
In this tribute to the late president of Congo Dr, Laurent Desire Kabila, Pepe Kalle & the major congolese artists sing about the goings on in Congo’s political climate. They sing: ‘For our Mzee Kabila, for our Mzee Kabila, for our Congo’…’God seperated us according to languages & tribes, but the european has seperated us according to geography / and the through the creation of regions’. ‘This congo of ours, it is blessed. This has made some people jealous of this country’. ‘They have sought to seperate us, and to cause all manner of division, but we shall not allow it. All congolese, stand up, take arms, and die for your country’.
in my own poem, entitled: ‘Independence’, I reflect on what it means for this central region of Africa.
Independence
Congo’s light shown on 30th June 1960
The spirit that breathed, made a spark in our people’s heart,
And our leader took for Brussels from Leopoldville,
With that spark in his heart,
Which I suspect he placed firmly at the centre of the candelabra,
Which shown brightly below for those who sat round the table ronde,
And then our leader came back with the torch burning brightly in his tongue, he came back to Kinshasa,
Unity, harmony and goodwill kept the torch burning,
It’s only logical that division and paranoia would extinguish it;
And unseen forces in high places fought to extinguish it,
And they won.
Their wind came and blew out our torch,
And what was left of its sparks, was drowned in the sea,
And our land was wed in an exogamous marriage
And rain fell like tears, the horizon cried and cried,
And veins were drained of blood.
We never saw our leader, nor heard him ever again,
The mighty were never there to carry his coffin;
We never gave him a hero’s mourning.
Kindu2006 -