Initiative

Comic book "Paul Panda Farnana, a forgotten life"

Period

2014 – ongoing

Type of initiative

UN category

satisfaction

Organisation(s)

Location

Africalia

Keywords

The comic book Paul Panda Farnana, a forgotten life brings together the work of four Congolese cartoonists from the Kinshasa-based association BD Kin Label: Asimba Bathy, Djemba Djeis, Yann Kumbozi, and Dody Lobela. Historian Antoine Tshitungu Kongolo developed the historical framework and wrote the original script.

Paul Panda Farnana M’Fumu was born in the colonised Congo in 1888 or 1890 and arrived in Belgium as a child in 1895, where he was educated at the Athénée Royal d’Ixelles. He later studied at the Royal Institute of Horticulture in Vilvoorde, graduating with great distinction. He became the first Congolese person to obtain a higher education diploma in Belgium. After returning to the Congo in 1909, he worked for the Belgian colonial administration as an agricultural engineer. During this period, he experienced the segregation and discrimination imposed by the colonial system against him and other Congolese people.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Paul Panda Farnana joined the Congolese Volunteer Corps and was later taken prisoner of war by the Germans. In 1919, he and other Congolese people, many of them First World War veterans, founded the Union Congolaise. It became one of the first organisations in Belgium advocating for the social, cultural, and political rights of Congolese people, with particular attention to the situation of Congolese veterans and broader efforts towards their emancipation.

Resources

web.archive.org

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