I grew up in the Copperbelt Province, near the small mining town where Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crashed in September 1961, as he was en route to negotiate a cease-fire in Katanga Province in the Congo. My father, who stuck a small map of the continent on our bedroom wall, and warned us to memorise the 50+ African states within a month of our arrival in Zambia (I was 7), was full of obscure facts that meant little to us at the time. He chugged us to Ndola in his beloved bottle-green VW beetle, and made a sweep around the tiny airstrip: “This is where the great statesman died, perhaps because of treachery,” he said.
So imagine my surprise when TMZ’s Harvey Levin (yes, the gossip “news” show) pronounced Hammarskjöld’s death to have been at the hands of ‘natives’ ‘in the Congo’ who tied Hammarskjöld to a tree, and split his body apart. Even as his staff members Googled ‘Hammarskjöld’ (and mangled Hammarskjöld’s name; Levin called him “Dog Hammerfield’) and found that he died in a plane crash, Levin holds on to his story: the natives must have split Hammarskjöld’s body, posthumously. He then benign-dictator-style ordered a staff member to get a hold of a “professor” who knows something about the Congo, to confirm his story.
Around 9:30 AM, I went on TMZ’s website, and wrote them a note: I grew up not 60km from the crash site…and can assure you that no natives have been splitting anyone apart.
11:25AM: Harvey Levin himself rings me up to say: he distinctly remembers a story about a person whose plane crashed, survived the crash, but then some ‘tribe’/the natives tied him to a tree and pulled him apart using some elaborate system of ropes. Apparently it was all over the news, sometime in the ’60s – could I find out who it was? I told him that ‘Africa’ lends itself to such myths, and I’d be surprised if it were true, but he was heading to a meeting. So I assured him I’d put the word out via AIAC.
Natives and Tribals: do you know of such an incident?
I know of Leopold’s people splitting people’s hands off from their bodies in the Congo, and the US government doing some nasty things to natives from Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., but…
Intriguing story.
I am more inclined to believe that Hammarskjold was an early victim of the Cold War and the atavistic savagery of sophisticated people. Never heard any such native story while living in Lusaka in the early 70′s though I seem to recall an account about Hammarskjold being removed by local people from the crash site wounded but alive. It was a mysterious event….
Then again, it is unlikely that ‘the natives’ would have taken matters into their hands and interfered too much with a plane crash. Zambia was still nominally under colonial rule in 1961.
Not sure whether to see TMZ’s story as a harmless racist fantasy or willful historical revisionism that forgets the role of the US in the Congo.
And Zambians remember Hammarskjold with affection that is why a prominent national stadium was named after him.
He hardly remembered elsewhere.
@ebele: exactly. On all points. And yes, wee do remember him with great affection. What were you doing in Lusaka in the ’70s?
Neelika, like you I spent some of my formative years in Lusaka. My nomadic parents took me there.
Sorry, can’t help with that one but I find it interesting how prevalent the idea of African “primitives” and “natives” still is. I live in Germany and I just got layed off from a job in a media agency that worked with a big telecommunication company because I spoke up in a meeting in which a PP slide mentioned a tribe in Northern Cameroon that had never been exposed to Western music and when they heard it, they reacted ‘just like people in the West’. It was supposed to show the impact music has on people and how companies can use music to bring their products to their desired target group. After the important manager of that company had finished his presentation and asked if there are any questions, I asked him if he could explain that slide a bit more and he kind of stumbled. Needless to say I got into big trouble and only one person came to me (after the meeting was over) to say I was right for saying something.
Long story but that incident showed me how much those notions of Africa and Africans still are engrained in peoples’ minds.
Alia, want to send us clips of that show, and a bit of your story? Maybe fun to write about! I think we actually heard about this show…so brilliant of a media company to use ‘natives’ to show that everyone responds to good music?
@ Neelika: It wasn’t a show, it was a PowerPoint presentation during an internal meeting so I don’t have any clips. I just found the paper where I took notes, though, it was the Mafa tribe in Northern Cameroon they used as an example; they cited some scientific study. I tried to look it up online later, but couldn’t find anything. Like I said, the topic was music and emotions and how it can be used in a marketing context. Maybe you can find it, would be interesting to look at it.
I found a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F7qUlz1p6o
Unbelievable. The old man had to “point to the right faces”, even though there obviously were people who just could have translated. Is it just me or does all of this feel awkward? And why do you compare a small tribe to “the West”?
Wasn’t there a scene of a guy getting strung up in “The Last King of Scotland”? Maybe Harvey is mixing that (perhaps fictional?) story up with his plane crash story. You should tell HL what happened to Lumumba at the hands of the “civilized.”
Alert! You may have heard this but I just saw natives pulling a man apart down Lower Main Rd in Obs, Cape Town! Apparently the poor man survived a shipwreck near Madiba’s statue at the Waterfront but the natives are having none of it.They grew very angry at the mention of Madiba’s name. Should I call the police?
no…leave the natives to do the deed. they need a sacrifice.
So apparently my comment yesterday got swallowed up by the interwebs? I grew up in Ndola (a good 30 years after the Hammarskjold crash) and never heard of anything like this. Perhaps Levin watched too many old Hollywood cannibal movies?
That congo story is from the very first tarzan/jane with johnny weismuller