Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

by Siddharth Kara

“The independence of the Congo constitutes the culmination of the work conceived by the genius of King Léopold II, undertaken by him with tenacious courage and continued with perseverance with Belgium.” An agitated Lumumba delivered an unscheduled response that pulsed with the anger of millions of Africans who were enslaved by the “genius” of their colonial overlords. He decried the “humiliating slavery” forced on the Congolese by the Belgians and lauded the Congolese struggle for freedom “amid tears, fire, and blood.” He warned that the people of the Congo would never forget the “grueling labor, demanded from us in return for wages that did not allow us to satisfy our hunger … or to raise our children as creatures very dear to us” and that the Congolese people had “seen our raw materials stolen” under the guise of laws that were “cruel and inhuman.” Lumumba ended his incendiary speech with a declaration to the Belgian king: “Nous ne sommes plus vos singes”—“We are no longer your monkeys.”4