Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History / The 1930s Luluabourg Railroad Strike: Belgium's Colonial Labour Revolt
Transcript
- Luna: So we've covered a lot of colonial uprisings in the Congo — rubber atrocities, coptis revolts, the Uele cotton rebellion. But I feel like we haven't talked much about the 1930s. Lucas: You're right. And the 1930s were a fascinating and brutal decade in the Belgian Congo, partly because the Great Depression hit the colony hard. The global price collapse for raw materials meant the colonial administration squeezed African labour even harder to maintain profits. And that squeeze produced some major confrontations that don't get as much attention as the earlier rubber horrors. Lucas: One of the biggest was the Luluabourg railroad strike of 1931. Luluabourg — today's Kananga — was a key hub in the Kasai region. The Belgians were building a railway line from Port-Francqui on the Kasai River to Luluabourg, part of a larger network to funnel minerals out of Katanga. And the conditions for the African workers were absolutely brutal. Luna: What kind of conditions are we talking about? Lucas: The workers were recruited largely from the local Luba and Kuba populations, often through forced labour quotas imposed by village chiefs under pressure from colonial agents. They worked from dawn to dusk, six days a week, clearing bush, laying track, hauling heavy rails — all for a pittance in wages that barely covered food. And discipline was enforced with the chicotte, the infamous hippopotamus-hide whip that could draw blood with a single stroke. Lucas: The railway was being built by the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Bas-Congo au Katanga, or BCK, a private company with a state concession. They had a reputation for being especially ruthless. And in early 1931, after months of withheld wages and worsening rations, the workers at the Luluabourg rail yard simply downed tools and refused to work. Luna: That took guts. What did the colonial authorities do? Lucas: They reacted with typical brutality. The local district commissioner called in the Force Publique under Colonel Léon Fiévez — and you might remember that name from earlier episodes; he was a notoriously harsh officer who had crushed rebellions in the Kongo-Sundi region in the 1890s. Fiévez arrived with a detachment of soldiers and ordered the strikers to return to work or face the consequences. When they refused, he had the ringleaders publicly flogged with the chicotte, and then arrested dozens of workers and sent them to labour camps. Lucas: But here's the thing — the strike didn't just collapse. It actually spread. Workers on other sections of the line, especially around the town of Mweka, also stopped work in solidarity. And the strike drew in not just railway workers but also local farmers who were being forced to grow cotton and maize for export. For a few weeks in mid-1931, the entire Kasai region was in a state of simmering rebellion. Luna: So the Belgians were facing a general strike, not just a labour dispute. How did they manage to contain it? Lucas: They used a mix of coercion and concession. Fiévez and his Force Publique carried out mass arrests and intimidation, but they also realized that killing all the workers would stop the railway construction entirely. So the colonial administration — under Governor-General Auguste Tilkens — ordered an investigation into the workers' grievances. They admitted that wages had been withheld and rations had been inadequate. They promised reforms, including better food and regular pay, but they also made it clear that any future strikes would be crushed without mercy. Lucas: The Luluabourg strike was a turning point in a few ways. It showed that African workers could organize collectively across ethnic lines — Luba and Kuba and even some Lulua workers acted together. It also forced the Belgian administration to at least formally acknowledge that labour had rights. But it also hardened the colonial state's authoritarian reflexes. In the years after, the Force Publique increased its presence in the Kasai, and the chicotte remained legal until after World War II. Luna: It's striking how these moments of resistance seem to echo through later independence movements. Did any of the leaders of the 1931 strike become figures in the push for independence? Lucas: Some of them did, actually. A number of the workers who were arrested later became involved in the first African trade unions in the Congo, which were legalized in 1946. And in the Kasai, the memory of the strike fed into the broader anti-colonial sentiment that eventually produced figures like Albert Tshibangu, a Luba politician who played a role in the independence negotiations. The strike wasn't a direct precursor, but it was part of the education in collective action that made later mass politics possible. Lucas: And you know, this is exactly the kind of history that doesn't get taught much — even in Belgium. The focus is usually on the big-name figures like Patrice Lumumba or the rubber atrocities. But these local labour struggles were where a lot of Congolese first learned to resist colonial power in a sustained, organized way. Luna: That's exactly why I love this show. We dig into those overlooked corners. Lucas: And that's also why we keep it ad-free. We deliberately don't run ads on these episodes because we want to tell these stories without interruptions. If you'd like to support that choice, and help us keep digging into the overlooked corners, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to make sure stories like the Luluabourg railroad strike get the attention they deserve. Lucas: Exactly. So back to 1931 — the strike had another consequence that a lot of people don't realize. It actually slowed down the railway construction by nearly a year. The BCK company had to bring in workers from other regions, including some from Rwanda-Urundi, which created ethnic tensions that would persist for decades. And the delay meant that the railway only reached Luluabourg in 1932, not 1931 as originally planned. Luna: So the strike actually achieved something tangible, even if it wasn't a full victory. Lucas: Right. The workers didn't win everything — they didn't get the right to strike, for instance — but they forced the colonial system to bend a little. And that was a lesson that later generations remembered. In fact, when the Luluabourg region became the center of the 1960s Kasai secessionist movement under Albert Kalonji, a lot of the same families and communities were involved. The strike was a kind of rehearsal for later political battles. Luna: I want to ask about the role of the chiefs. You mentioned that chiefs were forced to provide labour quotas. Did any of them side with the strikers? Lucas: A few did, and that was remarkable because the colonial system largely co-opted the traditional chiefs into the apparatus of control. But in the Luluabourg area, some Luba and Kuba chiefs quietly supported the strike by not enforcing the labour requisitions. They were taking a huge risk — the Belgians could depose them or even execute them for insubordination. One chief, a Luba leader named Mwamba Ngoie, was actually arrested for failing to deliver workers after the strike began. He was sentenced to five years in prison and died in detention. Luna: That's heartbreaking. He was caught between his people and the colonizers. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a recurring tragedy in colonial history. The old power structures were hollowed out and repurposed for exploitation. But even within those constraints, individuals found ways to resist. The Luluabourg strike is a story of dignity under duress, of people who refused to accept the idea that their labour had no value. Lucas: It's also a story that the Belgian colonial archives have tried to bury. For decades, the official history of the Congo railway was written as a triumph of engineering and progress. It's only in recent years that historians like Jean-Luc Vellut have dug into the records of the BCK company and uncovered the scale of the strike and its suppression. Luna: So the archives themselves were a site of struggle — over memory and narrative. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's why shows like this matter — we're pulling those suppressed stories back into the light. If you want to help us do that for more episodes, the link again is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Every bit helps keep this independent and ad-free. Luna: I think it's worth it. Now, you mentioned the strike spread to other areas. Was there any coordination between different groups of workers? Lucas: That's a great question. There wasn't a formal union or a central committee — the first African trade unions wouldn't be legalized until 1946. So the coordination was largely informal, spread by word of mouth along the railway line. Workers at different stations would send messengers to each other, and there were even some clandestine meetings in the bush. The colonial police tried to intercept these, but they weren't always successful. The strike had a kind of organic, viral quality that the authorities found deeply threatening. Lucas: One of the most remarkable aspects is that the workers managed to maintain discipline. There was no looting, no violence against Europeans — they just stopped working. That made it harder for the Belgians to paint them as 'savage' or 'irrational'. It was a calculated act of civil disobedience, decades before the term became common. Luna: It sounds like they understood the power of non-violent resistance. Lucas: They did. And that's part of what makes this episode so significant. It wasn't a bloody uprising like the 1895 Kongo-Sundi revolt or the 1928 Ituri atrocities. It was a modern labour strike in a colonial context. And it succeeded in winning tangible improvements, even if the overall system remained intact. That's a different kind of victory — incremental, but real. Luna: So when we think about the path to Congolese independence, we should include the railway workers of Luluabourg alongside the more famous figures. Lucas: Exactly. The independence movement was built on layers of resistance — from the rural rebellions of the 1890s to the urban strikes of the 1940s. The Luluabourg strike of 1931 is a crucial link in that chain. It showed that collective action could force the colonial state to negotiate, and it planted seeds of political consciousness that would flower thirty years later. Lucas: And on that note, I think we've given the Luluabourg railroad workers their due. Next time, I want to talk about something completely different — the role of Belgian women in the colonial enterprise. There's a fascinating and uncomfortable story there. Luna: I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for another great conversation.