Seventy-nine days. That\u2019s all he got as prime minister. His crime? Wanting Congo\u2019s copper, uranium, and rubber to feed Congolese kids, not Belgian bank accounts. He dared to talk to the Soviets during the Cold War, which made the West twitchy. The CIA, Belgian officers, even the UN\u2014they all had a hand in what came next. They arrested him, beat him, and shot him in January 1961. Then, in a final insult, they dissolved his body in acid. All that was left was a single tooth, kept like a sick souvenir by a Belgian cop until it was sent back to Kinshasa in 2022.<\/p>\n
Lumumba\u2019s betrayal was a whole machine: foreign powers, local sellouts, and a world that stood by. Frantz Fanon, who I read in college, put it best: \u201cLumumba was sold\u2014to Africa. He could no longer be bought.\u201d That line hits me hard now, at 46, when I think about how easy it is to compromise, to take the safe path. Lumumba didn\u2019t. And it cost him everything.<\/p>\n
Congo now: the same old chains<\/strong><\/p>\n Today, Congo\u2019s still bleeding. It\u2019s got 70% of the world\u2019s cobalt\u2014stuff that powers your phone, our electric cars or electronic appliances\u2014but 73% of its people live in poverty. Foreign companies pull out $24 billion in minerals every year, while kids as young as six works in mines. In Kinshasa, they\u2019ve got shiny monuments, but the real stories in the east, where militias like M23, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, carve up the land. \u201cPuppet leaders trading sovereignty for private jets,\u201d a young activist from Sankuru told me\u2014or, well, told a reporter, but it feels like she\u2019s speaking to all of us.<\/p>\n Belgium\u2019s trying to make nice. They sent back Lumumba\u2019s tooth in 2022 and mumbled an apology. Now they\u2019re digging up old files, even chasing down a 92-year-old diplomat for his part in the murder. But it\u2019s not enough. Not when the mines are still foreign playgrounds, not when Congo\u2019s kids are still hungry. I think why we should not fight like hell to give them (the new and next generation) a better shot. Lumumba wanted that for a whole nation.<\/p>\n The fire still on<\/strong><\/p>\n Lumumba\u2019s story isn\u2019t just Congo\u2019s. It\u2019s Chile\u2019s Allende, Burkina Faso\u2019s Sankara\u2014anyone who dared to say no to the big dogs and got crushed for it. The UN, which let Lumumba die, still plays the same game, looking the other way in places like Rwanda or the Central African Republic. Russia and China talk a big game about \u201canti-imperialism,\u201d but their mercenaries and loans are just new chains. Still, there\u2019s hope in the kids. In Sankuru, young artists are turning Lumumba\u2019s words into songs, chanting for a Congo that belongs to its people. I get chills thinking about it, like when I heard this Congolese refugee in Kampala, recite a poem she wrote about standing up for what\u2019s right or seeing hearing the youth in Oslo mobilizing in solidarity with youth in the Congo stand in front of the \u201cStortinget\u201d(Norwegian parliament), giving touching appeals.<\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s Lumumba\u2019s real legacy\u2014the fire in the next generation.<\/p>\n Or what next? A wish on my birthday<\/strong><\/p>\n As I hit 46 in a few days, and I\u2019m thinking about what it means to keep fighting for what\u2019s right, even when the odds are stacked against you. Lumumba\u2019s vision\u2014economic justice, national unity, dignity for all\u2014feels like a birthday wish I\u2019d make if I could blow out candles for Congo. To honor him, they\u2019d need to nationalize those mine or at least give them back to the people it belongs too, ban child labor, and build a real economy for the people. They\u2019d need to say no to deals that smell like colonialism 2.0. And maybe, just maybe, Africa could come together, from the Sahel to the Great Lakes, to finish what Lumumba started.<\/p>\n Langston Hughes wrote, \u201cThey buried Lumumba in a tomb without epitaph. \/ But he needs no epitaph\u2014 \/ For the air is his tomb.\u201d His words are still in the air, thick with the promise of a revolution that\u2019s not done yet. On my birthday, I\u2019ll raise a glass to that\u2014a Congo where Katanga\u2019s copper feeds its kids, not foreign wallets. Until then, Lumumba\u2019s story is my reminder: keep the fire burning, no matter how hard they try to snuff it out.<\/p>\n \u201cAfrica will write its own history, and it will be a history of glory and dignity.\u201d Aksanti!<\/p>\n ____________________________________________<\/i><\/p>\n Turning forty-six on July 29, just a few days after what would\u2019ve been Patrice Lumumba\u2019s 100th birthday. I\u2019ve lived through enough history to feel the weight of his story, but standing here in 2025, it\u2019s like I\u2019m holding a cracked mirror\u2014his dreams for Congo reflecting back at me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":299948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[237,1991,1977],"class_list":["post-299920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-africa","tag-d-r-congo","tag-patrice-lumumba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299921,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299920\/revisions\/299921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2014 Patrice Lumumba, 1960<\/p>\n<\/a>Ra\u00efs Neza Boneza is the author of fiction as well as non-fiction, poetry books and articles. He was born in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Former Za\u00efre). He is also an activist and peace practitioner. Ra\u00efs is convener of <\/i>the<\/em> TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/span> for<\/i> Central and African Great Lakes and<\/i> uses his work to promote artistic expressions as a means to deal with conflicts and maintaining mental wellbeing, spiritual growth and healing. He has travelled extensively in Africa and around the world as a lecturer, educator and consultant for various NGOs and institutions. His work is premised on art, healing, solidarity, peace, conflict transformation and human dignity issues. Ra\u00efs work also as freelance journalist based in Trondheim, Norway. You can reach him at <\/i>rais.boneza@gmail.com<\/i><\/a><\/span>. <\/i>http:\/\/www.raisnezaboneza.no<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"