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].
When I was growing up, I was fascinated by images on the television, of women on their motorcycles cruising through the streets of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Seeing women on motorcycles was always a wonder. It was so refreshing, and seemed like such a simple act, yet a mark of independence. These are not women riding Harleys or fast bikes, but simple women wearing wrappers or boubou (The Boubou: A Traditional African Garment) or Faso dan Fani, everyday women taking their children to school, going to work, etc. Even more amazing is that many of these women are Muslim. It is no secret that women in Ouagadougou love their motorcycles. This means of transportation which particularly boomed in the late 1980s is synonymous with independence, freedom, courage, and near infinite possibilities for the women. After all, for anybody who has ridden on a motorcycle, it feels so freeing to have the wind bashing all over oneself while zipping through the city. Today, the country has trained hundreds of women mechanics.
FESPACO 2023
When Thomas Sankara, the president of the Faso, came in power in 1983, he led a series of changes that emancipated women, bringing them closer to equal rights in the society. It is no wonder that Nigerian filmmaker Kagho Idhebor felt the same way as I did, and was so intrigued by these women on their motorcycles, that he made the documentary”Burkina Babes” which was featured at this year’s FESPACO. Excerpts below are from AfricaNews. Enjoy!
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‘Burkina Babes’ by Kagho Idhebor
In Burkina Faso’s capital, many ride their motorcycles every day to commute, go to school or move around the city.
In 2020, nearly one Burkinabe in seven owned a motorcycle.
the vehicle is also a tool of emancipation, For women like Valérie Dambré
“This defines the Burkinabe woman, the courage of women. In fact, riding a motorcycle demands courage,” the motorist.
When Nigerian filmmaker Kagho Idhebor first came to Ouagadougou he was blown away by how many women whizzed about on motorcycles. So much so that he directed “Burkina Babes“, a documentary on that. It even ran at Africa’s largest film the FESPACO, the pan-African cinema and TV festival of Ouagadougou.
“I have been to couple of parts of the world and even in Nigeria you see a lot of motorcycles, guys driving motorcycles but I have not seen women in the last country driving motorcycles with so much attitude and very independent and that captivated me, like I was blown away!,” the man in his thirties exlaims.
Since 1977, the Women’s School for Skills Initiation and Training is based in Ouagadougou. It has trained over 700 women to be mechanics and bodywork repairers.
…. During his four years in power in the 1980s, which ended traumatically with his assassination, Sankara “played an emancipating role, breaking down traditional mindsets and thrusting women into the public space, outside the home,” she said. “Young women today were brought up on his ideas.”
FESPACO 2023 theme ‘African Cinema and Culture of Peace’
The biennial African film festival, FESPACO, took place this year from 25 February to March 4. On March 4, the winner was announced, and Tunisian Youssef Chebbi won the Golden Stallion of Yennenga (Etalon d’or de Yennenga) for his film ‘Ashkal‘ which centres on the investigation into the killing of a caretaker on a construction site at Carthage on the outskirts of his hometown. He won the first prize over Burkinabe filmwriter Apolline Traore, who picked up the Silver Stallion of Yennenga for the film ‘Sira‘, while the Bronze Stallion was awarded to Kenya’s Angela Wamai for ‘Shimoni‘.
FESPACO 2023
The Festival Panafricain du cinema et de la television de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) is the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, which happens to be the largest African film festival. It is held biennially in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. First established in 1969, and boasting some of Africa’s greatest writers and filmmakers (like Ousmane Sembene), the FESPACO offers a chance for African filmmakers and professionals to showcase their work, exchange ideas, and meet other filmmakers, and sponsors.
The Golden Stallion of Yennenga
There were a total of 170 entries selected for the FESPACO festival in the capital Ouagadougou, including 15 fiction feature films in contention for the Yennenga Golden Stallion award and a prize of around $30,000. A big win for women filmmakers, with the second and third prizes won by Apolline Traore and Angela Wamai respectively. Burkinabe filmmaker Apolline Traore won the Silver Stallion for Sira, about a woman kidnapped by Jihadists, and Kenyan director Angela Wamai took home the Bronze Stallion forShimoni, about a schoolteacher rebuilding his life in his remote village after a harsh stint in jail. In 2019, Burkinabe director Apolline Traore had said that any award had to be earned, not considered a token gesture; we are glad for the recognition her work and that of others is getting recognized.
The film, ‘Cuba in Africa‘ produced by Negash Abdurahman won the Thomas Sankara Prize. The film talks about the altruism of Cubans who sacrificed their sons and daughters on behalf of Africa; Cuban volunteers gave their lives to help Angola, Namibia, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, and others win independence, and contributed to the fall of apartheid in South Africa. It is a story all Africans should learn.
The 29th edition of Fespaco will be held from 22 February to 1 March 2025, also in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
King Mandume ya Ndemufayo, portrait extracted from a photograph of the King with British representatives in South Africa
I found this Kwanyama poem written in honor of King Mandume. It is simple, and rich in culture. It emphasizes the Kwanyama culture: how can one cowardly abandon his king? the only son of his mother? A mother’s only son is everything, so he needs to be protected by those around. It also shows the respect given to the king, as to him were extended leather carpets. From this poem, it is clear that Mandume was a very good rider, a fearless knight, and a fine gunman. The term soba, is the term for king in Kwanyama (Cuanhama in Angola) culture. The reference to the “ragged brother” is based upon the fact that from Kwanyama accounts, Mandume used to “disguise himself in poor clothing and walk about the country to listen to what the people were saying, to see if they were satisfied by his laws” (Loeb, 1962:35), given that he had made significant positive changes to laws; while the Portuguese account on the other hand, state that Mandume used to dress in rags to trick those who would not recognize him as the king, “picking quarrels and exacting cruel vengeance to those who responded to his provocations with crude insults” (Estermann, 1960: 221). When living in the desert, water is crucial to survival; thus, water finds its way into this poem: why would anyone share the little they have with an enemy who has been trying to crush them and force them off their land? Enjoy the poem, translated to English by Dr. Y., Afrolegends.com. To learn more, read “Lyrical Nationalism in Post-Apartheid Namibia” by W. A. Haugh, Lexington Books (2014).
King Mandume ya Ndemufayo, portrait extracted from a photograph of the King with British representatives in South Africa
Mandume, king of the Cuanhama (Oukwanyama) principal subgroup of the Ovambo in Southern Angola, was one of the last and most important resistance leader against Portuguese conquest in Angola. By the size of his army, he could be compared to Samori Touré, but he did not have the same historic aura or military genius and given his very short life, he has remained unknown to many. Yet, in 1915, he held in his hands for 10 days the scourge of the balance of power in Southern Angola directly, and indirectly in Angola as a whole. Mandume is celebrated by many nationalists in Luanda as one of their heroes because he fought against Portuguese advances inside Angolan territory. He was a leader of the Ovambo resistance, defending the independence of his people, the Cuanhama so as not to get absorbed within Angola. Given European drawing of African boundaries during the 1884Berlin Conference, the Cuanhama found themselves between areas of Portuguese West Africa (Angola) and German South West Africa (Namibia); thus Mandume has also entered the pantheon of the Namibian resistance. Who was Mandume?
King Mandume ya Ndemufayo, probably in Oihole, sometime before 1916
Mandume ya Ndemufayo was a simple ethno-nationalist, who refused to be colonized and had about 35,000 to 40,000 armed fighters; more than any Angolan nationalists ever had before 1974. He took over the reins of the Cuanhama kingdom in 1911 and his reign lasted until 1917 when he died of either suicide or machine gun fire while under attack from South African forces. Ya Ndemufayo grew up during a time of significant upheaval in the Oukwanyama kingdom due to the presence of European merchants and missionaries. As King Nande’s nephew (his mother was the king’s sister), he was third in line for succession to the Kwanyama throne. To protect his life as royal child heir to the throne, Mandume had to live in various homesteads. King Nande died on 5 February 1911 and Mandume succeeded him at barely 18 years old. Immediately upon ascending the throne, he moved the royal residence to Ondjiva (now in Angola). He could be thought of as a neo-traditionalist leader, who, even though he studied in the German mission schools, he spoke German, and a bit of Portuguese, and championed the independence of his people. Strongly anti-European, he expelled Portuguese traders from Kwanyama territory to denounce price inflation. Given the great drought and famine which lasted from 1911 to 1916, Mandume issued decrees prohibiting the picking of unripened fruits to protect against droughts and the unneeded use of firearms, an important commodity obtained from European traders. Significantly, he also issued harsh penalties for the crime of rape and allowed women to own cattle, which was previously illegal. Overall, King Mandume sought to restore previous Kwanyama wealth and prosperity against a decaying system of local leadership. Ya Ndemufayo had a reputation for expelling Christians within the Oukwanyama kingdom. Numerous Christian families fled to the Ondonga kingdom of the Ovambos. Ya Ndemufayo did not favor Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries as well as German Rhenish Missionary Society Protestants within his kingdom. In some European archives, it is said that he was a tyrant, but it is unclear whether it is European propaganda (a case of the hunter telling the story of the hunt) or reality.
Flag of Ovamboland
Before Mandume, previous Cuanhama kings had fought valiantly against Portuguese invasion of their land, King Weyulu from 1885 – 1904, his brother King Nande (1904 – 1911); unfortunately, they all in the end saw no choice to the inevitable Portuguese colonization. Mandume rejected the idea of Portuguese colonial rule and demanded to be on equal terms with the colonial rulers in their distant capitals.
King Mandume with his warriors in Oihole in 1916
No European colonizer seriously challenged the well-organized and well-armed Ovambo kingdoms until 1915 and the beginning of World War I which coincided with a massive local drought. During the Battle of Omongwa in August 1915, ya Ndemufayo and the Kwanyama’s resisted a Portuguese attack led by Pereira de’Eça for three days. On 20 August, Mandume assembled several thousand men and attacked the Portuguese camp shouting “The land does not belong to the white[s]!”. After 10 hours of fighting, the Ovambo were forced to retreat due to a lack of supplies including the water which they had lost. In total, the Portuguese took 35 casualties and 57 wounded; while the Ovambo lost 25 and had 100 wounded. After the battle, the Portuguese also started claiming that German forces were helping the Ovambo because it was unimaginable to them that Africans were able to wage war like Europeans. Simultaneously, the South African forces peacefully conquered the portion of the Oukwanyama kingdom formerly located in German South West Africa; this was at a time when Germany lost the first world war, and thus all its African colonies. German South West Africa’s administration was taken over by the Union of South Africa (part of the British Empire) and the territory was administered as South West Africa under a League of Nationsmandate. Due to losses and lack of water, ya Ndemufayo first relocated the Kwanyama capital to an area south called Oihole, and then later into South West Africa. He used the border line to conduct attacks against Portuguese who were encroaching on his old territory in Southern Angola. However his attacks of Portuguese interests from his territory in South West Africa were not appreciated by the South African authorities who summoned him to Windhoek where he refused to go. In February 1917, after ya Ndemufayo refused to submit to South African control, he died in battle against the South Africans who had mounted an attack against him. The cause of his death is disputed; South African records show his death from machine-gun fire, while oral and popular history described his death as suicide, after being wounded so he could not be taken in by enemy forces. After his death, the South African administration abolished the Kwanyama-Kingship which was only restored in 1998, after over 8 decades.
Mandume Ndemufayo Ave in Windhoek, Namibia
Today, Mandume Ya Ndemufayo is honored as a national hero in both Angola and Namibia. He is one of nine national heroes of Namibia that were identified at the inauguration of the country’s Heroes’ Acre near Windhoek. Namibia’s Founding President Sam Nujoma remarked in his inauguration speech on 26 August 2002 that: “It is better to die fighting than to become a slave of the colonial forces.” — These were the defiant words of one of Namibia’s foremost anti-colonialist fighters. He said these words in defiance when the combined [European] colonial forces insisted he should surrender. […] To his revolutionary spirit and his visionary memory we humbly offer our honor and respect.
Early resistant, bronze plaque for King Mandume ya Ndemufayo at the Independence Museum in Windhoek, Namibia
The 100th anniversary of the death of Oukwanyama King Mandume ya Ndemufayo on February 2017 was attended by thousands of Namibians at Omhedi in the Ohangwena region including former Namibian presidents, where President Hage Geingob unveiled a bust of King Mandume. If you ever visit Windhoek, Namibia, make sure to walk along the street named after King Mandume, or visit the Universidade Mandume ya Ndemufayo in Angola. Please check out the article “The Legacy of legendary Oukwanyama King still vivid“, the article from The Namibian, Order out of chaos: Mandume Ya Ndemufayo and Oral History by Patricia Hayes, and lastly Les Africains Tome 8, editions J.A. p.207 (1977) to learn more about this great last resistant to Portuguese colonial advances in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia.
“We are heirs of the revolution” by Thomas Sankara
Almost 4 decades after Thomas Sankara and his 12 companions were treacherously murdered, they are given a burial at the memorial erected in Sankara’s honor in front of the place where they were assassinated, at the Conseil de l’Entente. His family has boycotted the ceremony because, as they say, how can you bury such a hero in the place where he was murdered? In a press release, they said, “We believed and continue to believe that it is fundamental that a space be found that allows to gather and appease hearts, and not to divide and increase resentment,” the Sankaras added in their statement on Sunday, calling the place chosen by the government “conflictual and controversial”. I know that Thomas Sankara now belongs to the entire nation of Burkina Faso, and even to the continent of Africa, but shouldn’t his family have a say as to where he is buried?
At the time of Thomas Sankara and companions’ murders in 1987 ordered by Blaise Compaore and his croonies, Sankara and his comrades were buried in some common fields with no names. Later, their bodies were exhumed in 2015 for legal proceedings.
What do you think? Is it okay to bury Thomas Sankara, our true panafricanist and anti-imperialist revolutionary, who fought for our freedoms, in the place where he was murdered?
As Sankara always said, Homeland or death, we shall overcome!
African Heritage 