Lumumba

Prompt: Let’s play “What if” history: imagine that Lumumba had managed to overcome the challenges to his rule and stay in power. How do you think his presidency would have unfolded? Would he have succeeded in keeping Zaire from falling apart? Would he have established the country as a democracy or would he most likely have become a dictator ruling for many years?

I don't believe anything could have really kept Zaire from falling apart. There were so many forces sticking their hands in the pot, so to speak, that there was no way to keep the place stable. The citizens, the Belgians, the Americans, and other western powers were secretly and non-secretly fighting to make things happen the way they wanted in the country. It was simply too unstable.

Considering what the CIA and everyone else wanted, I don't doubt that some dictator or another would have emerged. This is exactly the place where dictators come to power - unstable, violent, and with foreign powers trying to install their own favorite leaders. The leaders become too powerful with their foreign backing, and they become corrupt. They steal from their own people, kill them and their neighbors, and then they are deposed. Often, of course, the cycle continues anew.

A democracy is not, in my opinion, something that can be established by outside forces. It is something that must be formed by those involved, with the permission and blessings of those involved. Otherwise, it's a joke, and it may lead to something worse than that which it is replacing.