The Lumumba Plot

It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go.

Within a year, everything would unravel. The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins. Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo’s rebellious southeast. And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades. For the Congolese people, the events of 1960–61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story. For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.

See also: Crimereads: The Political Assassination That Transformed Africa

One Of The Greatest Cover-Ups Of The 20th Century

Author John Heminway discusses his latest book on History News Network: In Full Flight raises questions that, for me, will linger forever. The first of many is “what would I have done?”

In Full Flight is a story of two lives in one body. They belonged to Dr. Anne Spoerry, a good friend of mine who kept her two selves separated by a vertiginous wall of silence. At one level, In Full Flight pays tribute to Africa for its gift of secrecy—faithfully providing cover for those on the run. At another, it illuminates the burden a person of substance must shoulder even in the far reaches of a wild land.

Heminway discusses that he decided to write a biography on Anne Spoerry based upon his knowledge of her in Africa and her humanitarian work in Kenya. It was his search for what he calls her "European history" that lead to a shocking secret.

Like so many others, I believed she was a verifiable heroine. But something did niggle – the memory of Spoerry’s total embargo on the subject of the second world war, any mention of which made her quick to anger. 

read more here

@ History News Network

@ Financial Times

@ Washington Post

@ The Independent

@ The National

African Samurai by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard

From Paste Magazine:

Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard’s biography of Yasuke, an African slave-turned-mercenary who became Japan’s first foreign-born samurai, is an extraordinary story that feels especially poignant today. Lockley, an associate professor at Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo, wrote the first academic paper describing Yasuke’s life. African Samurai adds flesh and blood (and smoke and entrails and steel) to the paper’s bones, chronicling a history that reads like a legend.

When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned (in local tradition) Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan’s martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society.

African Samurai presents the never-before-told biography of this unique figure of the 16th century, one whose travels between countries, cultures and classes offers a new perspective on race in world history and a vivid portrait of life in medieval Japan.

read more here @ Paste Magazine

Review: Dancing the Death Drill by Fred Khumalo

France 1958 - mild-mannered waiter Jean-Jacques Henri kills two people in full view of other patrons. He doesn't run but stays to await his fate. Journalist Thierry Bousquet thinks there is more to the story, especially when he tracks down the artist Jerry Moloto - who claims there may be extenuating circumstances to consider. What is revealed is that Jean-Jacques Henri is really, one Pitso Motaung, a South African, with a story to tell.

Author Fred Khumalo recounts our fictional character's life as a youth of mixed-race growing up in South African at the turn of the century. His father is off fighting against the British in the Anglo-Boer War, whilst his mother, the granddaughter of a local chieftain, died when he was but a child of 10, leaving him to literally fend for himself. Only when aged 16yo, and more to escape the conflicting cultural aspects of his childhood, did Pitso join the war effort when he enlisted in the 5th Battalion (South African Native Labour Corps) in Cape Town. 

Khumalo writes:

The First World War broke out in 1914. By 1916 it had reached a stalemate. The Allies were desperate for more manpower. Thus the Imperial government sent out a clarion call to its subjects in all colonies, which included the Union of South Africa, still a colony and its citizens subjects of King George V.

When the call reached South African shores, many black men stood up and said they were ready to serve. But white South Africans suddenly complained that arming blacks to fight against whites would set a bad precedent. There was a growing fear that this would break down what was then called the “colour bar”. The recruitment of people of colour (which also included Indians) would embolden the black man to demand true equality with the white man in South Africa once the war was over, a thought too ghastly to contemplate.

It was then agreed that the blacks would not be armed. They would be part of a labour contingent supplying services such as: wood-collecting, water-carrying, laundry, the loading and cleaning of mechanical transport, camp sanitation and cleaning. Thus was the South African Native Labour Contingent born.  (Source: New African Magazine)

This is then was the world of Pitso Motaung - and how he found himself aboard the SS Mendi.  Khumalo continues: 

The men on the ship came from a wide range of social backgrounds – some of them were peasants, yet others were traditional chiefs, men of the cloth, and educated men, graduates of the famous Lovedale College, which, in later life, would produce the likes of Nelson Mandela and other illustrious African leaders. 

Tragedy of the SS Mendi: 

On 16 February 1917, after its last night in Cape Town, the SS Mendi sailed towards the port of Le Havre, in France via Plymouth, England. Onboard were 33 crew members and a contingent of the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC), composed of 805 black soldiers, 5 white officers, and 17 petty officers. They were heading to France to contribute to the Allies World War I efforts. In the early morning of 21 February 1917, while crossing the English Channel, the SS Mendi was hit by a merchant vessel, the Darro, south of Isle of Wight. The SS Mendi sank in only 20 minutes. The Darro was sailing at full speed in dense fog without any light signals. Six-hundred-and-sixteen people died. Among them, 607 black soldiers. Only some of the bodies were found, those that were recovered were buried where they were found.  The larger ship initially did not stop to help the SS Mendi and its beleaguered, drowning passengers and crew. They would ultimately be rescued by their escort, the British destroyer H.M.S. Brisk, which provided protection from German U-boats and mines.

So now to the title of the book: dancing the death drill. This phrase how now entered the annals of legend. Khumalo continues:

According to oral accounts from the survivors, as the ship was sinking, their chaplain Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha ordered the men, many of whom were frightened to jump overboard, to stand in formation as they had been taught on joining the army. He raised his arms aloft and cried out in a loud voice:

“Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came to do…you are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers…. Swazis, Pondos, Basotho, so let us die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war-cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais in the kraal. Our voices are left with our bodies.”

And so the men stamped their feet on the floor as they twisted and gyrated in a macabre Death Dance as it was Christened by oral historians. 

In a moment of defiance, maybe of death itself, these men were said to have marched as one, showing their willingness to die as warriors, proud of their African heritage. 

Back to our story. Pitso Motaung is one of the few survivors to be rescued, taken to France and deployed to the native labour camp. There is an inquest.  On August 8, 1917, a British court found Darro’s master, Henry W Stump, guilty of having travelled at a dangerously high speed in thick fog, and of having failed to ensure that his ship emitted the necessary fog sound signals. Stump must have heaved a huge sigh of relief when his licence was suspended for a only year.  History has since recorded that Stump did receive a report that he had collided with the ship which was transporting native troops aboard, and that it was sinking, but he chose sail full steam ahead.

In our story, whilst the captain of the SS Darro is held to account, another escapes justice ..... What happens next is Pitso flees after a violent altercation, and ultimately finds refuge in Paris (1918), marries, fathers a son, get a job as a waiter, meets the artist Jerry Moloto, and ultimately - and fatefully - encounters two enemies from his past.

As for the actual survivors of the disaster, for the most part, they were treated ingloriously. In the months before the Mendi left port, South Africa’s black leaders had actively supported the government’s recruitment campaign; many had signed up for the labor contingent themselves, hoping that their participation would help them argue for equal rights once the war was over. Instead, when they returned, their work was barely acknowledged, much less rewarded. Not one member of the contingent, not even survivors of the Mendi, got so much as a ribbon or a medal. They weren’t paid pensions, nor did they receive promised grants of land or cattle. 

While the Mendi was not the only labour corps transport to be lost at sea, in the total of South Africa's war dead of 9 500, the disaster was the second worst single loss after the attrition of Delville Wood six months earlier.

There is no evidence from survivors' accounts of the death drill, or of Dyobha's speech. In fact one eye-witness, boilermaker Jacob Malti said:

“As it sank it made a great hollow and many men were not far from it,” he later wrote. “By the time the water covered that empty space, many had gone down with it.” 

And yet Dyobha's speech has become central to understanding the indelible meaning of the tragedy – the fraternal bond, the willing sacrifice, the claim to history.

The Mythos

One of Karl Marx’s most repeated quotes is that history repeats itself “the first time as a tragedy, the second time as farce”. Like history, the interpretation of history also gets repeated, first as myth – and then in service of the political agenda of those in power.  According to Albert Grundlingh, professor in history at Stellenbosch University, in his book, War and Society: Participation and Remembrance – South African black and coloured troops in the First World War, 1914-1918:

“Until the 1980s, the sinking of the SS Mendi was commemorated regularly,” said Grundlingh in an interview with the Mail & Guardian. “But then black participation in the war was regarded with suspicion. Those black people who had participated were seen as sellouts. However, in the 1990s the ANC rediscovered the Mendi with a vengeance. And it became a symbol of heroism for the ANC. 

Grundlingh also emphatically states that mythologising is a common occurrence in all wars and in all countries. (Source Mail & Guardian)

This is a fascinating lost episode of history, thankfully not told from a European point of view. Whilst the book itself is not solely about the tragedy of the SS Mendi, it is used as part of the backstory of the main character of Pitso Motaung. However, having said that, it could quite easily have been so. If you condensed the first fourteen chapters, what you would have would make for a plausible historical mystery. 

On a final note, for me, this story has somewhat eerily similar overtones to that of the RMS Titanic - a ship in distress, a captain who did nothing, a lack of lifeboats, a tragic loss of life.

read more here 

@ Wessex Archaeology

@ Wrecksite - RMS Mendi

@ Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War

@ National Archives

@ South African Military History

@ Historic England

@ History Extra

@ South African History Online

@ BBC News

The Dark Kingdoms: The Impact of White Civilisations on Three Great African Monarchies

Alan Scholefield's book " ....  is the story of three kingdoms. Two of them succumbed to white pressure and disappeared. One of them survives. Each is seen at a critical period in its history, when black met white head-on."

King Affonso ruled the first of the three kingdoms, and welcomed the Portuguese as brothers, only to find his people were treated like cattle.

King Gelele ruled the second kingdom with a will of iron and fought to keep his culture alive but, trapped between white invaders and rival tribes, that iron will would bend and buckle.

Lastly Moshesh of Lesotho, the last man standing: who played them all at their own games and won.

Using diaries from famous figures like the explorer Richard Burton, Alan Scholefield breathes new life into a past that once seemed dead.

read more about Africa's Monarchies here

• African Kings by Daniel Laine
• Jimma Abba Jifar, an Oromo Monarchy: Ethiopia, 1830-1932 by Herbert S. Lewis
• The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History edited by John Parker & Richard Reid
• Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia by Paul B. Henze
• Wikipedia - Monarchies In Africa

In the realms of gold: exploring Africa’s rich history

From The Spectator:

The Golden Rhinoceros is bursting with new worlds from Africa’s medieval past — a time when merchants began connecting a patchwork of ancient kingdoms, stretching from modern-day Morocco to South Africa, into wider networks of power, wealth, religion, goods and ideas. Fauvelle has created a collage of the continent from 34 different sources, each relating to trade and eloquently discussed in brief chapters. They are dots of light which, when combined, illuminate whole swathes of the dark continent, ranging from the coming of Islam in the western Sahara in the 7th century, to the 4,000 gold mines pockmarked across 14th-century Zimbabwe.

Book Seller Link: Angus & Robertson

Recalling Africa’s harrowing tale of enslavement

From The Herald:

In his book, “Slaves and Slavery”, published in 1998, the British writer Duncan Clarke defines slavery as “the reduction of fellow human beings to the legal status of chattels, allowing them to be bought and sold as goods”.

“The African slave trade, surely one of the most tragic and disturbing episodes in the history of mankind,” Clarke writes, “had its origins in the intervention of forces from the civilisations that developed in the regions of the Mediterranean sea – today’s Europe and the Middle East – into the arena of the more fragmented civilisations of sub-Saharan Africa.

In modern times, the popular image of African slavery springs from the vision of a tormented male suffering under the lash of unceasing labour on some “New World” sugar plantation.

Yet the real face of servitude finds its focus in the forced migration of millions of girls and young women across the Sahara and the Horn of Africa in to the institutions of Islamic concubinage. – New African magazine.

read more @ New African Magazine