GENDER AND DECOLONIZATION IN THE CONGO 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd i 6/11/2010 9:30:52 PM This page intentionally left blank GENDER AND DECOLONIZATION IN THE CONGO THE LEGACY OF PATRICE LUMUMBA Karen Bouwer 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd iii 6/11/2010 9:30:52 PM GENDER AND DECOLONIZATION IN THE CONGO Copyright © Karen Bouwer, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–61557–1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bouwer, Karen. Gender and decolonization in the Congo : the legacy of Patrice Lumumba / Karen Bouwer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–230–61557–1 (hardback) 1. Lumumba, Patrice, 1925–1961—Political and social views. 2. Lumumba, Patrice, 1925–1961—Relations with women. 3. Lumumba, Patrice, 1925–1961—Influence. 4. Sex role—Congo (Democratic Republic)—History—20th century. 5. Women—Political activity— Congo (Democratic Republic)—History—20th century. 6. Decolonization—Congo (Democratic Republic)—History—20th century. 7. Congo (Democratic Republic)—Politics and government— 1960–1997. 8. Congo (Democratic Republic)—Social conditions—20th century. I. Title. DT658.2.L85B68 2010 967.519024092—dc22 2009050952 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: August 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America. 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd iv 6/11/2010 9:30:52 PM I dedicate this book to my parents Harriet Johanna Bouwer (née Pretorius) and Jeremia Jess Bouwer 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd v 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Images ix Acknowledgments xi Permissions xiii Introduction: The Gender of Decolonization 1 1 Lumumba on Women: From Domesticity to Political Mobilization 13 2 Lumumba and Women: The Personal Meets the Political 39 3 Andrée Blouin: A Sister among Brothers in Struggle 71 4 Léonie Abo: The Political Lessons of the Maquis 101 5 Césaire’s Lumumba: A Symbol of Sexual and Political Prowess 131 6 Peck’s Personal Lumumba: The Maternal Voice in Death of a Prophet 153 7 Peck’s Hollywood Lumumba: A Masculine Hero 167 Conclusion: Legacies 191 Notes 197 Works Cited 213 Timeline 225 Index 229 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd vii 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM This page intentionally left blank IMAGES 2.1 Pauline Opango Lumumba today 69 3.1 Blouin addressing a crowd 75 3.2 Blouin with Gizenga 76 4.1 A maquis photo, Nelly Labutu in the center 115 4.2 Léonie Abo in the 1990s 128 6.1 Gisèle Peck in the mayor’s office in Leopoldville 156 7.1 Patrice and Pauline in Peck’s film 177 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd ix 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS was sustained for the duration of this project by colleagues, friends, and I family. Anita Alkhas, a stalwart supporter in countless ways, helped me visualize the book in every sense of the word. I am profoundly grateful to the members of my writing group, Bernadette Barker-Plummer, Kathy Nasstrom, and Stephanie Vandrick, as well as Heather Hoag, for their moral support and discussions about process and content. The immeasur- able generosity of Father Bernard Muhigirwa and Sister Pauline Lukolongo made my short trip to the Congo fruitful beyond my dreams. A special thanks to Madame Pauline Opango Lumumba, Léonie Abo, and Roland and Juliana Lumumba, and all the others who took time to meet or speak with me. Grey Osterud’s sophisticated and incisive feed- back helped make this a better book. For careful readings of certain chap- ters, I am indebted to Gertrude Mianda, Laurence M. Porter, Mary Vogl, and Herbert Weiss. For listening, reading, and commenting, in big ways and small, and for providing information, documents, permissions, and photographs, my sincere thanks to Pamela Balls-Organista, Julia Berman (my wonderful research assistant), Jean-Pierre Bongila, Monique Chajmowiez, Elizabeth Costello, Ken Harrow, Jennesis Jensen, Mary McCullough, Jennifer Morales, Jean Lambert Mulopo Pemba, Valerie Orlando, Victoria Pasley, Raoul Peck, Bernadette Pedagno, Agnès Peysson-Zeiss, Tracy Seeley, Katha Sheehan (honoring the life and work of her mother Jean MacKellar), Dean Jennifer Turpin and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Francisco (for financing and supporting regular writing retreats for the faculty), Herbert Weiss, and Raúl Wybo, as well as Luba Ostashevsky, Joanna Mericle, Colleen Lawrie, and Laura Lancaster, at Palgrave Macmillan. My everlasting grat- itude goes to my family, my rock, and to Omid Ahmadian for always being there, by my side. 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd xi 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd xii 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM PERMISSIONS The author and publisher are grateful for permission to reproduce the following copyrighted material: Excerpts from Andrée Blouin’s My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria (published with the collaboration of Jean MacKellar by Praeger Publishers in 1983) reproduced with the kind permission of Katha Sheehan on behalf of the Estate of Jean MacKellar. Excerpts and photographs from Ludo Martens’s Abo. Une Femme du Congo (1995) reproduced with the kind permission of Ludo Martens and EPO, Brussels. Excerpts from Aimé Césaire’s Une Saison au Congo reproduced with the kind permission of Éditions du Seuil, 1966, coll. Points, 2001. For the English translation: A SEASON IN THE CONGO by Aimé Césaire. English translation copyright © 1968 by Grove Press, Inc. Originally published in French as Une Saison Au Congo , copyright © 1967 by Éditions du Seuil. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for Éditions du Seuil. 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd xiii 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM 9780230615571_01_prexiv.indd xiv 6/11/2010 9:30:53 PM INTRODUCTION: THE GENDER OF DECOLONIZATION hortly before independence on June 30, 1960, Prime Minister Patrice SLumumba met resistance from a surprising source: his wife. Pauline Opango and other women organ ized against their husbands in Lumumba’s incoming administration at a moment when the men would seem to need the loyal support of their spouses. Why? Anicet Kashamura explains the mounting tensions in the Lumumba household as independence approached: Lumumba’s family drama intensifies when he starts assuming responsi- bilities. Pauline Opango, his wife, is worried. She is the first in the Congo to notice that independence is going to bring about changes in Congolese homes. A man who happens to become a minister, she says, will be tempted to marry a better educated, more Europeanized woman, able to play a part in diplomatic ceremonies. That’s why she organizes a women’s movement in Leopoldville to protest the behavior of the minis- ters and of her husband. (7)1 The discovery of this event, almost eclipsed in the turmoil surrounding the struggle for independence, raised a whole range of questions that spurred me to undertake this study. Pauline Lumumba’s political initiative draws attention to a dimension of women’s political involvement beyond what is commonly acknowl- edged in the literature on the Congo. I seek to foreground women while I use the iconic figure of Patrice Lumumba as the focal point of my investigation of gender and decolonization. This protest underscores the family as a crucial locus for the manifestation and contestation of gender relations and emphasizes the interconnections between public and private domains at this transitional moment in political life. During my meeting with Madame Lumumba in Kinshasa in March 2008, she corroborated Kashamura’s account in De Lumumba aux 2 colonels. The women’s protests emphasized the effect of the changing 9780230615571_02_int.indd 1 6/11/2010 9:42:29 PM 2 GENDER AND DECOLONIZATION IN THE CONGO political circumstances on their personal lives, and they asked for justice in the family based on their contributions to the anticolonial struggle. Kashamura represents their voices in two brief sentences: — Why, in Africa, when someone becomes a minister, diplomat or parlia- mentarian, must he take a new wife? —Yet women also fought against colonialism. (7) At this important historical juncture, Congolese men were elevated from colonial subjection, and some were affirmed as leaders to be respected. In many African societies, “big men” took on new wives as their sta- tus rose, in part because they could pay the bride wealth and in part as a means of extending their alliances. This practice not only privileged wealthy and powerful men but also reinforced their position, since mul- tiple wives created more wealth and produced more children. The con- cern that activated Pauline and the women who joined her was based on the men’s continuation of what could be regarded as customary pat- terns in an unprecedented historical situation of independence won on European terms. However, it seems that in the Congo these men’s wives would not have become senior wives when their husbands took new, “more Europeanized” wives. Certainly that would not have happened in Lumumba’s case; he had only one recognized wife at a time. The évolués— those Africans who had received a certain amount of Western education and were considered to be “evolving” toward the “civilized” standards set by the supposedly superior Europeans—supported monogamy; more often than not they would divorce or repudiate their wife so that another woman could take her place.