On colonialism

Father of pan African nationalism and first Prime Minister of independent Congo, Lumumba wanted his fledgling republic to be free from colonial exploitation and racist hegemony.

The new revelation, about Britain’s murky role in his murder in 1961 is hardly surprising. Ronald Segal, the South African Jewish writer, in his classic The Race War (1966) consummately analyses the colonial subjugation of coloured peoples and attributes the continuing ethnic strife in Africa, more than anything else, to the machinations of the white nations.

K. Sekhar,

Chennai