Lumumba's Last Letter to his Wife Before His Assassination
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My Dear,
I am writing this without knowing whether you will ever get it, or when, or
whether I shall be still alive when you read it. Throughout my struggle for the
independence of my country I have never for one instance doubted that the sacred
cause to which my friends and I have given our lives would triumph in the end.
But what we have wanted for our country, the right to honorable life, to
untarnished dignity, to unrestricted freedom-these things have never been
desired on our behalf by those important officials in the UN in whom we put our
trust, and upon whom we called for help, because, whether they knew it or not,
they were directly or indirectly supporting the colonialism of Belgium and her
friends in the West.
They have corrupted the minds of some of our compatriots, others they have
simply bought, and they have played their parts in distorting truth and
shackling our independence. Dead or alive, free or imprisoned by the
colonialist, it is not I who matter, it is the Congo, it is our poor people
whose independence has been turned into a cage in which we can be watched by
those outside, either with positive pleasure, or with benevolent compassion.
But my faith remains unshaken. I know, and feel in my heart, that sooner
or later my people will shake off all enemies, inside and outside our land, and
they will rise as one man to say "no" to the shame and degradation of
colonialism and to assume once again their dignity under clear skies.
We are not
alone, Africa, Asia, and the free and freed peoples all over the world will
always stand beside those millions of Congolese who will not give up the
struggle until the day when no colonizers and no mercenaries are left on our
soil. I would like my children, whom I am leaving and may perhaps never see
again, to be told that the Congo has a great future, and that it is up to them
as to every other Congolese, to carry out the sacred task of rebuilding our
independence and our sovereignty, for where there is no dignity, there is no
freedom, and where there is no justice there is no dignity, and there is no
independence there are no free men.
No brutality, no agony, no torture has ever driven me to beg for mercy, for I
would rather die with my head high, my faith unshaken, and a profound trust in
the destiny of-my country, than live in subjection seeing principles that are
sacred to be laughed to scorn. History will have it one day-Not the
history they teach in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations, but the
history taught in the countries set free from colonialism and it's puppet
rulers, Africa will write her own history, and both north and south of the
Sahara. It will be a history of glory and dignity.
Do not weep, my love; I know that my country, which has suffered so much, will
be able to defend it's independence and liberty.
Long live the Congo!
Long live Africa!
The Prime Minister of the Congo, P. Lumumba's last, prophetic
letter to his wife before his mysterious death in 1960, Culled from the
Daily Times of Nigeria. The colonization of the world by Europeans was not
an act of
Innocence. It was not a charitable act by any fantasy of the Imagination
or any objective analysis. Entire cosmologies were dumped on the trash
heap of a crusading European ideology
that meant to plunder, not only the people's mind, but their bodies as well
(Reading,1950).The liberation of the minds of the African
people
will be a tougher battle than the eradication of settler regimes.