Sankara: ‘We draw lessons from all the world’s revolutions’
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/08/sankara-we-draw-lessons-from-all-the-worlds-revolutions/
August 17, 2020
Popular uprising in Madagascar, which toppled government in 1972, had
deep impact on Thomas Sankara, who was a military cadet there. He heard
from fellow students about 1968 workers general strike in France, above.
Transferred to France by the army, he scoured Paris for books by Karl
Marx and other revolutionaries. He learned importance of studying
history of class struggle.
MILITANT/FLAX HERMES
Popular uprising in Madagascar, which toppled government in 1972, had
deep impact on Thomas Sankara, who was a military cadet there. He heard
from fellow students about 1968 workers general strike in France, above.
Transferred to France by the army, he scoured Paris for books by Karl
Marx and other revolutionaries. He learned importance of studying
history of class struggle.
Thomas Sankara Parle, the French edition of Thomas Sankara Speaks: The
Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-87, is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the
Month for August. In 1983 Sankara led an uprising in the former French
colony of Upper Volta, bringing to power a popular revolutionary
government. He led mobilizations by workers, peasants, women and youth
to carry out deep social measures and take control of their own destiny
in one of the poorest countries in the world. Sankara was assassinated
in a counterrevolutionary coup in 1987. An outstanding communist, he
followed the example of Cuban revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Che
Guevara, using the platform of the United Nations General Assembly on
Oct. 4, 1984, to speak out for the oppressed and exploited of the world.
That speech, “Freedom Must Be Conquered,” is excerpted here. Copyright ©
2007 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY THOMAS SANKARA
I make no claim to lay out any doctrines here. I am neither a messiah
nor a prophet. I possess no truths. My only aspiration is twofold:
first, to be able to speak on behalf of my people, the people of Burkina
Faso, in simple words, words that are clear and factual. And second, in
my own way to also speak on behalf of the “great disinherited people of
the world,” those who belong to the world so ironically christened the
Third World. And to state, though I may not succeed in making them
understood, the reasons for our revolt. …
This is what we glimpsed — we, the Burkinabè people — during the evening
of August 4, 1983, when the first stars began to sparkle in the skies of
our homeland. We had to take the leadership of the peasant revolts,
signs of which were visible in a countryside that is panic-stricken by
the advancing desert, exhausted by hunger and thirst, and abandoned. We
had to give meaning to the brewing revolt of the idle urban masses,
frustrated and weary of seeing limousines driving the elites around,
elites that were out of touch, succeeding one another at the helm of
state while offering the urban masses nothing but false solutions
elaborated and conceived by the minds of others. We had to give an
ideological soul to the just struggles of our popular masses as they
mobilized against the monster of imperialism. The passing revolt, the
simple brushfire, had to be replaced forever with the revolution, the
permanent struggle against all forms of domination. …
My country is brimming with all the misfortunes of the peoples of the
world, a painful synthesis of all humanity’s suffering, but also — and
above all — of the promise of our struggles. …
I am acting as spokesperson for all those who vainly seek a forum in
this world where they can make themselves heard. So yes, I wish to speak
on behalf of all “those left behind,” for “I am human, nothing that is
human is alien to me.”
Our revolution in Burkina Faso embraces the misfortunes of all peoples.
It also draws inspiration from all of man’s experiences since his first
breath. We wish to be the heirs of all the world’s revolutions and all
the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World. Our eyes are
on the profound upheavals that have transformed the world. We draw the
lessons of the American Revolution, the lessons of its victory over
colonial domination and the consequences of that victory. We adopt as
our own the affirmation of the Doctrine whereby Europeans must not
intervene in American affairs, nor Americans in European affairs. Just
as Monroe proclaimed “America to the Americans” in 1823, we echo this
today by saying “Africa to the Africans,” “Burkina to the Burkinabè.”
The French Revolution of 1789, which overturned the foundations of
absolutism, taught us the connection between the rights of man and the
rights of peoples to liberty. The great revolution of October 1917 [in
Russia] transformed the world, brought victory to the proletariat, shook
the foundations of capitalism, and made possible the Paris Commune’s
dreams of justice.
Open to all the winds of the will of the peoples of the world and their
revolutions, having also learned from some terrible failures that led to
tragic violations of human rights, we wish to retain only the core of
purity from each revolution. This prevents us from becoming subservient
to the realities of others, even when we share common ground because of
our ideas.
Mr. President:
It is no longer possible to keep up the deception. The new international
economic order for which we fight and will continue to fight can be
achieved only if we succeed in destroying the old order that has ignored
us; if we impose our rightful place in the political organization of the
world; and if, conscious of our importance in the world, we obtain the
right to participate in discussions and decisions on the mechanisms
governing trade, the economy, and currencies on a global scale.
The new international economic order should simply be inscribed
alongside all the other rights of the people — the right to
independence, to the free choice of governmental forms and structures —
like the right to development. And like all the peoples’ rights, it is
conquered in struggle and by the struggle of the people. It will never
be the result of an act of generosity from the powers that be.
I personally maintain unshakable confidence — a confidence shared by the
immense community of Nonaligned countries — that, under the pounding
blows of the howling anguish of our peoples, our group will maintain its
cohesion, strengthen its collective bargaining power, find allies among
all nations, and begin, together with those who can still hear us, to
organize a genuinely new international system of economic relations.
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