- NERIMA
Across countries and continents, humanity has been bequeathed with rich and powerful legacies from a select crop of conscientious political leaders.
Some of these legacies are especially gutting. The owners paid the ultimate price − their lives − for their convictions, ideals and beliefs.
The indomitable spirit, unfaltering will and steadfast determination of Patrice Lumumba is captured in his purported last letter to his wife − written just moments before he faced his executioners’ firing squad.
He avowed, ‘Neither brutality, nor cruelty nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy…for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregarding sacred principles.’
In what must have been from within the deepest throes of despair he continued, ‘History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets.’
‘Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.’ Patrice was a Pan Africanist, Independence Leader and the first Prime Minister of Congo.
Tom Mboya, one of the founding fathers of Kenya; and Benazir Bhutto, the first woman Prime Minister of a Muslim country – Pakistan – displayed similar attitudes within their respective political circumstances and arenas.
Nelson Mandela lent us the words to describe these political martyrs’ degree of commitment to their causes. They believed in ideals that they were prepared to die for.
And they did die. Cruelly assassinated in the prime of their lives. Nerima holds great fascination for these three political legends. They top her list of breath-catching, deeply admirable role models.
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