The Dancing Started Too Early

A review of "Lumumba", the Film

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

July 25, 2001

The film, "Lumumba" by Raoul Peck is excellently crafted, but it presents a peculiar problem. Its interpretation of the events in the Congo is too narrow.

Moreover, the implication that Ghana, a sister country, paid only "lip service" to the plight of the Congo is a view that requires scrutiny.

Scrutiny is required before this film can be allowed to pass on - from an enticing entertainment vehicle and, perhaps, a flawed docu-drama, to a lesson worthy for history.

Immediate attention must be brought on the role Ghana played in the turbulent Congo affairs of the 60s.   By every measure, her role was exemplary.

Ghana was the first nation to send troops to the Congo to aid Lumumba, in support of the country's newly attained independence; long before the United Nations thought of bringing in help.

So, to indict Ghana as the film "Lumumba" does is a revision of history and an attempt to undermine the iconic and spunky nature of the liberation spirit of that entire era in Africa.

Also, to allow this "lip service" accusation to stand is to permit the charge, that the CIA and the Belgians hatched the plot for Patrice Lumumba's murder, to wither; a charge which this writer thought at first was the theme and concept for the film.

The CIA's connection to the Congo has been revealed. And the Belgian's sponsorship of the secession that lead to Lumumba's murder is also a matter of history, and a story that even the most morally corrupt of men should be expected to be shocked by on hearing - about this deed by the spurned, voracious former colonial administrator.

Which leaves one to wonder why Raoul Peck indicted Ghana, the champion of the liberation movement in Africa of that era, in this manner?

In "Lumumba", Raoul takes on a huge project, but he tells the story in 115 minutes only.

Perhaps, a longer duration could have allowed a broader perspective and the chance to tie events in the Congo to other happenings on the continent.

In a metaphysical sense, the Congo Raoul depicts has no sense of its geographic size or history, which is also a microcosm of the expression of the entire continent's own sense of itself.

In the space where the Congo occupies lies the heart of Africa. Some still prefer to call it "The Heart of Darkness."

Indeed, the Congo is the Balkans of Africa. To tell her story is to tell the story of all Africa. Unfortunately, Raoul's film is silent on all these layers of influences and connectivity.

In June 30, 1960, the Congo became independent, with Mr. Patrice Lumumba as her first Prime Minister and Mr. Joseph Kasavubu the Head of State.

By the end of that same year, Lumumba had been ousted and the Congo primed for explosion before she had a sense of herself as a sovereign state.

The new constitution created, under the influence of Belgium, was rigged to allow chaos.

Same powers were given to the six regional heads of the country as were given to the central government headed by Lumumba.

The flare-up came when pent-up racial resentment against whites turned into riots in Katanga, the richest of the six provinces.

In the chaos, Mr. Tsombe, the head of the Kantanga region, was ready with his own mutiny and secession plan; and with a lot of help from Belgium, some powerful western business interests, and European mercenaries brought into the state, he did.

Tsombe announced secession on July 11, 1960, which led to the arrest and eventual murder of Lumumba.

It was this secession that brought Ghana to the Congo to side with Lumumba.

 Ghana's troops maintained the peace in the Congolese capital for a while until UN troops arrived. Consequently, her contingent was placed under the UN command.

Ghana, about 10% the size of the Congo, had put her meager resources to aid a sister African nation while many independent African states remained on the sideline.  This help Raoul calls "lip service"?

The film does not debate how Ghana got the "lip service" charge. Nor can it maintain that argument even if it were to start.

Until that argument is fleshed out, the charge of "lip service" will be completely underserved.

Lumumba's assassination was followed by a violent era in Africa's history. The tendency has continued to this date.

From the first coup in Congo in 1960, to 1968, the continent saw 64 attempted and successful coups, according to George Ayittey's "Africa Betrayed."

"Lumumba" the film is very appealing in a tragic way. The film's main character is brave, brash, charismatic, and confirms the heroic role of Patrice Lumumba in the struggle for Congo's independence.

However, the film never asked whether the real Lumumba was a good judge of character, but it was quick to charge Ghana with betrayal.

The key players who caused Lumumba's death, Kasavubu and Mobutu, were handpicked by Lumumba. These were the compatriots who betrayed Lumumba, not Ghana.

Characters aside, part of the film's dialogue is credit worthy: "Independence is only a word," says a principal white character. And, his white counterpart responds, "God is a word".

In a nutshell, the word "independence" and "God" have been put in a belief system that has been left at the mercy of the cynic. The problem of post-colonial Africa (her belief in independence) was thus cryptically stated.

Obviously, it may be that the word "God" in the dialogue was not meant to encourage the sacrilegious.

But putting those two words in juxtaposition may also mean to ask or wonder whether the African understood the world "independence," like in liberty or patriotism?

If many did, then how could the struggle for the same independence have been undercut with coups so soon and so easily?

Or, did the dancing and the celebrations start too early when Africa became intoxicated with her new found state of independence?

In another dialogue in the film, one of Lumumba's compatriots observes that "France gave in. Little Belgium has no chance. It is time to eat!"

But, Lumumba, in the film, has a better grasp of things to come as he and that compatriot contemplate the pending liberty to be wrestled from the Belgian ruler.

 "They (the Belgians) are either planning their exist or plotting against us," Lumumba says prophetically.

As sagacious as Lumumba is at that moment in the film, his observation is late.  Historically, the fate of Africa had already been sealed by the Berlin Conference of 1884.

It was the Berlin Conference that gave Belgium the right to possess the Congo and the permit for the chaos during Lumumba's era to happen.

The rest of the continent went to other colonial powers. The assumption was (and still is) that Africa was too large and resource rich to be left in the hands of hapless Africans.

Thus, the departing Belgian governor of the Congo (in the film), while bidding "no hasty reforms" in his farewell speech, has already gutted the governmental process to make governance after him a nightmare.

Villains like Mobutu, I am inclined to think, have also been prepared to add to the chaos to come.  And this thinking is made more authentic because, historically, the same situation happened all over Africa.

The historical Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 and what followed immediately was the nightmare that the Congo is today.

However, Kudos to Raoul's interpretation of Mobutu's supposed cultural eminence in the film and for not sparing us the irony; leopard cap and all.

Mobutu, the wearer of the symbolic leopard cap, is depicted in a scene watching over traditional African dancers dressed in bow-ties!

Still, the unfortunate part of Raoul's film is in his rendition of the relationship between Nkrumah and Lumumba, the continent's foremost heroes at that time. 

Raoul's rendition of this relationship is heavily flawed and rather shallow.

Did his sponsors get to him to put that emphasis on the film?

The story on collaboration and understanding between these two men about the Congo, could have been told better.

Nkrumah's support for the Congo was clear and stellar in the 60's. His eagerness for solution to the Congo's crisis, is on record, (Nkrumah on the Congo Situation).

Raoul could have told the story better, but he didn’t.

Putting the words "Ghana pays lip service" in the mouth of Lumumba is, thus, a deliberate stab at Nkrumah and Ghana.

If not, then Raoul must answer why Ghanaian soldiers were rushed to the Congo to defend her sovereignty long before the UN got there.

This film makes the historic Lumumba either an ingrate or raises questions about Raoul Peck's intentions and veracity.

At the film's end, Lumumba, now captive is walked to his death by two white men, among a throng of armed Congolese soldiers.

Yet, not one soldier lifts a finger to overwhelm the two white soldiers and save the hero Lumumba.  They accepted the branding of Lumumba as the troublemaker. And, so like the "dog that has rabies," as Lumumba himself said, he is executed in the same manner.

Now, how did Ghana rather betray the Congo?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja. Washington, DC. July 25, 2001.