Your National Hero/heroes

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Permalink Reply by Domy Mukonda on October 18, 2008 at 4:11am

Patrice Emery Lumumba

P.E. LUMUMBA



Historical Biography





Patrice Emery Lumumba
born: July 2, 1925, Onalua, Belgian Congo [now Congo (Kinshasa)]
died: January 1961, Katanga province

African nationalist leader, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June-September 1960). Forced out of office during a political crisis, he was assassinated a short time later.

Lumumba was born in the village of Onalua in Kasai province, Belgian Congo. He was a member of the small Batetela tribe, a fact that was to become significant in his later political life. His two principal rivals, Moise Tshombe, who led the breakaway of the Katanga province, and Joseph Kasavubu, who later became the nation's president, both came from large, powerful tribes from which they derived their major support, giving their political movements a regional character. In contrast, Lumumba's movement emphasized its all-Congolese nature.

After attending a Protestant mission school, Lumumba went to work in Kindu-Port-Empain, where he became active in the club of the évolués (educated Africans). He began to write essays and poems for Congolese journals. Lumumba next moved to Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to become a postal clerk and went on to become an accountant in the post office in Stanleyville (now Kisangani). There he continued to contribute to the Congolese press.

In 1955 Lumumba became regional president of a purely Congolese trade union of government employees that was not affiliated, as were other unions, to either of the two Belgian trade-union federations (socialist and Roman Catholic). He also became active in the Belgian Liberal Party in the Congo. Although conservative in many ways, the party was not linked to either of the trade-union federations, which were hostile to it. In 1956 Lumumba was invited with others to make a study tour of Belgium under the auspices of the Minister of Colonies. On his return he was arrested on a charge of embezzlement from the post office. He was convicted and condemned one year later, after various reductions of sentence, to 12 months' imprisonment and a fine.

When Lumumba got out of prison, he grew even more active in politics. In October 1958 he founded the Congolese National Movement (Mouvement National Congolais; MNC), the first nationwide Congolese political party. In December he attended the first All-African People's Conference in Accra, Ghana, where he met nationalists from across the African continent and was made a member of the permanent organization set up by the conference. His outlook and terminology, inspired by pan-African goals, now took on the tenor of militant nationalism.

In 1959 the Belgian government announced a program intended to lead in five years to independence, starting with local elections in December 1959. The nationalists regarded this program as a scheme to install puppets before independence and announced a boycott of the elections. The Belgian authorities responded with repression. On October 30 there was a clash in Stanleyville that resulted in 30 deaths. Lumumba was imprisoned on a charge of inciting to riot.

The MNC decided to shift tactics, entered the elections, and won a sweeping victory in Stanleyville (90 percent of the votes). In January 1960 the Belgian government convened a Round Table Conference in Brussels of all Congolese parties to discuss political change, but the MNC refused to participate without Lumumba. Lumumba was thereupon released from prison and flown to Brussels. The conference agreed on a date for independence, June 30, with national elections in May. Although there was a multiplicity of parties, the MNC came out far ahead in the elections, and Lumumba emerged as the leading nationalist politician of the Congo. Maneuvers to prevent his assumption of authority failed, and he was asked to form the first government, which he succeeded in doing on June 23, 1960.

A few days after independence, some units of the army rebelled, largely because of objections to their Belgian commander. In the confusion, the mineral-rich province of Katanga proclaimed secession. Belgium sent in troops, ostensibly to protect Belgian nationals in the disorder. But the Belgian troops landed principally in Katanga, where they sustained the secessionist regime of Moise Tshombe.

The Congo appealed to the United Nations to expel the Belgians and help them restore internal order. As prime minister, Lumumba did what little he could to redress the situation. His army was an uncertain instrument of power, his civilian administration untrained and untried; the United Nations forces (whose presence he had requested) were condescending and assertive, and the political alliances underlying his regime very shaky. The Belgian troops did not evacuate, and the Katanga secession continued.

Since the United Nations forces refused to help suppress the Katangese revolt, Lumumba appealed to the Soviet Union for planes to assist in transporting his troops to Katanga. He asked the independent African states to meet in Léopoldville in August to unite their efforts behind him. His moves alarmed many, particularly the Western powers and the supporters of President Kasavubu, who pursued a moderate course in the coalition government and favoured some local autonomy in the provinces.

On September 5 President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba. The legalities of the move were immediately contested by Lumumba. There were thus two groups now claiming to be the legal central government. On September 14 power was seized by the Congolese army leader Colonel Joseph Mobutu (president of Zaire as Mobutu Sese Seko), who later reached a working agreement with Kasavubu. In October the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized the credentials of Kasavubu's government. The independent African states split sharply over the issue.

In November Lumumba sought to travel from Leopoldville, where the United Nations had provided him with provisory protection, to Stanleyville, where his supporters had control. With the active complicity of foreign intelligence sources, Joseph Mobutu sent his soldiers after Lumumba. He was caught after several days of pursuit and spent three months in prison, while his adversaries were trying in vain to consolidate their power. Finally, aware that an imprisoned Lumumba was more dangerous than a dead Prime Minister, he was delivered on January 17, 1961, to the Katanga secessionist regime, where he was executed the same night of his arrival, along with his comrades Mpolo and Okito. His death caused a national scandal throughout the world, and, retrospectively, Mobutu proclaimed him a "national hero."

The reasons that Lumumba provoked such intense emotion are not immediately evident. His viewpoint was not exceptional. He was for a unitary Congo and against division of the country along tribal or regional lines. Like many other African leaders, he supported pan-Africanism and the liberation of colonial territories. He proclaimed his regime one of "positive neutralism," which he defined as a return to African values and rejection of any imported ideology, including that of the Soviet Union.

Lumumba was, however, a man of strong character who intended to pursue his policies, regardless of the enemies he made within his country or abroad. The Congo, furthermore, was a key area in terms of the geopolitics of Africa, and because of its wealth, its size, and its contiguity to white-dominated southern Africa, Lumumba's opponents had reason to fear the consequences of a radical or radicalized Congo regime. Moreover, in the context of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's support for Lumumba appeared at the time as a threat to many in the West.

Main source: http://www.africawithin.com/lumumba/historical_bio.htm

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Permalink Reply by cynthia on October 18, 2008 at 7:09pm

Dr. JOse Rizal - Philippines

José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda
birthdate:June 19, 1861
death date: December 30, 1896

JOse rizal was a Filipino polymath, nationalist and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is considered the Philippines' national hero and the anniversary of Rizal's death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. Rizal's 1896 military trial and execution made him a martyr of the Philippine Revolution.

Rizal was the son of a prosperous landowner and sugar planter of Chinese-Filipino descent on the island of Luzon. His mother, Teodora Alonso, one of the most highly educated women in the Philippines at that time, exerted a powerful influence on his intellectual development.

He was educated at the Ateneo de Manila and the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. In 1882, he went to study medicine and liberal arts at the University of Madrid. A brilliant student, he soon became the leader of the small community of Filipino students in Spain and committed himself to the reform of Spanish rule in his home country, though he never advocated Philippine independence. The chief enemy of reform, in his eyes, was not Spain, which was going through a profound revolution, but the Franciscan, Augustinian and Dominican friars who held the country in political and economic paralysis.

Rizal continued his medical studies in Paris and Heidelberg. In 1886, he published his first novel in Spanish, Noli Me Tangere, a passionate exposure of the evils of the friars rule, comparable in its effect to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. A sequel, El Filibusterismo, 1891, established his reputation as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement. He annotated an edition in 1890 on Antonio Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, which showed that the native people of the Philippines had a long history before the coming of the Spaniards.

He became the leader of the Propaganda Movement, contributing numerous articles to its newspaper, La Solidaridad, published in Barcelona. Rizal's political program, as expressed in the newspaper, included integration of the Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), the replacement of the Spanish friars by the Filipino priests, freedom of assembly and expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.

Against the advice of his parents and friends, Rizal returned to the Philippines in 1892. He found a nonviolent reform society, La Liga Filipina, in Manila, and was deported to Dapitan, in northwest Mindanao, an island south of the Philippines. He remained in exile for four years, doing scientific research and founding a school and hospital. In 1896, the Katipunan, a nationalist secret society, launched a revolt against Spain. Although he had no connections with that organization or any part in the insurrection, Rizal was arrested and tried for sedition by the military. Found guilty, he wa publicly executed by a firing squad in Manila. His martyrdom convinced Filipinos that there was no alternative to independence from Spain. On the eve of his execution, while confined in Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote Mi Ultimo Adios ("My Last Farewell"), a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse.

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Permalink Reply by Ricardo Roy A. Lopez on October 28, 2008 at 12:51pm

The highest rank in the BSP was named Rizal Scout then it was named Scout Citizen then finally back to Eagle Scout.

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Permalink Reply by Tarek Y Aziz on October 19, 2008 at 12:05am

Nice topic Domy thanks for posting it really nice

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Permalink Reply by Domy Mukonda on October 19, 2008 at 6:35am

Thanks always Leader tarek. Happy Joti weekend

Domy

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on October 22, 2008 at 9:42pm

Hi Fr Domy

I am pleased to say that we share one of our great heroes with scouts around the world.
Robert Baden-Powell (the powell is pronounced pole in correct english) the founder of scouting and Chief Scout of the world. The legacy lives on and I am very proud that he was English like myself, and that he gave to the whole world our fantasic movement.

Andy and his demented monkey,

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Permalink Reply by Domy Mukonda on October 23, 2008 at 9:13am

Nice to hear that. You should upload some pictures of that famous WORLD hero.

Take care my friend

Domy

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on October 23, 2008 at 2:30pm

Here is BP in an original British setting

Attachments:

• bp postcard.jpg, 4 KB

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Permalink Reply by Domy Mukonda on October 23, 2008 at 3:23pm

Yeah, thanks brother. all the best

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Permalink Reply by eslam nasr on October 23, 2008 at 2:11pm

The official name of the Arab Republic of Egypt capital Cairo is the largest city in the Arab world, Africa and the Middle East. It is also the industrial and commercial center of Egypt's other main cities in the city of Alexandria - Tanta - Port Said - Luxor - Aswan - Cairo - Assiut. Total Area: 1,001,450 sq km land area: 995.450 square km area of water: 6.000 sq km site located north of the continent of Africa bordered by the Mediterranean north, and the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea to the east, north and south Sudan, and Libya from the West. Suez Canal separating the Sinai peninsula (The only part of Egypt, which is located in Asia) for the rest of the country. The geographic coordinates of 27.00 north, 30.00 east, population 78.7 million people (estimate in May 2008) Arabic (official), English, French Haiata use. Science a three-color Red and white is black and taking center Salahuddin golden eagle is the national symbol of Egypt. Currency pound = 100 pounds and one U.S. $ = 5.67270 pounds (20/10/2008) A

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Permalink Reply by Domy Mukonda on October 23, 2008 at 3:25pm

Thanks for the sharing. We also want to know a person who is considered in the history as a egyptian hero. it can be one person or a group of persons. Thanks and take care.
best regards from the Far East,

Domy

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Permalink Reply by Katarzyna Prokop on January 8, 2009 at 2:53pm

I think that one polish national heroes is the Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II (Polish: Jan Paweł II) (18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) reigned as Pope and Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the third-longest pontificate. He was the only Polish pope and the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI (Dutch) in the 1520s.

John Paul II was pope during a period in which the Catholic Church's influence declined in developed countries, but expanded in the Third World. During his reign, the pope travelled extensively, visiting over 100 countries, more than any of his predecessors. He remains one of the most-travelled world leaders in history. He was fluent in numerous languages: his native Polish and also Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Croatian, Portuguese, Russian, and Latin.

As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he canonised a great number of people. He beatified 1,340 people, more than any previous Pope. The Vatican asserts that he canonised more people than the combined tally of his predecessors during the last five centuries, and from a far greater variety of cultures. Whether he had canonised more saints than all previous popes put together, as is sometimes also claimed, is difficult to prove, as the records of many early canonisations are incomplete, missing, or inaccurate. However, it is known that his abolition of the office of Promotor Fidei ("Promoter of the Faith") streamlined the process.

For more information you can search here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II

Kasia Prokop

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