Vashna Jagarnath, The Conversation
The unfolding crisis in
Greece has highlighted the extent to which we have bought into the idea that
there is no alternative to the increasing subordination of society to capital.
The democratic moment that excited so many people around the world soon passed.
Even Yanis Varoufakis,
the lone Greek hero taking on the medusa-like power of the European Union, has
capitulated.
These experiences are all
too familiar in Africa where sovereignty has often been ground away in the
cycle of loans, debt and structural adjustment. As Thomas Sankara, president of
Burkina Faso for four years in the 1980s, famously argued:
Debt is neo-colonialism,
in which colonisers transformed themselves into “technical assistance”. We
should say “technical assassins”.
In a 1986 speech at the
Organisation for African Unity in Addis Ababa, Sankara asked his fellow African
leaders to challenge the use of debt to enable neo-colonialism saying:
The Paris Club is there;
let’s create the Addis Ababa Club for cancelling our foreign debt. Our Club
should say: our debt will not be paid.
Sankara’s advice was not
heeded and throughout the 1980s indebted African countries had to surrender
their autonomy to Structural Adjustment Programmes. Since then it has largely
been accepted that there is no alternative to the domination of imperial
overlords and the financial interests that they serve.
Today, many African countries
continue to creep along a predetermined path that takes them away from any real
possibility to defend their sovereignty and meet the needs of their people.
Icons of new politics of
hope
But, especially among the
young, the memory of those who were brave enough to forge or think about
alternative paths have become icons of a new politics of hope. This includes
people like Sankara, Amilcar Cabral, Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon and Steve Bantu
Biko in South Africa.
With eyes of the world
focused on the unfolding crisis in Greece, Sankara has taken on a new
relevance. And as endemic corruption deepens in many African countries, Sankara
– who, like the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre, was universally
acknowledged to be incorruptible – has also become a symbol for the possibility
of a virtuous politics.
Sankara was not one for
the empty revolutionary rhetoric and posturing without effective commitment to
action. He was committed to taking real action in the real world. Immediately
after assuming power he took decisive steps to set about building an
alternative society outside of the long arms of the global financial
organisations.
With years of military
discipline behind him, along with substantial leadership experience, the young
and charismatic Sankara was able to hit the ground running as soon as he took
up his presidency. Within a week of taking office he set up a massive
vaccination program to deal with polio, meningitis and measles.
Sankara also set up
feeding schemes and massive housing and infrastructure projects. In addition to
this, he created more than 7000 village nursery projects to deal with
deforestation. He also built over 700 kilometres of rail to foster industry.
A feminist president
Sankara was also a
militant feminist who not only opposed traditional patriarchal practices
prevalent in Bukinabé society, but also took on the sexism of his supposedly
revolutionary comrades. In a speech in 1987, he insisted that the overthrow of
patriarchy would not be complete as long as:
… the new kind of woman
must live with the old kind of man.
Once again, this was not
just empty posturing. Sankara put in place a variety of measures to transform
the condition of women, including literacy programmes, the establishment of
village clinics, co-ops and market associations.
A family code was also
established so that divorce by mutual consent became possible; widows were no
longer required to remarry their deceased husband’s brothers; widows could also
inherit; and the practice of bride-wealth was suppressed. Sankara’s feminism
took the form of practical action intimately tied to broader questions of
social justice.
Burkino Faso under
Sankara was certainly not perfect. He was often criticised for suppressing
press freedom and some unions, and for his swift punishment of corrupt
officials.
Sankara was murdered in
October 1987 by a group of armed men on the orders of Blaise Compaoré during a
coup d'état. In the years following his assassination many of the changes
Sankara initiated were revoked. By 2014, Burkino Faso was considered to be one
of the poorest countries in the world.
Despite the authoritarian
aspects of Sankara’s radicalism he has remained very popular in Burkino Faso,
especially among young people. The Burkinabé uprising of 2014, which resulted
in the ousting of Compaoré, was in part spurred by the memory of Sankara.
Around the world young
people often find themselves coming of age in a moment when politics seems to
be more about grubby personal interests than any attempt to reorganise society
in the interests of justice. Strong figures who are incorruptible and driven by
a resolute commitment to justice are often attractive.
