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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 12 March 26, 2018
(front page)
UK meeting learns about revolution in Burkina Faso
BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN
LONDON — Some 200 people, mainly students, packed the Khalili lecture
hall at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies March
6. They had come to hear a panel presentation on “Sankara: World Bank &
CFA Franc — the Tyranny of African Debt.” Thomas Sankara was the central
leader of the 1983-87 revolution in Burkina Faso.
The seminar, hosted by London University’s Centre for African Studies,
was organized by Riccardo Dujany, author and director of a play —
“Sankara” — that will run at London’s Cockpit Theatre March 20 through
April 14.
In his remarks to the meeting, Dujany pointed to the books by Sankara
published by Pathfinder Press, saying one of his goals was to get people
to read what the revolutionary leader said. “This is where you can read
all of Sankara’s major speeches. They’re published in English, French,
Spanish and Farsi,” he said. Dujany had invited Pathfinder to have a
table at the seminar, and at every showing of the play.
The Pathfinder table featured an attractive display of photographs and
quotes from Thomas Sankara Speaks , We Are Heirs of the World’s
Revolutions and Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle. The
table was mobbed. Participants bought 104 books by Sankara, 142 books in
all, and two subscriptions to the Militant. A dozen people left their
contact information, saying they’d get books when they went to the play
or volunteering to help get the books around.
A former colony of France, Burkina Faso — then called Upper Volta — with
more than 7 million inhabitants was among the world’s poorest countries.
Under Sankara’s leadership, the revolutionary government mobilized
peasants, workers, craftsmen, women and youth to carry out literacy and
immunization drives; to combat the oppression of women; end exploitative
relations on the land; to sink wells, plant trees, build dams, erect
housing; to free themselves from the imperialist yoke and stand with all
those engaged in that fight internationally.
“The most important thing for us,” said Sankara, “is the transformation
of people’s attitudes.” Each Burkinabè “feels that wielding power is now
his business.”
Sankara fought for a world built on different economic and social
foundations. They can’t be created by “technocrats,” “financial
wizards,” or “politicians,” but only by masses of workers and peasants
whose labor, joined with the riches of nature, is the source of all
wealth, Mary-Alice Waters, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party in
the U.S. and president of Pathfinder Press, said at a 2005 presentation
of one of Sankara’s books in Cuba. “Sankara stood out among the leaders
of the struggles for national liberation in Africa in the last half of
the 20th century because he was a communist.”
“Sankara was not only a leader of the people of Africa. He was not only
a spokesman for the oppressed and exploited of the semicolonial
countries,” she said. “He gave leadership to working people in the
imperialist world as well.”
The revolution was overthrown on Oct. 15, 1987, when Sankara and a
number of other leaders were slain in a counterrevolutionary coup
organized by Blaise Compaoré.
Panelists at the seminar included Becky Branford, a journalist at BBC
News who had met Sankara when she won a “young journalist of the year”
award at age 16 and was sent to Burkina Faso; Lamine Konkobo, a youth in
Burkina Faso during the revolution and today a journalist for BBC
Afrique; Rachel Oliver of Positive Money UK; and Dujany. The event was
chaired by Seraphin Kamdem, a senior fellow at the School of Oriental
and African Studies.
The highlight of the night was a five minute monologue from Sankara’s
speeches taken from the play and delivered by Ike Chuks, who plays the
title role. Chuks and the rest of the cast were in the front row at the
seminar. As Chuks concluded, they broke into anti-imperialist chants,
joined by the bulk of the audience.
Related articles:
NY Forum: ‘Sankara spoke for oppressed and exploited’
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