Lumumba
Except for Gilles Pontecorvo's "Burn," Raul Peck's
"Lumumba" is the only film to explore neocolonialism in the depth it
deserves. But unlike "Burn," "Lumumba" deals with real
people and real events--in this case the conspiracy of US intelligence, the
Belgian government and local traitors to keep an African people in chains
despite the formal independence won in 1960.
Cast as Patrice Lumumba, Eriq Ebouaney not only bears a striking
physical resemblance to the martyred leader, more importantly he conveys the
political and personal drama of a politician caught between two worlds.
Believing in little else except social justice and national sovereignty--two of
the cardinal tenets of bourgeois democracy--he was dogged at every step, and
finally assassinated, by their agents.
The film introduces Lumumba in 1960 as an enterprising beer salesman who
hawks the Polar brand at local Leopoldville pubs by day, while attending
meetings for independence from Belgium at night.
Since the film is not a documentary, it cannot really pay much attention
to the kind of degradation Belgium visited on the Congo under King Leopold,
whose eponymously named capital city makes as much sense as calling a city
Hitlerville. Instead it presents a vivid portrait of the kind of second-class
citizenship experienced by the average citizens, who are depicted as porters,
maids and drivers for the pampered colonial in 1960--bad enough in itself.
To fill in the historical detail, one must turn to Adam Hochschild's
1998 book, "King Leopold's Ghost," that points out that in the years
between 1885 and 1908, some 10 million people died in the so-called Congo Free
State, which was anything but free. It was, in fact, a giant forced labor camp,
the personal possession of Leopold II, king of Belgium. For nearly 30 years, his
armed thugs forced the Congolese to extract ivory, hardwoods and wild rubber
from their homeland. Many were beaten to death for failing to meet strict
quotas, while millions more died from physical exhaustion, famine and infectious
disease. This sort of vampire capitalism bred underdevelopment in the Congo,
while feeding the growth of industry, museums and universities in the mother
country.
When Lumumba was elected Prime Minister, he was forced to share duties
with Joseph Kasavubu, a timid and temporizing bourgeois politician. Played by
Maka Kotto, he is depicted in an independence ceremony kowtowing to Belgian
officials, who have warned the Congolese: "Beware of hasty reforms, and do
not replace Belgian institutions unless you are sure you can do better."
Despite warnings not to offend their benefactors, Lumumba will have none
of this. With a proud scowl on his face, he begins his speech with the following
words: "Our wounds are too fresh and painful for us to erase them from our
memory." Kasavubu is shown squirming in his seat.
In contrast to Kasavubu, you have two other Congolese politicians who
become open supporters of neocolonialism. One is the young Joseph Mobutu (Alex
Descas), an aspiring journalist and soon to become military strongman. After
slaughtering anti-government civilians in the early stages of civil unrest in
the newly independent Congo, Lumumba dresses down Mobutu. Anxious not to
alienate his supporters in the west, the new prime minister tells Mobutu that
such ruthlessness will work against them. In short order, however, Lumumba will
learn that they are determined to destroy the infant nation and return it to
bondage no matter what they do.
>From the very moment of independence, the colonists have made common
cause with Moise Tshombe (Pascal Nzonzi), the virulently anti-Communist leader
of the breakaway province of Katanga, where most of the nation's mineral wealth
is located. As I learned from a Socialist Workers Party pamphlet being hawked
outside the theater, "Most of Katanga's mineral reserves are owned and
mined by a giant U.S.-British-Belgian controlled corporation, the Union Miniere
du Haut Katanga (UMHK). In 1960, with annual sales of $200 million, UMHK
produced 60 percent of the uranium in the West, 73 percent of the cobalt, and 10
percent of the copper, and had in the Congo 24 affiliates including
hydroelectric plants, chemical factories and railways."
Essentially, the film dramatizes the shifting power relations between
these four principals, who each in their own way owes their allegiance to one or
another major class in society. Lumumba is closest to the Congolese masses.
After Kasavubu cashiers him from office, he goes to parliament to fight for
reinstatement. At the front gates of the building, hundreds of ordinary citizens
have spontaneously rallied to defend him.
After the country begins to fray around the edges, largely due to
destabilization efforts mounted by the colonists, Mobutu is shown in a meeting
with Belgian officials and CIA official Frank Carlucci. If the military can
"restore order," they promise to back him. For his part, Carlucci
claims that the United States does not intervene in the internal affairs of
sovereign nations but assures them that it will do nothing to act against
Mobutu. At this point the audience broke out in sardonic laughter.
Towards the end of his short-lived administration (two months in fact),
Lumumba declared that he would turn to the Russians for support. After
discovering continuing efforts by the west to destabilize and overthrow his
government, it appeared that this was his only recourse. Although this would
have helped, it seemed that the biggest obstacle remained internal. Put in the
most succinct terms, Lumumba was a politician who sought to rule through
conventional measures while counter-revolutionary violence was being organized
all around him. In this period, one such attempt after another was being
thwarted in exactly the same manner, from Arbenz in Guatemala to Mossadegh in
Iran.
The film's director and co-writer, who was born in Haiti, saw Lumumba as
a Christ-like figure. "One of the things that struck me about Lumumba was
the dignity he had," Peck says. "As he was being led to his execution,
people were slapping him, abusing him, and the two other prisoners were scared
to death. They know they are going to die, but Lumumba is already somewhere
else. He is above death. And he reminds me of the sentence Christ delivered
about his killers, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"
(Los Angeles Times July 15, 2001)
He continued:
"Lumumba inspired the same feelings in Africa that African
Americans had in America with the new Kennedy era. In the U.S. you had the civil
rights movement going on, and in Africa in 1960 and '61, you had 25 African
countries winning their independence. The whole world had hopes, and you had
great leaders like Nasser in Egypt, Sekou Toure in Guinea and Nkrumah in Ghana
speaking to Lumumba like big brothers. So he represented a moment of
exhilaration. You felt as though you had a future and could aim towards
something. When he was killed, many people became interested in politics for the
first time, and there were demonstrations all over the world. This film attempts
to capture that turning point in history, where everything was still possible
for Africa."
Filming on location in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Belgium, Peck was
scrupulous about re-creating the time and political milieu. For example, a band
performs a soukous number called "The Independence Cha-Cha-Cha," that
Lumumba (and he) danced to in the '60s.
As the son of a Haitian diplomat in the Congo, Peck has special insights
into the colonial situation. His family, educated, honored and bourgeois, was at
the forefront of both nations' struggles for political and economic sovereignty.
Although he served two months in Aristide's government as minister of culture,
Peck became disillusioned with the president-priest whom he eventually regarded
as corrupt.
Perhaps the film is part of Peck's ongoing struggle to define a path for
the colonized of the world that avoids the sort of bitter disappointments
experienced in Haiti and the Congo.
In the final scene of the film, we see a bloodied Lumumba about to face
the firing squad. Composing a letter to his wife in his mind, he says, "We
have to write our history ourselves." Essentially this is what Peck's film
is about as well. Now being held over at New York City's Film Forum, this is one
for the ages.