navigation, and 31,694 square miles of lake surface. In the Lower Congo River there is but One post, in the cataract region one. From Leopoldville to N’Gombe, a distance of more than 300 miles, there is not a single soldier or civilian. Not one out of every twenty State-officials know the language of the natives, although they are constantly issuing laws, difficult even for Europeans, and expect the natives to comprehend and obey them. …
SECOND.—Your Majesty’s Government has established nearly fifty posts, consisting of from two to eight mercenary slave-soldiers from the East Coast. … These piratical, buccaneering posts compel the natives to furnish them with fish, goats, fowls, and vegetables at the mouths of their muskets; and whenever the natives refuse to feed these vampires, they report to the main station and white officers come with an expeditionary force and burn away the homes of the natives. These black soldiers, many of whom are slaves, exercise the power of life and death. They are ignorant and cruel, because they do not comprehend the natives; they are imposed upon them by the State. They make no report as to the number of robberies they commit, or the number of lives they take; they are only required to subsist upon the natives and thus relieve your Majesty’s Government of the cost of feeding them. They are the greatest curse the country suffers now.
THIRD.—Your Majesty’s Government is guilty of violating its contracts made with its soldiers, mechanics and workmen, many of whom are subjects of other Governments. Their letters never reach home.
FOURTH.—The Courts of your Majesty’s Government are abortive, unjust, partial and delinquent. I have personally witnessed and examined their clumsy operations. The laws printed and circulated in Europe “for the Protection of the blacks” in the Congo, are a dead letter and a fraud. …
Picture of men holding cut-off hands (image by Alice S. Harris in Baringa 1904)
FIFTH—Your Majesty’s Government is excessively cruel to its prisoners, condemning them, for the slightest offences, to the chain gang, the like of which can not be seen in any other Government in the civilized or uncivilized world. … But the cruelties visited upon soldiers and workmen are not to be compared with the sufferings of the poor natives who, upon the slightest pretext, are thrust into the wretched prisons here in the Upper River. …
SIXTH.—Women are imported into your Majesty’s Government for immoral purposes. They are introduced by two methods, viz., black men are dispatched to the Portuguese coast where they engage these women as mistresses of white men, who pay to the procurer a monthly sum. The other method is by capturing native women and condemning them to seven years’ servitude for some imaginary crime against the State with which the villages of these women are charged. The State then hires these women out to the highest bidder, the officers having the first choice and then the men. Whenever children are born of such relations, the State maintains that the women being its property the child belongs to it also. …
SEVENTH.—Your Majesty’s Government is engaged in trade and commerce, competing with the organised trade companies of Belgium, England, France, Portugal and Holland. It taxes all trading companies and exempts its own goods from export-duty, and makes many of its officers ivory-traders, with the promise of a liberal commission upon all they can buy or get for the State. State soldiers patrol many villages forbidding the natives to trade with any person but a State official, and when the natives refuse to accept the price of the State, their goods are seized by the Government that promised them “protection”. When natives have persisted in trading with the trade-companies the State has punished their independence by burning the villages in the vicinity of the trading houses and driving the natives away.
EIGHTH.—Your Majesty’s Government has violated the General Act of the Conference of Berlin by firing upon native canoes; by confiscating the property of natives; by intimidating native traders, and preventing them from trading with white trading companies; by quartering troops in native villages when there is no war; … by permitting the natives to carry on the slave- trade, and by engaging in the wholesale and retail slave-trade itself.
NINTH.—-Your Majesty’s Government has been, and is now, guilty of waging unjust and cruel wars against natives, with the hope of securing slaves and women, to minister to the behests of the officers of your Government. In such slave-hunting raids one village is armed by the State against the other, and the force thus secured is incorporated with the regular troops. …
TENTH.—Your Majesty’s Government is engaged in the slave-trade, wholesale and retail. It buys and sells and steals slaves. … The labour force at the stations of your Majesty’s Government in the Upper River is composed of slaves of all ages and both sexes.
ELEVENTH.—Your Majesty’s Government has concluded a contract with the Arab Governor at this place for the establishment of a line of military posts from the Seventh Cataract to Lake Tanganyika territory to which your Majesty has no more legal claim, than I have to be Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian army. …
Henry Morton Stanley, whose exploration of the Congo region at Leopold’s invitation led to the establishment of the Congo Free State under personal sovereignty
TWELFTH—The agents of your Majesty’s Government have misrepresented the Congo country and the Congo railway. Mr. H. M. STANLEY, the man who was your chief agent in setting up your authority in this country, has grossly misrepresented the character of the country. Instead of it being fertile and productive it is sterile and unproductive. The natives can scarcely subsist upon the vegetable life produced in some parts of the country. … HENRY M. STANLEY’S name produces a shudder among this simple folk when mentioned; they remember his broken promises, his copious profanity, his hot temper, his heavy blows, his severe and rigorous measures, by which they were mulcted of their lands. His last appearance in the Congo produced a profound sensation among them, … the only thing they found in the wake of his march was misery. …
CONCLUSIONS Against the deceit, fraud, robberies, arson, murder, slave-raiding, and general policy of cruelty of your Majesty’s Government to the natives, stands their record of unexampled patience, long-suffering and forgiving spirit, which put the boasted civilisation and professed religion of your Majesty’s Government to the blush. …
All the crimes perpetrated in the Congo have been done in your name, and you must answer at the bar of Public Sentiment for the misgovernment of a people, whose lives and fortunes were entrusted to you by the august Conference of Berlin, 1884—1 885. I now appeal to the Powers which committed this infant State to your Majesty’s charge, and to the great States which gave it international being; and whose majestic law you have scorned and trampled upon, to call and create an International Commission to investigate the charges herein preferred in the name of Humanity, Commerce, Constitutional Government and Christian Civilisation.
I base this appeal upon the terms of Article 36 of Chapter VII of the General Act of the Conference of Berlin, in which that august assembly of Sovereign States reserved to themselves the right “to introduce into it later and by common accord the modifications or ameliorations, the utility of which may be demonstrated experience”.
Painting of George Washington Williams addressing the Ohio State Legislature. Williams was the first African-American elected to the Ohio State Legislature, serving one term 1880 to 1881 (Source: Ohio Statehouse, Wikipedia)
I appeal to the Belgian people and to their Constitutional Government, so proud of its traditions, replete with the song and story of its champions of human liberty, and so jealous of its present position in the sisterhood of European States—to cleanse itself from the imputation of the crimes with which your Majesty’s personal State of Congo is polluted.
I appeal to Anti-Slavery Societies in all parts of Christendom, to Philanthropists, Christians, Statesmen, and to the great mass of people everywhere, to call upon the Governments of Europe, to hasten the close of the tragedy your Majesty’s unlimited Monarchy is enacting in the Congo.
I appeal to our Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect love, in witness of the purity of my motives and the integrity of my aims; and to history and mankind I appeal for the demonstration and vindication of the truthfulness of the charge I have herein briefly outlined.
And all this upon the word of honour of a gentleman, I subscribe myself your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant,
The world came to know the truth about King Leopold II, the Belgian King who killed millions of Congolese, thanks to George Washington Williams, an African American missionary, lawyer, and writer, who visited the Congo. It is said that King Leopold II must have executed and maimed over 15 million Congolese people!
Painting of George Washington Williams addressing the Ohio State Legislature. Williams was the first African-American elected to the Ohio State Legislature, serving one term 1880 to 1881 (Source: Ohio Statehouse, Wikipedia)
George Washington Williams is an unsung hero who in today’s terms would be called a whistle blower. He was born free in 1849 in the state of Pennsylvania in America to free African American parents. He ran away at an early age and served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was an American soldier, historian, Baptist clergyman, politician, lawyer, and lecturer. He served in the Ohio General Assembly from 1880 to 1881, becoming the first African American to be elected to the Ohio State Legislature. He was the first person to write an objective, researched history of Blacks in America. His first book, History of the Negro Race in America (1882), is one of the most important contributions any American has made to the field, as he showed African American participation and contributions from the earliest days of the colonies. He wrote other books on the history of the United States Colored Troops and African-American participation in the American Civil War, A History of Negro Troops in the War of Rebellion (1887).
In The Rubber Coils. Scene – The Congo ‘Free’ State” Linley Sambourne depicts King Leopold II of Belgium as a snake entangling a congolese rubber collector
In the late 1880s, after meeting King Leopold II of Belgium in Europe and being impressed by his ‘benevolent enterprise’ in the Congo, Williams traveled to the Congo Free State, then a property of the King, in 1890. He was shocked by the widespread brutal abuses, atrocities, forced labor, torture, murder, kidnapping, physical mutilation, and slavery imposed on the Congolese for the rubber quota. The king employed a private militia to enforce rubber production, back then rubber was like gold. What Williams witnessed was so outrageous that he wrote “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo” on July 18, 1890 about the suffering of the Congolese people. In his letter, he used the term “crimes against humanity,” term used for the first time, and it became a catalyst for an international outcry against the brutality of King Leopold II. He followed the open letter by “A Report Upon the Congo-State and Country to the President of the Republic of the United States.” In the letter, he mentioned the role played by explorer Henry Morton Stanley in deceiving and maltreating the local Congolese; to think that some places were even named after Stanley such as Stanleyville – now Kisangani and Stanley Falls – now Boyoma Falls! Williams reminded the King that the crimes committed were all committed in his name, making him as guilty as the perpetrators. He appealed to the international community of the day to “call and create an International Commission to investigate the charges herein preferred in the name of Humanity …“.
George Washington Williams (Source: Wikipedia)
Like with all whistle blowers in history, King Leopold II and his supporters tried to discredit Williams, but Williams continued to speak out about the abuses in the Congo Free State, helping to generate actions in Belgium and the international community. Unfortunately, George Washington Williams died just a year after, in 1891, while traveling from Africa to England. However, the seeds he planted with his open letter led the Belgian government to take over supervising the Congo Free State and to try to improve treatment of the Congolese. The Congo Free State was then reconstituted as a new territory, the Belgian Congo, which as history goes did not fare much better.
It is no secret that Aimé Césaire, the father of the Négritude movement, was a prolific author and poet. He published over 100 poems, each one more unique than the other. Césaire was not only responsible for Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, a widely acclaimed masterpiece read throughout schools in Africa today, which documented the 20th-century colonial condition, but he was also an accomplished playwright. In what Césaire describes as his “triptych” of plays, La Tragédie du roi Christophe (The Tragedy of King Christophe, another one read in schools), Une Saison au Congo (A Season in the Congo, another masterpiece), and Une Tempête (The Tempest), he explores a series of related themes, especially the efforts of Blacks—whether in Africa, the United States, or the Caribbean—to resist the powers of colonial domination. Like his poetry and polemical essays, Césaire’s plays explore the paradox of Black identity under French colonial rule.
The poem below “The Woman and The Flame” by Aimé Césaire, Solar Throat Slashed: The Unexpurgated 1948 Edition, is from published by Wesleyan University Press, and translated to English by Clayton Eshleman. Enjoy!
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African Venus, a sculpture by Charles-Henri Joseph Cordier 1851 (Source: Walters Art Museum)
“The Woman and the Flame” by Aimé Césaire
A bit of light that descends the springhead of a gaze twin shadow of the eyelash and the rainbow on a face and round about who goes there angelically ambling Woman the current weather the current weather matters little to me my life is always ahead of a hurricane you are the morning that swoops down on the lamp a night stone between its teeth you are the passage of seabirds as well you who are the wind through the salty ipomeas of consciousness insinuating yourself from another world Woman you are a dragon whose lovely color is dispersed and darkens so as to constitute the inevitable tenor of things I am used to brush fires I am used to ashen bush rats and the bronze ibis of the flame Woman binder of the foresail gorgeous ghost helmet of algae of eucalyptus dawn isn’t it and in the abandon of the ribbands very savory swimmer
Every June30, we commemorate the “independence” of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by posting a speech or letter by its first prime minister Patrice Emery Lumumba. The word independence is placed in quotes because we know that independence cha-cha never really occurred and that many African countries including the DRC are still suffering from the sequels of neo-colonialism.
Patrice Lumumba gave the speech below on December 11, 1958 in Accra, Ghana, at a conference sponsored by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president who also succumbed to imperialism. In his speech, all the evils that plague Congolese and African societies are cited: Western domination, external domination, balkanization of the Congolese territory (and Africa), and all the ‘ism‘ that undermine the unity of Africa. His speech is still very current today. The speech can be found in its entirety on Blackpast.org.
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Kwame Nkrumah
On December 11, 1958, 34 year old Patrice Lumumba, president of the Congolese National Movement, spoke at the Assembly of African Peoples, an international Pan African Conference sponsored by Kwame Nkrumah, the Prime Minister of newly independent Ghana. His remarks appear below. Two years later Lumumba would become the first Prime Minister of the Congo.
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Our Program of Action
The Congolese National Movement, which we represent at this great conference, is a political movement, founded on October 5, 1958.
This date marks a decisive step for the Congolese people as they move toward emancipation. I am happy to say that the birth of our movement was warmly received by the people for this reason.
The fundamental aim of our movement is to free the Congolese people from the colonialist regime and earn them their independence.
Flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo
We base our action on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man — rights guaranteed to each and every citizen of humanity by the United Nations Charter — and we are of the opinion that the Congo, as a human society, has the right to join the ranks of free peoples.
We wish to see a modern democratic state established in our country, which will grant its citizens freedom, justice, social peace, tolerance, well-being, and equality, with no discrimination whatsoever.
In a motion we recently transmitted to the minister of the Congo in Brussels, we clearly stipulated — as did many other compatriots of ours — that the Congo could no longer be treated as a colony to be either exploited or settled, and that its attainment of independence was the sine qua non condition of peace.
In our actions aimed at winning the independence of the Congo, we have repeatedly proclaimed that we are against no one, but rather are simply against domination, injustices and abuses, and merely want to free ourselves of the shackles of colonialism and all its consequences.
These injustices and the stupid superiority complex that the colonialists make such a display of, are the causes of the drama of the West in Africa, as is clearly evident from the disturbing reports of the other delegates.
Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Along with this struggle for national liberation waged with calm and dignity, our movement opposes, with every power at its command, the balkanization of national territory under any pretext whatsoever.
From all the speeches that have preceded ours, something becomes obvious that is, to say the least, odd, and that all colonized people have noticed: the proverbial patience and good-heartedness that Africans have given proof of for thousands of years, despite persecution, extortions, discrimination, segregation, and tortures of every sort.
The winds of freedom currently blowing across all of Africa have not left the Congolese people indifferent. Political awareness, which until very recently was latent, is now becoming manifest and assuming outward expression, and it will assert itself even more forcefully in the months to come. We are thus assured of the support of the masses and of the success of the efforts we are undertaking.
This historical conference, which puts us in contact with experienced political figures from all the African countries and from all over the world, reveals one thing to us: despite the boundaries that separate us, despite our ethnic differences, we have the same awareness, the same soul plunged day and night in anguish, the same anxious desire to make this African continent a free and happy continent that has rid itself of unrest and of fear and of any sort of colonialist domination.
Lumumba on a USSR commemorative stamp in 1961
We are particularly happy to see that this conference has set as its objective the struggle against all the internal and external factors standing in the way of the emancipation of our respective countries and the unification of Africa.
Among these factors, the most important are colonialism, imperialism, tribalism, and religious separatism, all of which seriously hinder the flowering of a harmonious and fraternal African society.
This is why we passionately cry out with all the delegates:
Down with colonialism and imperialism!
Down with racism and tribalism!
And long live the Congolese nation, long live independent Africa!
For anyone who has been watching the acclaimed series, The Chosen about the life of Jesus, projects from the Angel Studios are always of great quality. An upcoming series coming from the Angel Studios will be the series, The German King directed by Adetokunboh M’Cormack, entirely based on the life of Rudolf Duala Manga Bell, one of the resistants to German colonization, as a young prince born in Kamerun, raised in Germany alongside Kaiser Wilhelm II, and who fought for the freedom of his people upon his return. When Rudolf Duala Manga Bell returned home to assume the throne of the Duala people in 1910, he led a rebellion against the oppressive German rule. In 1910, the German governor of Kamerun, Theodor Seitz, approved an urbanization project for the city of Douala (Kamerunstadt had been renamed Douala) set to turn it into one of the largest ports of Africa. The project outlined a plan to relocate the Douala people inland from the Wouri river to allow European-only settlement of the area (European-Only Neighborhoods in African Cities before Independence). Neighborhoods such as Neu Bell, Neu Akwa, and Neu Deido were to be created for the indigenous people; these new allotments were going to be separated from the ‘European city’ by a barrier 1 km wide (early version of apartheid!). The expropriations affected most of the Douala clans, who were angered and formed a united front behind Manga Bell. Rudolf Duala immediately refused, and told the Germans that the treaty signed in 1884 did not stipulate the removal/expulsion of the locals from their lands, and that this separation constituted a form of apartheid. For his rebellion, Duala Manga Bell was later condemned and hanged in 1914.
Rudolf Douala Manga Bell, Leader of Douala people
A poignant scene from the movie is where Rudolf’s wife tells him, as he is torn, having grown with Kaiser Wilhelm II whom he considers a friend and brother: “Wilhelm is not your family! Your family is here! You may talk like them, act like them, dress like them, but you will never be them. Your skin will always be the color of the rich Cameroonian soil, and they will always walk over it, as if they own it. … Rudolf, you do this so that your sons, and your sons’ sons, and their sons will have a land they can call their own.”
I cannot wait for the series to come out, as it shows a very important part of the history of Kamerun during German colonization as well as other leaders like Sultan Njoya, Martin Paul Samba, and others. Please check out the story on the Angel Studios’ website, and above all, do not forget to support the project. Let us all celebrate Rudolph Douala Manga Bell, the Tét’èkombo (the king of kings), a uniter of Cameroon (already reaching out to other kings), and one of Cameroon’s biggest resistant.
Ni John Fru Ndi, the major political opponent to the current president of Cameroon for almost 3 decades has passed away. Affectionately called “The Chairman,” John Fru Ndi came up at the twilight of the National Conference in Cameroon with the creation of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) in 1990. Over the years, his party came to symbolize hope in a place where there had been no ‘real’ leadership change in over 30 years. His party was seen as the main opposition party to the government for over 2 decades. He was unavoidable in the political arena, and ran for president several times. He came close to winning in theOctober 1992 presidential election, but through some constitutional gymnastics and some play by the Supreme court (always) his win was pulverized and given to the governing party. The Supreme Court judge who heard his petition alleging fraud, said his “hands were tied” – and let the official results granting victory to incumbent Paul Biya, with 40% of the vote, stand. This caused great upset among SDF supporters and Fru Ndi was placed under house arrest for three months in his home in Bamenda, and a state of emergency was declared in the country. Later, Fru Ndi was nonetheless invited with his wife to the inauguration of US President Bill Clinton in January 1993.
Ni John Fru Ndi (Source: Bonaberi.com)
Like everyone back then, Fru Ndi began his political career in the 1980s as a member of Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC). Through the years, he grew frustrated with the one-party system. In 1990, during the years of the National Conference when Cameroon officially ended the one-party rule, he formed the opposition party the Social Democratic Front (SDF). Although he hailed from the Northwest province of Cameroon (English speaking area of Cameroon), he strove to represent all Cameroonians, and aspired for the unity of the entire country seeking a federally unified Cameroon. He addressed the masses in pidgin English. Soon, SDF came to stand for “Suffer don finish” – where with his arrival in power, his party would usher the end to suffering. At political rallies, he would raise his fist to shout “SDF” to the crowd, who would chant back en masse: “Power to the people!” This call and response was repeated until the third time when they would roar back: “Power to the people and equal opportunities!” The masses were galvanized; for many Cameroonians who had been muzzled for far too long under the one-party frame, this was the opportunity to exercise their civic duties and participate in the political life of their country. They saw in Fru Ndi the alternative to the stuck-up politics. Their efforts were repressed by the governing party; the early 1990s were the years of strikes, street protests, “zero-deaths,” and more.
John Fru Ndi addressing the masses in Bamenda (Source: Cameroonpostline.com)
In recent years, Fru Ndi was not a supporter of the secessionist rebellion in Anglophone Cameroon that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced countless people over the last six years. He was even kidnapped twice and beaten up by militants of the secessionist group in 2019, and part of his house was burnt down. The secessionists were angered by what they saw as his betrayal for not supporting their demand for an independent state of Ambazonia, as they call Cameroon’s two English-speaking areas – the Northwest and Southwest regions. This forced him to sadly relocate from his beloved Bamenda to the capital Yaounde. He was very proud of his origins and rarely was seen wearing anything but atogho, traditional Bamileke clothing from the Northwest region, or Boubou: A Traditional African Garment.
Flag of Cameroon
Many claim that he should have united the opposition behind one leader against the government, as he had failed to get the coalition formed by the opposition to agree to field a single candidate to take on Mr Biya; or that he had been corrupted by the governing party. Fru Ndi may have made mistakes, but at some point he represented the hopes of millions, hopes for a different future, a different alternative; and he had the courage to stand up and create a party who united people from all levels of the society, ushering the era of multi-party in Cameroon which was often paved with thorns. He has left a major imprint in Cameroon’s politics.
“I salute the memory of a singular, charismatic and courageous leader,” said current opposition leader Maurice Kamto who ran for president in 2018.
“The story of the return to multi-party politics in Cameroon cannot be written without [Fru Ndi’s] name in bold gold,” said politician Akere Muna, who ran for president in 2018. “His life is a lesson to the fact that leadership is about serving and not about being served,” he said.
“Ni John Fru Ndi for the SDF (Social Democratic Front, editor’s note) was the guide, that is to say, the man who traced the furrow along which we walk, the man who against all odds imposed the return to a multi-party system in Cameroon on 26 May 1990 and with it a set of individual and collective freedoms granted to the entire Cameroonian people” Marcel Tadjeu , Chairman of the Douala 5 SDF electoral constituency told AfricaNews correspondent.
The Girl Who Can and Other Stories by Ama Ata Aidoo
“‘It’s not easy.’
She was superb. The words rolled off her tongue like pips from oranges or cherries: articles thrown away with wistful abandon, to be forgotten utterly or later, maybe, searched for, and used.
She was great: an advocate who could stand her ground with the best of them. A lawyer who knew how to get all to see her point. Their lordships would have been wowed.” Her Hair Politics, p. 1, The Girl Who Can and Other Stories, by Ama Ata Aidoo, Heinemann 1997.
Above is an extract from the short story Her Hair Politics by Ghanaian trailblazer Ama Ata Aidoo, from the book The Girl Who Can which graces my library. Who was Ama Ata Aidoo?
Ama Ata Aidoo (Source: W4.org)
Ama Ata Aidoo was the first published female African dramatist with her play The Dilemma of a Ghost published in 1965. She was a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright, who served in the government of Jerry Rawlings as Secretary for Education from 1982 to 1983. As the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, she hailed from a royal family of the Fante ethnic group of southern Ghana. Her grandfather was murdered by neocolonialists, event which influenced her father in putting a huge emphasis on education and the learning of history and current events. In 1992, she won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for her novel Changes. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation in Accra, Ghana, to promote and support the work of African women writers. She taught at different universities in Zimbabwe, and the United States.
Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo (Source: Africancelebs.com)
Writer Ama Ata Aidoo belongs to the generation of African women writers who dared to speak up loud and clear about African women issues at a time when it was not common. Like Mariama Ba, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Aidoo led the way and broke barriers for the current generation of African writers. In a 2014 interview with Zeinab Badawi of BBC, she said “People sometimes question me, for instance, why are your women so strong? And I say, that is the only woman I know.” This is what made Aidoo’s work touch millions because she portrayed the true African woman that we all know. So long Champion Aidoo, rest assured that you have influenced millions, and many are now following in your footsteps!
To learn more, please check out the articles on The Conversation by Rose Sackeyfio, BBC, and the Guardian. President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana said, “Through her work, she made a tremendous contribution to the development of our country and continent, and expressed so many of our feelings about our fate as Ghanaians, and, indeed as Africans.” As you read back the extract at the top, doesn’t it remind you of Ama Ata Aidoo herself, the writer who advocate for women’s rights… the lordships were definitely wowed!
When Emperor Tewodros II was crowned King, the British Consul Walter Plowden who knew well the political events of Ethiopia during the 1850s and had foretold the rising star of Kassa, the Emperor’s birth name, the freelance warrior from Qwara, described him as such:
“The King Theodorus is young in years, vigorous in all manly exercises, of a striking countenance, peculiarly polite and engaging when pleased, and mostly displaying great tact and delicacy. He is persuaded that he is destined to restore the glories of the Ethiopian Empire and to achieve great conquests: of untiring energy, both mental and bodily, his personal and moral daring is boundless… When aroused his wrath is terrible, and all tremble; but at all moments he possesses a perfect self-control. Indefatigable in business, he takes little repose night or day: his ideas and language are clear and precise; hesitation is not known to him; and has no counsellors or go-between. He is fond of splendour, and received in state even on a campaign. He is unsparing in punishment — necessary in a wilderness as Abyssinia (at that time). He salutes his meanest (poor) subjects with courtesy, is sincerely though often mistakenly religious, and will acknowledge a fault committed to his poorest follower in a moment of compassion with sincerity and grace. He is generous to excess, and free from all cupidity, regarding nothing with pleasure or desire but munitions of war for his soldiers. He has exercised the utmost clemency towards the vanquished, treating them more like friends than enemies. His faith is signal: without Christ I am nothing.”
Prince Alemayehu, son of Emperor Tewodros II, as photographed in 1868 by Julia Cameron
This is a heartbreaking news. Last week, Buckingham Palace, and the UK government refused to return the remains of Prince Alemayehu, son of Emperor Tewodros II, to Ethiopia. Prince Alemayehu’s remains are still in Great Britain 150 years after his death. How preposterous is this! Few years ago, when the Ethiopian government asked, the British said that they could not identify his bones (Ethiopians urge Britain to return bones of ‘stolen’ prince after 150 years). Today, Ethiopians thought that now that there is a new occupant in Buckingham Palace, King Charles III, Prince Alemayehu’s remains will finally return home. However, Buckingham Palace said that returning his remains will not be possible, as it will disturb the resting place of several others in the vicinity. From not being able to identify his bones a few years ago (when in this day and age the remains of King Richard III of England have been identified 500 years after his death), to disturbing others buried there, it makes us wonder if they ever even took the time to look. These are the same people who only returned the hair of Emperor Tewodros II only in 2019. It is so painful to hear… it feels like part of Emperor Tewodros II is still stuck in England. As one looks at pictures of the young orphaned prince who arrived in the UK at the age of 7, and who died at the age of 18, there is so much pain in his face.
Below are snippets of the article; for the full version, go to the BBC.
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Emperor Tewodros II
Buckingham Palace has declined a request to return the remains of an Ethiopian prince who came to be buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th Century.
Prince Alemayehu was taken to the UK aged just seven and arrived an orphan after his mother died on the journey. Queen Victoria then took an interest in him and arranged for his education – and ultimately his burial when he died aged just 18.
But his family wants his remains to be sent back to Ethiopia. “We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in,” one of the royal descendants Fasil Minas told the BBC. “It was not right” for him to be buried in the UK, he added.
… in a statement sent to the BBC, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said removing his remains could affect others buried in the catacombs of St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. “It is very unlikely that it would be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity,” the palace said. The statement added that the authorities at the chapel were sensitive to the need to honour Prince Alemayehu’s memory, but that they also had “the responsibility to preserve the dignity of the departed“.
How Prince Alemayehu ended up in the UK at such a young age was the result of imperial action and the failure of diplomacy. In 1862, in an effort to strengthen his empire, the prince’s father Emperor Tewodros II sought an alliance with the UK, but his letters making his case did not get a response from Queen Victoria. Angered by the silence and taking matters into his own hands, the emperor held some Europeans, among them the British consul, hostage. This precipitated a huge military expedition, involving some 13,000 British and Indian troops, to rescue them [no diplomacy, always force and violence].
British Camp at Zoola, Abyssinia expedition 1868-9 (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
The force also included an official from the British Museum. In April 1868 they laid siege to Tewodros’ mountain fortress at Maqdala in northern Ethiopia, and in a matter of hours overwhelmed the defences. The emperor decided he would rather take his own life than be a prisoner of the British, an action that turned him into a heroic figure among his people.
Departure of the British expeditionary forces from Maqdala with the loot – Illustrated London News 1868
After the battle, the British plundered thousands of cultural and religious artefacts. These included gold crowns, manuscripts, necklaces and dresses. Historians say dozens of elephants and hundreds of mules were needed to cart away the treasures, which are today scattered across European museums and libraries, as well as in private collections. [In the case ofMaqdalain1868, it is said that15 elephants and 200 mules were needed to cart away all the loot from Maqdala.British forces looted the place with no restrain].
The British also took away Prince Alemayehu and his mother, Empress Tiruwork Wube. [The loot was not enough… the young prince and the Empress too].
African Heritage 