“Our stomachs will make themselves heard”: What Sankara can teach us about food justice today

[blindpig]

Selected posts and additional material from http://www.thebellforum.net/Bell2/www.t ... l?t=150246

***************************

“Our stomachs will make themselves heard”: What Sankara can teach us about food justice today
Amber Murrey

| May 05, 2016

When it comes to food justice, environmentalism and ecological practices, Thomas Sankara was way ahead of his time. Thomas Sankara helped Burkina Faso become self-sufficient before in basic foodstuffs in just a few years before he was assassinated.




In recent weeks, news of food crises in countries across Africa has been intensifying. From the Democratic Republic of Congo all the way down to South Africa – via Malawi, Zimbabwe, Angola and many others – low rainfall has contributed to millions more being left vulnerable.

Earlier this week the international NGO, Save the Children, reported that the food shortage in the drought-affected Tigray and Afar regions of northern Ethiopia has reached critical proportions.[1] Of the 30 million people living in the region, according to UNICEF and the Ethiopian government, one third of them—some 10 million people—are in need of emergency food assistance.[2] The US government is now coordinating food aid and relief efforts, announcing last month that it would supplement $532 million for emergency food assistance, safe drinking water and nutrition.[3]

Yet, direct food aid is often destructive, particularly in the long-term, for those on the receiving end. Historical examinations of famine and the aftermaths of crisis response have shown that direct food aid, rather than reducing hunger, actually suppresses local food production and distribution systems. This market suppression, in turn, contributes to the structural inequalities that sustain uneven food distribution. Uneven food distribution within the global circuits of capitalism is at the heart of modern-day hunger.[4]

The current drought in northern Ethiopia echoes the 2005/06 drought in the Somali and Afar Regions as well as the Borena Zone of the Oromia Region—precisely because endemic, cyclical food shortage is a product of uneven economic development and is further compounded by anthropogenic climate change. [5]

However, hunger is far from inevitable on the continent and there is an alternative African story worth retelling, one of food sovereignty, security and self-sufficiency, and one whose lessons could be revived today. Thomas Sankara’s ecological-political praxis provides an alternative framework for food justice on the continent.

“You don’t need us to go looking for foreign financial backers”

During his short political career—which prematurely ended when he was assassinated in 1987—Sankara argued that some of the most pervasive roots of ecological disaster and hunger were over-indebtedness and over-dependence on foreign aid structures that encourage bare survival. Not only is his political-ecological praxis and his emphasis on national food sovereignty in a context of pervasive food aid still relevant for conversations about food justice today, but the successful implementation of several ecological programs in Burkina Faso provides historical evidence for the significance of national sovereignty and collective ecological practices for cultivating food security in arid and drought-prone landscapes (such as Northern Ethiopia and Burkina Faso).

In the four years that he was the president of the West African country of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara courageously worked with people on projects of self-determination in the face of enormous international and domestic neo-imperialist pressures. Known for his pro-people restructuring of the Burkinabè state, his staunch anti-imperialisms and his efforts to unite African leaders to repudiate international debt, his ecological practices have been relatively overlooked until recently. [6]

Sankara was an anti-imperial political activist-cum-intellectual revolutionary who actively and charismatically cultivated egalitarian political policies to improve the wellbeing of Burkina Faso’s seven million citizens in the mid-1980s. Sankara insisted that too many of the challenges that Burkinabè[7] people faced on a daily basis—including hunger, thirst, desertification, illiteracy, gender inequality[8] and economic alienation—were rooted in neo-colonial political and economic relationships and structures.

At the same time that the World Bank and the IMF were implementing sweeping austerity policies under the auspices of the Structural Adjustment Programs across the African continent, [9] Sankara was engaging in a transformative and revolutionary political project. This was a collective project to restructure the post-colonial state of Burkina Faso to ensure that state policies and political structures worked for the wellbeing of the people. For Sankara, meaningful anti-colonial political projects were rooted in self-sufficiency that ‘refused to accept a state of [mere] survival’ and ‘open[s] minds to a world of collective responsibility in order to dare to invent the future’. [10]

At the 39th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, Sankara made clear the relationship between neo-imperialism and hunger in post-colonial Burkina. He said,

‘We must succeed in producing more—producing more, because it is natural that he who feeds you also imposes his will […] We are free. He who does not feed you can demand nothing of you. Here, however, we are being fed every day, every year, and we say, “Down with imperialism!” Well, your stomach knows what’s what.’

[Laughter and applause was heard from the crowd.]

‘Even though as revolutionaries we do not want to express gratitude, or at any rate, we want to do away with all forms of domination, our stomachs will make themselves heard and may well take the road to the right, the road of reaction, and of peaceful coexistence [Applause from the crowd] with all those who oppress us by means of the grain they dump here.’

His anti-imperial language was audacious and ground-breaking but his assertions about the use of food distribution as a mechanism of control and power have since been further substantiated. This ‘dumping’ (to echo Sankara’s language) of food is, precisely, oftentimes profitable for donor countries. Since the inauguration of the US foreign food aid program in 1954,[11] the program has been structured primarily as ‘tied aid’. Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins explain that US food aid typically ‘must be grown, processed, and packaged in the United States and shipped overseas on US-flagged vessels’.[12] An Oxfam Briefing Paper from 2006 similarly asserts that the US,

‘Sometimes uses food aid to dump agricultural surpluses and to attempt to create new markets for its exports. Indeed, food aid has the potential both to reduce domestic production of food, damaging the livelihoods of poor farmers, and to displace exports from other countries into the recipient country’.[13]

More than twenty years before the Oxfam report, Sankara argued that humanitarian aid was counterintuitive to long-term wellbeing that would move Burkinabè society past mere survival in a neo-colonial global system. Sankara combined a formidable anti-imperialism with a conviction in the power of the people and encouraged people’s struggle and mobilisations in the face of thirst and hunger. Sankara urged the people of Burkina,

‘You are going to build in order to prove that you’re capable of transforming your existence and transforming the concrete conditions in which you live. You don’t need us to go looking for foreign financial backers, you only need us to give the people their freedom and their rights. That will be done’.[14]

One village, one grove

Along with his insistence on national food sovereignty (often refusing international aid) and boosting local production, new irrigation canals were constructed. Sankara endeavoured to implement a nation-wide system of agro-ecology. Agro-ecology is an approach that encourages ‘power-dispersing and power creating’ communal food cultivation that enhances ‘the dignity, knowledge and capacities of all involved’ and the regeneration of the environment.[15] Agro-ecological pioneer, Pierre Rabhi, who worked in Burkina in the 1980s, explains that Sankara ‘wanted to make agro-ecology a national policy’.[16]

To end systemic hunger, Sankara worked collaboratively to implement a revised political economy focused on the capacity to provide every Burkinabè two meals a day and clean water. Two meals a day and clean water was a radical project in the context of persistent drought and famine across the Sahel. He insisted that the Burkinabè revolution

‘be measured by something else, it will be measured by the level of production. We must produce, we must produce. That’s why I welcome the slogan, “two million tons of grain.”’

Sankara focused on combating desertification in the Sahel. For Sankara, self-reliance and independence was a constituent of human dignity. These two political commitments are reflected in his linking of self-sufficiency with ecological sustainability and are apparent through the ‘un village, un bosquet’ (one village, one grove) program. The program encouraged every town, beginning with Ouagadougou, to plant trees to mark social occasions. These trees would eventually become a forest on the outer edges of the town. Before the global rise of the discourses of environmentalism, Sankara implemented a tree-planting campaign that transformed the arid landscape of Burkina.

The program re-established a culture of people-led, grassroots tree planting. This mixing of forestlands and farmlands was historically practiced throughout West Africa but the practice had been suffocated by the colonial domination of land use.[17] Sankara re-linked the practice of tree planting to pre-colonial tradition, emphasizing both the usefulness of tree planting as well as valorising it as custom of Burkina.[18]

The programs were enormously successful. In four years, 10 million trees were planted across the Sahel. Meanwhile, Jean Ziegler, the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food, declared that hunger had been eradicated in Burkina.

Lessons for today

Sankara lived a politics that was committed to a holistic revival of health and wellbeing – one that was inclusive of the environment, women and the masses. As Minister of Information under Colonel Saye Zerbo in 1981, Sankara pedalled to work on a bicycle. Later, one of his first acts as president was to create a Ministry of Water—this was ‘the first time the country had a ministry devoted exclusively to that essential resource’.[19]

Meng-Néré Fidèle Kientega, who worked closely with Sankara before his death and the current Secretary of External Relations of the Burkina Faso National Assembly, said of Sankara’s commitment to ecological and food justice,

‘Even if the validity of certain commitments and actions of the Revolution are subject to debate, it is indisputable that, from the environmental point of view as well as the ecological, Burkina today would have presented a different face [had Sankara’s ecological approach survived] than the [current] decrepitude and hazardous sell of pesticides everywhere, the plastic packaging that suffocates our land and restrains our animals, and the GMOs [that proliferate] in spite of outcry and almost universal disapproval’.[20]

Drawing inspiration from Sankara, the organisation, Terres Vivants-Thomas Sankara (Living Earth-Thomas Sankara), is working to reinvigorate some of Sankara’s pioneering commitments to agro-ecology, food sovereignty and ecological regeneration in Burkinabè villa communities.[21] These efforts indicate some of the ways in which Sankara’s ecological-political praxis remains a powerful rubric for food justice today. Rather than ask how ‘we’ let it (i.e., famine) happen ‘again’[22]—(and, in so doing, invoke memories of the highly criticised and patronising US musical response to the 1984 Ethiopian famine, ‘We are the World’)—we might articulate increasingly holistic understandings of ecology, climactic variability, markets, community wellbeing and international food aid in the context of food justice. Burkina’s August Revolution reveals some of the potentials within community-led efforts to re-forest when they are combined with grassroots educational programs and sustained political and economic efforts for food sovereignty.

Sankara emphasised the importance of people-powered national sovereignty for sustainable food justice. And his ground-breaking efforts to work with the people to increase awareness of the environment through incremental everyday activities and to carry out concrete programmes to foster long-term agro-ecological balance for food justice remain a powerful rubric for food justice today.

As international food aid and relief programmes move to intervene in the present famines by “dropping” millions of tons of food to provide short-term relief, we might recall Sankara’s courageous assertions that food aid is too often destructive in the long-term. His emphasis on national food sovereignty in a context of pervasive food aid shows that promoting national production and encouraging collective agro-ecology can be enormously successful in addressing the roots of hunger, even in drought-prone landscapes.

* Amber Murrey recently completed her PhD in Geography and the Environment from the University of Oxford. She teaches Development Studies at Jimma University in Jimma, Ethiopia. Amber is currently collaborating to put together an Edited Volume on Sankara’s political praxis. She can be reached at ambermurrey@gmail.com.

Notes

[1] The drought has been caused by two consecutive failed rainy seasons (aggravated by global climate change) and an ocean warming El Niňo. See Drought leaves 6 million Ethiopian children hungry, Aljazeera.

[2] Country Report for Ethiopia (2016) UNICEF Humanitarian Action for Children.

[3] Nicole Gaouette (2016) US Dispatches Emergency Aid for Ethiopian Drought. CNN Politics.

[4] Tate Munro and Lorenz Wild (2016) As Drought Hits Ethiopia Again, Food Aid Risks Breaking Resilience. The Guardian.

[5] For more systematic examinations of the cyclical production of famines, the uneven global distribution of food and contemporary issues of food justice see the work of Amartya Sen (Poverty and Famines), Tanya Kerssen (Grabbing Power), Eric Holt-Gimenez, Michael Watts (Silent Violence), Raj Patel (Stuffed and Starved), Alex de Waal (Famine Crimes) and Vandana Shiva.

[6] Mike Speir’s (1991) examination of food self-sufficiency under the Conseil National de la Rèvolution (CNR) is a notable exception. See Speir (1991) ‘Agrarian change and the revolution in Burkina Faso’. African Affairs 90(358), pp. 89-110. More recently, ABC Burkina’s Newsletter (2012) was devoted to Sankara’s ecological heritage, edited by Maurice Oudet, Director SEDELAN, see particularly Fidel Kientega’s contribution Sankarisme et l’Environnement.

[7] Here I use the Fulfulde spelling (è) thereof.

[8] Amber Murrey (2012) The Revolution and the Emancipation of Women—Thoughts on Sankara’s Speech, 25 Years Later. Pambazuka News.

[9] African countries had an estimated combined $200 billion in foreign debt in 1985, with many countries spending nearly 40 per cent of annual budgets in debt repayment. Sankara famously said in his July 1987 address at the Summit of the Organization for African Unity (OAU): ‘Africa, collectively, simply refuse to pay’.

[10] Thomas Sankara’s speech at the 39th Assembly of the United Nations General Assembly. New York: 4 Oct. 1984.

[11] Public Law (PL) 480 was signed into law as the Agricultural Trade Development Act by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on 10 July 1954.

[12] Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins (2015) World Hunger: Ten Myths. In Food First Backgrounder 21(2).

[13] Oxfam International (2006) Food Aid or Hidden Dumping? Separating Wheat from Chaff. Oxfam Briefing Paper 71.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins (2015) World Hunger: Ten Myths. In Food First Backgrounder 21(2).

[16] See Rabhi’s interview in Part 1 of Sur les traces de Thomas Sankara. Documentary film. 90 min. Burkina Faso and France: Baraka Studios.

[17] Sankara attempted to radically restructure the land regime in Burkina through the RAF or the loi portant réorganisation agraire et foncière (law on the re-organisation of agriculture and soil). The successfulness of this land paradigm, which abolished private land ownership and replaced land title with usage rights, has been questioned and criticised (see Mahmadou Zongo, 2009, ‘Terre d’etat, loi des ancêstres? Les conflits fonciers et leurs procédures de règlement dans l’ouest du Burkina Faso’ Cahiers du Cerleshs Tome XXIV(33), 1191145.

[18] The programme was implemented, as Harsch (2014, pp. 102) notes, after the unsuccessful ‘three struggles’ campaign, which had criminalised behaviours deemed unsustainable (including slash-and-burn practices, the consumption of bush meat and tree-cutting in certain areas).

[19] Harsch, pp.100.

[20] Fidel Kientega (2009) Sankarisme et Environnement. Presentation delivered at La première édition de Sankara Revival, an initiative of Musician Sams’K Le Jah. Originally in French (loose translation by author): ‘Si la justesse de certains engagements et actions de la Révolution peut être sujette à discussion, il est incontestable que du point de vue de l’environnement et de l’écologie, le Burkina aurait présenté aujourd’hui un autre visage que celui de la décrépitude et de l’option hasardeuse pour les pesticides à tout vent, les emballages plastiques qui désolent toutes nos terres et endeuillent tous nos éleveurs, les OGM au grand dam du tollé et de la désapprobation quasi-générale.’

[21] See ABC Burkina’s Newsletter (2012) devoted to Sankara’s ecological heritage, edited by Maurice Oudet, Director of SEDELAN.

[22] James Jeffrey (2016) Ethiopia Drought: How Can We Let This Happen Again? Aljazeera.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

-found via FB. http://www.pambazuka.org/food-health...=socialnetwork

[blindpig]

Thomas Sankara

Since last January 15 a vast operation called the People’s Harvest of Forest Nurseries has been under way in Burkina with a view to supplying the 7,000 village nurseries. We sum up all of these activities under the banner of the "three battles."

Ladies and gentlemen:

I say all this not to shower unrestrained and unending praise on the modest, revolutionary experience of my people with regard to the defense of the forest and the trees, but rather to speak as explicitly as possible about the profound changes occurring in relations between man and tree in Burkina Faso. I would like to depict for you as accurately as possible the deep and sincere love that has been born and is developing between the Burkinabè man and the trees in my country.

In doing this, we believe we are applying our theoretical conceptions concretely to the specific ways and means of the Sahel reality, in the search for solutions to present and future dangers attacking trees the world over. Our efforts and those of all who are gathered here, the experience accumulated by yourselves and by us, will surely guarantee us victory after victory in the struggle to save our trees, our environment, in short, our lives.

Excellencies; Ladies and gentlemen:

I come to you in the hope that you are taking up a battle from which we cannot be absent, since we are under daily attack and believe that the miracle of greenery can rise up out of the courage to say what must be said. I have come to join with you in deploring the harshness of nature. But I have also come to denounce the one whose selfishness is the source of his neighbor’s misfortune. Colonialism has pillaged our forests without the least thought of replenishing them for our tomorrows.

The unpunished destruction of the biosphere by savage and murderous forays on the land and in the air continues. Words will never adequately describe to what extent all these fume-belching vehicles spread death. Those who have the technological means to find the culprits have no interest in doing so, and those who have an interest in doing so lack the necessary technological means. They have only their intuition and their firm conviction.

We are not against progress, but we want progress that is not carried out anarchically and with criminal neglect for other people’s rights. We therefore wish to affirm that the battle against the encroachment of the desert is a battle to establish a balance between man, nature, and society. As such, it is a battle that is above all political, one whose outcome is not determined by fate.

The establishment in Burkina of a Ministry of Water, in conjunction with our Ministry of the Environment and Tourism, demonstrates our desire to place our problems clearly on the table so that we can find a way to resolve them. We have to fight to find the financial means to exploit our existing water resources — that is to finance drilling operations, reservoirs, and dams. This is the place to denounce the one-sided contracts and draconian conditions imposed by banks and other financial institutions that preclude our projects in this area. These prohibitive conditions bring on traumatizing indebtedness robbing us of all meaningful freedom of action.

Neither fallacious Malthusian arguments — and I assert that Africa remains an underpopulated continent — nor those vacation resorts pompously and demagogically called "reforestation operations" provide a solution. We are backed up against the wall in our destitution like bald and mangy dogs whose lamentations and cries disturb the quiet peace of the manufacturers and merchants of misery.

This is why Burkina has proposed and continues to propose that at least 1 percent of the colossal sums of money sacrificed to the search for cohabitation with other planets be used by way of compensation to finance the fight to save our trees and life. While we have not abandoned hope that a dialogue with the Martians could result in the reconquest of Eden, we believe that in the meantime, as earthlings, we also have the right to reject an alternative limited to a simple choice between hell or purgatory.

Explained in this way, our struggle to defend the trees and the forest is first and foremost a democratic struggle that must be waged by the people. The sterile and expensive excitement of a handful of engineers and forestry experts will accomplish nothing! Nor can the tender consciences of a multitude of forums and institutions — sincere and praiseworthy though they may be — make the Sahel green again, when we lack the funds to drill wells for drinking water just a hundred meters deep, and money abounds to drill oil wells three thousand meters deep!

As Karl Marx said, those who live in a palace do not think about the same things, nor in the same way, as those who live in a hut. This struggle to defend the trees and the forest is above all a struggle against imperialism. Imperialism is the pyromaniac setting fire to our forests and savannah.

(From the Feb. 5, 1986 speech "Save Our Trees, Our Environment, Our Lives)

http://www.marxmail.org/quotes/thomas_sankara.htm

[blindpig]

Thomas Sankara: an endogenous approach to development

Oct 23, 2013
It has been thirty years since Thomas Sankara took power, before he was assassinated in 1987. The Sankarist Revolution was one of the greatest attempts at popular democratic emancipation in post-Independence Africa and is considered a novel experience of broad economic, social, cultural and political transformation

The concept of endogenous or self-centred development refers to the process of economic, social, cultural, scientific and political transformation, based on the mobilisation of internal social forces and resources and using the accumulated knowledge and experiences of the people of a country. It also allows citizens to be active agents in the transformation of their society instead of remaining spectators outside of a political system inspired by foreign models.

Endogenous development aims to mainly rely on its own strength, but it does not necessarily constitute autarky. One of the pre-eminent theoreticians of endogenous development, Professor Joseph Ki-Zerbo, states, ‘If we develop ourselves, it is by drawing from the elements of our own development.’ To put it in another manner, ‘We do not develop. We develop ourselves.’
The conception that the Professor illustrates is without a doubt inspired by his young and charismatic compatriot. In fact, the Sankarist Revolution was one of the greatest attempts at popular and democratic emancipation in post-Independence Africa. That is why it is considered a novel experience of deep economic, social, cultural and political transformation as evidenced by mass mobilisations to get people to take responsibility for their own needs, with the construction of infrastructure, (dams, reservoirs, wells, roads and schools) through the use of the principle ‘relying on one’s own strength.’
For Sankara, true endogenous development was based upon a number of principles, among them:

- The necessity of relying on one’s own strength

- Mass participation in politics with the goal of changing one’s condition in life

- The emancipation of women and their inclusion in the processes of development

- The use of the State as an instrument for economic and social transformation

These principles formed the foundation of the policies implemented by Sankara and his comrades between 1983 and 1987.

RELYING ON ONE’S OWN STRENGTH

For Thomas Sankara, relying on one’s own strength meant asking the Burkinabe people to think about their own development: ‘Most important, I think, is to give people confidence in themselves, to understand that ultimately he can sit down and write about his development, he can sit down and write about his happiness, he can say what he wants and, at the same time, understand what price must be paid for this happiness.’

The first Popular Development Plan (PPD), from October 1984 to December 1985 was adopted after a participatory and democratic process including the most remote villages. The financing of the plan was 100 percent Burkinabe. It must be noted that from 1985 to 1988, during Sankara’s presidency, Burkina Faso did not receive any foreign ‘aid’ from the West, including France, nor the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He had relied entirely on his own strength and the solidarity of friendly countries sharing the same vision and ideals. Popular mobilisation, mainly through the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), and the spirit of relying on one’s own forces saw 85 percent of the PPD’s objectives realised. In one year, 250 reservoirs were built and 3000 wells drilled. This does not even take into account the other achievements in the fields of health, housing, education, agricultural production, etc.

REFUSAL TO IMITATE FOREIGN MODELS

The concepts of endogenous development and relying on one’s own strength were incompatible with accepting foreign funds. ‘We categorically and definitively reject all sorts of decrees coming from foreigners.’ He also denounced ‘charlatans of all sorts who try to sell development models which have all failed.’

Sankara well understood that of which he spoke. Since independence, African states had experienced a dozen ‘development models,’ all of which had come from foreigners and were characterised by dismal failure, with exorbitant costs for the entire continent. In this regard, the 2011 Report by the Economic Commission for Africa states (p. 91): ‘The basic design and mode of implementation for all these paradigms came from outside Africa, even if each paradigm had real African disciples. It is difficult to think of other major world regions, where outside influence over the basic strategies of development is so common in recent times.’

The failure of these models confirms the old Bambaran proverb, echoed by Professor Ki-Zerbo in a book edited and published by CODESRIA, under the title, ‘Another’s Mat.’ According to the proverb, ‘Sleeping on another’s mat is like sleeping on the ground.’ This proverb explains a historic truth, a profound truth, a knowledge that a development model imposed from outside can never develop a country, much less a continent.

Relying on one’s own strength also means accepting to live within one’s means and make the best use of available resources. This guarantees dignity and freedom. President Sékou Touré of Guinea had the audacity and temerity to state this in front of General de Gaulle in 1958 in his famous phrase: ‘We prefer freedom in poverty to slavery in opulence.’

Thomas Sankara endorsed the creed of the great Guinean orator and rephrased President Touré’s words to a simpler and more straightforward: ‘Accept living as Africans. That is the only way to live with freedom and dignity.’
But ‘to live with freedom and dignity,’ one must be able to feed themselves and not rely on begging throughout the international community. For a country which cannot feed itself inevitably risks losing its independence and dignity. Sankara famously questioned: ‘Where is imperialism? Look at your plates when you eat. The imported rice, maize and millet; that is imperialism.’ To avoid this, Sankara insisted: ‘Let us try to eat what we control ourselves.’
It was to achieve this goal that he mobilised the Burkinabe farmers to attain food self-sufficiency which in turn strengthened the confidence and dignity of the Burkinabe people. Former UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, said that this result was achieved by a massive redistribution of land to rural inhabitants combined with supplying fertilizers and irrigation.

Today, Sankara’s spirit animates African farmers who are struggling to achieve food sovereignty by transforming their local resources and guarding their food from GMOs that Western multinationals wish to dump in our markets.
But ‘living free’ also involves re-evaluating local resources to meet the needs of the population. This is why Sankara particularly emphasised the need to transform the cotton produced in Burkina Faso into clothing for the people. The famous ‘Faso dan Fani’, the local garment, was an example of this transformation of the cotton for the domestic market. Sankara made an impassioned plea for wearing the ‘Faso dan Fani’ at the OAU Summit; advocacy which was greeted with applause from African Heads of State.
Living free also means to avoid the pitfalls and humiliations of the supposed ‘development aid’ which has contributed to the under-development of Africa and its dependency. As Sankara states: ‘Of course, we encourage everyone to help us eliminate aid. But in general, aid policies leave us disorganised, by undermining our sense of responsibility for our own economic, political and cultural affairs. We have taken the risk of borrowing new ways to realise our own well-being.’

LIBERATING WOMEN AND MAKING THEM CENTRAL ACTORS IN DEVELOPMENT

Another stroke of genius by Sankara was to have understood that real development would be impossible without the liberation of all oppressed groups, starting with women. In this regard, he said: ‘We cannot transform society while maintaining domination and discrimination against women, who comprise more than half our society…Our revolution has worked for three and a half years to progressively eliminate demeaning practices towards women…Also they must be engaged as Burkinabe producers and consumers…Together we must always ensure access of women to work. This emancipatory and liberating work will ensure women’s economic independence, a greater social role and a more just and complete knowledge of the world.’

In effect, development, like economic, social, political and cultural processes, cannot become a reality without the total emancipation of women, the end of all forms of discrimination against them and their active participation in the process of transformation. Once again Sankara was ahead of his African peers and even some Western leaders and international institutions.
Today, at the United Nations, the most conservative states are loudly celebrated for their ‘liberation’ of women, a liberation which is often more illusory than real. The struggle for the liberation of women has become a common one, with the creation of UN Women, parity laws and other measures aimed at women’s economic, social and political emancipation or empowerment. Once again, history demonstrates the prescience and strategic vision of Sankara, who was far ahead of his time.

IDENTIFYING WITH POLULAR MASS ASPIRATIONS

For Sankara, being a revolutionary meant giving priority to the basic needs of the urban and rural masses. He attempted to reach their level in order to fully understand and marry their cause, which was a source of conflict with the fringes of the urban petty bourgeoisie who would not renounce their ‘privileges.’ For him, ‘we do not participate in a revolution to simply replace the old potentates with others. We do not participate in the revolution because of a vindictive motivation.’ ‘Get out of there so I can install myself.’ This kind of movement is alien to the revolutionary ideal of August and those who display it demonstrate their flaws as petty bourgeois opportunists and dangerous counter-revolutionaries.

It was in opposition to these urban petty bourgeois that Thomas Sankara, in line with Amilcar Cabral called on intellectuals to ‘commit suicide’ to be reincarnated as ‘revolutionary workers’ in the service of the people. Cabral said: ‘the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie must be able to commit suicide as a class to be reincarnated as revolutionary workers identifying completely with the deep aspirations of the people to which they belong.’

It is true that Sankara tried to instill a different mentality in the petty intellectual bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, they were quicker to repeat revolutionary slogans than to change their behaviour and lifestyle. In fact, this is one of the major challenges to any economic and socially transformative movement in African countries. Indeed, a number of intellectual ‘revolutionaries,’ once in power, tend to turn their backs on people and almost everywhere, they engage in the pursuit of money and privilege at the expense of the struggle for the decolonisation of the mind and the transformation of economic and social structures inherited from colonialism.

Decolonisation is understood in the sense of Fanon, who stated: ‘Decolonisation, as we know, is a historical process. Decolonisation never takes place unnoticed, for it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s floodlights upon them. In decolonisation, there is therefore the need of a complete calling into question of the colonial situation.’

This is the fundamental objective of Thomas Sankara. But he encountered the forces of inertia, such as the Westernised petty bourgeoisie, which constitutes an obstacle to any political rupture aimed at changing society, and the structures inherited from colonialism. It is this inertial force which explains in part the failure of the leftist parties in Africa, notably in ‘francophone’ countries. It is this obstacle which finally undermined the revolution in Burkina Faso and helped to create the conditions which led to the assassination of Thomas Sankara on 15 October, 1987.

THE STATE AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Sankara was a communist and had a great admiration for socialist regimes, including Cuba, which filled him with respect and pride. He recognised that the state was central to successful transformations in these countries. He also knew that a state just emerging from the long and terrible colonial darkness could not rebuild without active and committed leadership. So, for him, the state must be central in the process of economic, social and cultural transformation. It was under the leadership of the state and its institutions that the masses were mobilised to participate in the first PPD.
But, after his assassination, when Burkina Faso knelt before the World Bank and the IMF, the state was vilified and stripped of its basic functions for the benefit of foreign capital, with consequences which we well know. The decline of the state led to the deterioration of living standards, as is common in other African countries.

The failures of structural adjustment programs (SAP) and the collapse of market fundamentalism requires the re-emergence of the state. It is in this context that Cea (2011) and UNCTAD (2007) urged African countries to build developmental states in order to become active agents in development, like the Asian ‘Tigers’ or ‘Dragons’ and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

SOLIDARITY AGAINST THE SERVITUDE AND LOOTING CAUSED BY DEBT

On the eve of the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, which later became the African Union (AU) in 2001, Kwame Nkrumah, first President of Ghana, visionary leader and figurehead of the Pan-African revolution, said: ‘Africa must unite or perish’!

Indeed, faced with powerful and well organised enemies who wish to continue their domination of Africa in order to plunder its riches, only solidarity and unity can help Africa preserve its independence. A fervent Pan-Africanist and admirer of the great Ghanaian leader, Thomas Sankara endorsed this statement of truth by President Nkrumah. That is why Sankara, participating in his last summit in Addis Ababa in July 1987, had shouted at African leaders asking them to form a united front to demand the cancellation of illegitimate African debt. Because, he said, ‘debt in its current form is a cleverly organised re-conquest of Africa, that its’ growth and development conform to standards and levels which are totally foreign. It ensures that each of us becomes a financial slave, meaning a slave for those who had the opportunity, cunning, and deceit to invest their funds in us with the obligation that we repay. The debt can never be repaid since if we refuse to pay it our lenders will not die. Of that we can be certain. Yet if we do pay it is us who will die. Of that we can be equally certain.’

Burkina Faso is part of a group of more than thirty African states called ‘Least Developed Countries’ (LDCs). According to UNCTAD (2010) in the LDCs, 6 out of 10 people live on the equivalent of $1.25 a day and nearly 9 in 10, 88 percent live on the equivalent of $2 a day! This means that these countries need to retain all their resources to put in the service of development. Every penny that comes out of these countries in the form of debt service or the repatriation of profits would be detrimental to the well-being of their people. This is why Sankara was right to say that ‘if we do pay it we will die.’
Always connected to the external debt of the continent, Thomas Sankara was one of the few African leaders, if not the only, to have criticised and rejected the adjustment policies of the World Bank and IMF, which have increased the debt burden and impoverished African countries. His government refused any form of collaboration with these institutions and rejected their ‘help.’ He developed and implemented his own self-adjustment program, which had been supported by the people who understood the merits of his policies and the sacrifices required of all, both citizens and leaders.

THE STRUGGLE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

A visionary, Sankara understood before many others, including the so-called developed world, the importance of the environment as an essential fact to the survival of Humanity. Millions of trees were planted in order to stop desertification. Every event, baptism, marriage, was an opportunity to plant trees. This led to a massive mobilisation of people who understood the meaning and scope of such a decision: to build a country with their own hands! This is the key idea behind the vision of Thomas Sankara.

He had understood very early to economic and social costs his country might incur as a result of environmental degradation. That is why one of the main pillars of his development policy was mobilising people to protect their environment.

Sankara understood the link between the mode of capitalist production and consumption to environmental degradation: ‘The struggle for the trees and the forest is the anti-imperialist struggle. Imperialism is the arsonist of our forests and our savannahs.’

The current damage caused by climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions, resulting from capitalist countries production and consumption, have confirmed Sankara’s predictions. However his country and the rest of Africa, which contribute less to the global degradation by emitting low amounts of greenhouse gases, may yet pay a high price.

IN CONCLUSION

- Undoubtedly, Thomas Sankara was a visionary, a charismatic leader and a true revolutionary. This is why he left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the African people and his actions have also had a profound resonance beyond Africa.

- He was ahead of his time. Currently, all the issues at the heart of his struggle are central to national and international debates: the liberation of women, debt, food sovereignty, solidarity between African states, South-South solidarity, protection of the environment, etc.

- The African Union and other continental institutions seeking to build a new development paradigm designed and implemented by Africans themselves. This was the central axis of Sankara’s, and some of his illustrious predecessors, struggles.

- Of course, like any human endeavours, Sankara’s were imperfect. It is questionable in many aspects.

- But what is certain is that it has shown the path to a possible Alternative Development, based upon popular mobilisation and self-confidence in the face of imported ideas and models. Undoubtedly, it is a difficult road, but the only way to “live free and dignified”.

- Sankara embraced the ideas and struggles of his illustrious predecessors, while others are in the process of adopting his ideas and struggles, which are more relevant than ever, since, ‘you cannot kill ideas,’ as he said in a speech in memory of Che Guevara, a week before his assassination.
- Thomas Sankara is physically gone, but his ideas and example will continue to inspire other Africans to continue the struggle and ideas for which he gave his life.

- In this sense, Sankara is not dead! He lives in each and every one of us!

https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africa...ch-development

[blindpig]

Socialist revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, (1983-1987) Thomas Sankara's speech to the African Unity Organisation Summit of 1987, in which he calls for his country to refuse to pay debts to international imperialist powers.

[blindpig]

Amilcar Cabral 1966

The Weapon of Theory
Address delivered to the first Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana in January, 1966.

If any of us came to Cuba with doubts in our mind about the solidity, strength, maturity and vitality of the Cuban Revolution, these doubts have been removed by what we have been able to see. Our hearts are now warmed by an unshakeable certainty which gives us courage in the difficult but glorious struggle against the common enemy: no power in the world will be able to destroy this Cuban Revolution, which is creating in the countryside and in the towns not only a new life but also — and even more important — a New Man, fully conscious of his national, continental and international rights and duties. In every field of activity the Cuban people have made major progress during the last seven years, particularly in 1965, Year of Agriculture.

We believe that this constitutes a particular lesson for the national liberation movements, especially for those who want their national revolution to be a true revolution. Some people have not failed to note that a certain number of Cubans, albeit an insignificant minority, have not shared the joys and hopes of the celebrations for the seventh anniversary because they are against the Revolution. It is possible that others will not be present at the celebrations of the eighth anniversary, but we would like to state that we consider the ‘open door’ policy for enemies of the Revolution to be a lesson in courage, determination, humanity and confidence in the people, another political and moral victory over the enemy; and to those who are worried, in a spirit of friendship, about the dangers which many be involved in this exodus, we guarantee that we, the peoples of the countries of Africa, still completely dominated by Portuguese colonialism, are prepared to send to Cuba as many men and women as may be needed to compensate for the departure of those who for reasons of class or of inability to adapt have interests or attitudes which are incompatible with the interests of the Cuban people. Taking once again the formerly hard and tragic path of our ancestors (mainly from Guinea and Angola) who were taken to Cuba as slaves, we would come now as free men, as willing workers and Cuban patriots, to fulfill a productive function in this new, just and multi-racial society, and to help and defend with our own lives the victories of the Cuban people. Thus we would strengthen both all the bonds of history, blood and culture which unite our peoples with the Cuban people, and the spontaneous giving of oneself, the deep joy and infectious rhythm which make the construction of socialism in Cuba a new phenomenon for the world, a unique and, for many, unaccustomed event.

We are not going to use this platform to rail against imperialism. An African saying very common in our country says: “When your house is burning, it’s no use beating the tom-toms.” On a Tricontinental level, this means that we are not going to eliminate imperialism by shouting insults against it. For us, the best or worst shout against imperialism, whatever its form, is to take up arms and fight. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will go on doing until all foreign domination of our African homelands has been totally eliminated.

Our agenda includes subjects whose meaning and importance are beyond question and which show a fundamental preoccupation with struggle. We note, however, that one form of struggle which we consider to be fundamental has not been explicitly mentioned in this programme, although we are certain that it was present in the minds of those who drew up the programme. We refer here to the struggle against our own weaknesses. Obviously, other cases differ from that of Guinea; but our experience has shown us that in the general framework of daily struggle this battle against ourselves — no matter what difficulties the enemy may create — is the most difficult of all, whether for the present or the future of our peoples. This battle is the expression of the internal contradictions in the economic, social, cultural (and therefore historical) reality of each of our countries. We are convinced that any national or social revolution which is not based on knowledge of this fundamental reality runs grave risk of being condemned to failure.

When the African peoples say in their simple language that “no matter how hot the water from your well, it will not cook your rice,” they express with singular simplicity a fundamental principle, not only of physics, but also of political science. We know that the development of a phenomenon in movement, whatever its external appearance, depends mainly on its internal characteristics. We also know that on the political level our own reality — however fine and attractive the reality of others may be — can only be transformed by detailed knowledge of it, by our own efforts, by our own sacrifices. It is useful to recall in this Tricontinental gathering, so rich in experience and example, that however great the similarity between our various cases and however identical our enemies, national liberation and social revolution are not exportable commodities; they are, and increasingly so every day, the outcome of local and national elaboration, more or less influenced by external factors (be they favorable or unfavorable) but essentially determined and formed by the historical reality of each people, and carried to success by the overcoming or correct solution of the internal contradictions between the various categories characterising this reality. The success of the Cuban revolution, taking place only 90 miles from the greatest imperialist and anti-socialist power of all time, seems to us, in its content and its way of evolution, to be a practical and conclusive illustration of the validity of this principle.

However we must recognize that we ourselves and the other liberation movements in general (referring here above all to the African experience) have not managed to pay sufficient attention to this important problem of our common struggle.

The ideological deficiency, not to say the total lack of ideology, within the national liberation movements — which is basically due to ignorance of the historical reality which these movements claim to transform — constitutes one of the greatest weaknesses of our struggle against imperialism, if not the greatest weakness of all. We believe, however, that a sufficient number of different experiences has already been accumulated to enable us to define a general line of thought and action with the aim of eliminating this deficiency. A full discussion of this subject could be useful, and would enable this conference to make a valuable contribution towards strengthening the present and future actions of the national liberation movements. This would be a concrete way of helping these movements, and in our opinion no less important than political support or financial assistance for arms and suchlike.

It is with the intention of making a contribution, however modest, to this debate that we present here our opinion of the foundations and objectives of national liberation in relation to the social structure. This opinion is the result of our own experiences of the struggle and of a critical appreciation of the experiences of others. To those who see in it a theoretical character, we would recall that every practice produces a theory, and that if it is true that a revolution can fail even though it be based on perfectly conceived theories, nobody has yet made a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory.

Those who affirm — in our case correctly — that the motive force of history is the class struggle would certainly agree to a revision of this affirmation to make it more precise and give it an even wider field of application if they had a better knowledge of the essential characteristics of certain colonized peoples, that is to say peoples dominated by imperialism. In fact in the general evolution of humanity and of each of the peoples of which it is composed, classes appear neither as a generalized and simultaneous phenomenon throughout the totality of these groups, nor as a finished, perfect, uniform and spontaneous whole. The definition of classes within one or several human groups is a fundamental consequence of the progressive development of the productive forces and of the characteristics of the distribution of the wealth produced by the group or usurped from others. That is to say that the socio-economic phenomenon ‘class’ is created and develops as a function of at least two essential and interdependent variables — the level of productive forces and the pattern of ownership of the means of production. This development takes place slowly, gradually and unevenly, by quantitative and generally imperceptible variations in the fundamental components; once a certain degree of accumulation is reached, this process then leads to a qualitative jump, characterized by the appearance of classes and of conflict between them.

Factors external to the socio-economic whole can influence, more or less significantly, the process of development of classes, accelerating it, slowing it down and even causing regressions. When, for whatever reason, the influence of these factors ceases, the process reassumes its independence and its rhythm is then determined not only be the specific internal characteristics of the whole, but also by the resultant of the effect produced in it by the temporary action of the external factors. On a strictly internal level the rhythm of the process may vary, but it remains continuous and progressive. Sudden progress is only possible as a function of violent alterations — mutations — in the level of productive forces or in the pattern of ownership. These violent transformations carried out within the process of development of classes, as a result of mutations in the level of productive forces or in the pattern of ownership, are generally called, in economic and political language, revolutions.

Clearly, however, the possibilities of this process are noticeably influenced by external factors, and particularly by the interaction of human groups. This interaction is considerably increased by the development of means of transport and communication which as created the modern world, eliminating the isolation of human groups within one area, of areas within one continent, and between continents. This development, characteristic of a long historical period which began with the invention of the first means of transport, was already more evident at the time of the Punic voyages and in the Greek colonization, and was accentuated by maritime discoveries, the invention of the steam engine and the discovery of electricity. And in our own times, with the progressive domesticization of atomic energy it is possible to promise, if not to take men to the stars, at least to humanize the universe.

This leads us to pose the following question: does history begin only with the development of the phenomenon of ‘class’, and consequently of class struggle? To reply in the affirmative would be to place outside history the whole period of life of human groups from the discovery of hunting, and later of nomadic and sedentary agriculture, to the organization of herds and the private appropriation of land. It would also be to consider — and this we refuse to accept — that various human groups in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were living without history, or outside history, at the time when they were subjected to the yoke of imperialism. It would be to consider that the peoples of our countries, such as the Balantes of Guinea, the Coaniamas of Angola and the Macondes of Mozambique, are still living today — if we abstract the slight influence of colonialism to which they have been subjected — outside history, or that they have no history.

Our refusal, based as it is on concrete knowledge of the socio-economic reality of our countries and on the analysis of the process of development of the phenomenon ‘class’, as we have seen earlier, leads us to conclude that if class struggle is the motive force of history, it is so only in a specific historical period. This means that before the class struggle — and necessarily after it, since in this world there is no before without an after — one or several factors was and will be the motive force of history. It is not difficult to see that this factor in the history of each human group is the mode of production — the level of productive forces and the pattern of ownership — characteristic of that group. Furthermore, as we have seen, classes themselves, class struggle and their subsequent definition, are the result of the development of the productive forces in conjunction with the pattern of ownership of the means of production. It therefore seems correct to conclude that the level of productive forces, the essential determining element in the content and form of class struggle, is the true and permanent motive force of history.

If we accept this conclusion, then the doubts in our minds are cleared away. Because if on the one hand we can see that the existence of history before the class struggle is guaranteed, and thus avoid for some human groups in our countries — and perhaps in our continent — the sad position of being peoples without any history, then on the other hand we can see that history has continuity, even after the disappearance of class struggle or of classes themselves. And as it was not we who postulated — on a scientific basis — the fact of the disappearance of classes as a historical inevitability, we can feel satisfied at having reached this conclusion which, to a certain extent, re-establishes coherence and at the same time gives to those peoples who, like the people of Cuba, are building socialism, the agreeable certainty that they will not cease to have a history when they complete the process of elimination of the phenomenon of ‘class’ and class struggle within their socio-economic whole. Eternity is not of this world, but man will outlive classes and will continue to produce and make history, since he can never free himself from the burden of his needs, both of mind and of body, which are the basis of the development of the forces of production.

The foregoing, and the reality of our times, allow us to state that the history of one human group or of humanity goes through at least three stages. The first is characterized by a low level of productive forces — of man’s domination over nature; the mode of production is of a rudimentary character, private appropriation of the means of production does not yet exist, there are no classes, nor, consequently, is there any class struggle. In the second stage, the increased level of productive forces leads to private appropriation of the means of production, progressively complicates the mode of production, provokes conflicts of interests within the socio-economic whole in movement, and makes possible the appearance of the phenomena ‘class’ and hence of class struggle, the social expression of the contradiction in the economic field between the mode of production and private appropriation of the means of production. In the third stage, once a certain level of productive forces is reached, the elimination of private appropriation of the means of production is made possible, and is carried out, together with the elimination of the phenomenon ‘class’ and hence of class struggle; new and hitherto unknown forces in the historical process of the socio-economic whole are then unleashed.

In politico-economic language, the first stage would correspond to the communal agricultural and cattle-raising society, in which the social structure is horizontal, without any state; the second to feudal or assimilated agricultural or agro-industrial bourgeois societies, with a vertical social structure and a state; the third to socialist or communist societies, in which the economy is mainly, if not exclusively, industrial (since agriculture itself becomes a form of industry) and in which the state tends to progressively disappear, or actually disappears, and where the social structure returns to horizontality, at a higher level of productive forces, social relations and appreciation of human values.

At the level of humanity or of part of humanity (human groups within one area, of one or several continents) these three stages (or two of them) can be simultaneous, as is shown as much by the present as by the past. This is a result of the uneven development of human societies, whether caused by internal reasons or by one or more external factors exerting an accelerating or slowing-down influence on their evolution. On the other hand, in the historical process of a given socio-economic whole each of the above-mentioned stages contains, once a certain level of transformation is reached, the seeds of the following stage.

We should also note that in the present phase of the life of humanity, and for a given socio-economic whole, the time sequence of the three characteristic stages is not indispensable. Whatever its level of productive forces and present social structure, a society can pass rapidly through the defined stages appropriate to the concrete local realities (both historical and human) and reach a higher stage of existence. This progress depends on the concrete possibilities of development of the society’s productive forces and is governed mainly by the nature of the political power ruling the society, that is to say, by the type of state or, if one likes, by the character of the dominant class or classes within the society.

A more detailed analysis would show that the possibility of such a jump in the historical process arises mainly, in the economic field, from the power of the means available to man at the time for dominating nature, and, in the political field, from the new event which has radically clanged the face of the world and the development of history, the creation of socialist states.

Thus we see that our peoples have their own history regardless of the stage of their economic development. When they were subjected to imperialist domination, the historical process of each of our peoples (or of the human groups of which they are composed) was subjected to the violent action of an exterior factor. This action — the impact of imperialism on our societies — could not fail to influence the process of development of the productive forces in our countries and the social structures of our countries, as well as the content and form of our national liberation struggles.

But we also see that in the historical context of the development of these struggles, our peoples have the concrete possibility of going from their present situation of exploitation and underdevelopment to a new stage of their historical process which can lead them to a higher form of economic, social and cultural existence.

The political statement drawn up by the international preparatory committee of this conference, for which we reaffirm our complete support, placed imperialism, by clear and succinct analysis, in its economic context and historical co-ordinates. We will not repeat here what has already been said in the assembly. We will simply state that imperialism can be defined as a worldwide expression of the search for profits and the ever-increasing accumulation of surplus value by monopoly financial capital, centered in two parts of the world; first in Europe, and then in North America. And if we wish to place the fact of imperialism within the general trajectory of the evolution of the transcendental factor which has changed the face of the world, namely capital and the process of its accumulation, we can say that imperialism is piracy transplanted from the seas to dry land piracy reorganized, consolidated and adapted to the aim of exploiting the natural and human resources of our peoples. But if we can calmly analyze the imperialist phenomenon, we will not shock anybody by admitting that imperialism — and everything goes to prove that it is in fact the last phase in the evolution of capitalism — has been a historical necessity, a consequence of the impetus given by the productive forces and of the transformations of the means of production in the general context of humanity, considered as one movement, that is to say a necessity like those today of the national liberation of peoples, the destruction of capital and the advent of socialism.

The important thing for our peoples is to know whether imperialism, in its role as capital in action, has fulfilled in our countries its historical mission: the acceleration of the process of development of the productive forces and their transformation in the sense of increasing complexity in the means of production; increasing the differentiation between the classes with the development of the bourgeoisie, and intensifying the class struggle; and appreciably increasing the level of economic, social and cultural life of the peoples. It is also worth examining the influences and effects of imperialist action on the social structures and historical processes of our peoples.

We will not condemn nor justify imperialism here; we will simply state that as much on the economic level as on the social and cultural level, imperialist capital has not remotely fulfilled the historical mission carried out by capital in the countries of accumulation. This means that if, on the one had, imperialist capital has had, in the great majority of the dominated countries, the simple function of multiplying surplus value, it can be seen on the other hand that the historical capacity of capital (as indestructible accelerator of the process of development of productive forces) depends strictly on its freedom, that is to say on the degree of independence with which it is utilized. We must however recognize that in certain cases imperialist capital or moribund capitalism has had sufficient self-interest, strength and time to increase the level of productive forces (as well as building towns) and to allow a minority of the local population to attain a higher and even privileged standard of living, thus contributing to a process which some would call dialectical, by widening the contradictions within the societies in question. In other, even rarer cases, there has existed the possibility of accumulation of capital, creating the conditions for the development of a local bourgeoisie.

On the question of the effects of imperialist domination on the social structure and historical process of our peoples, we should first of all examine the general forms of imperialist domination. There are at least two forms: the first is direct domination, by means of a power made up of people foreign to the dominated people (armed forces police, administrative agents and settlers); this is generally called classical colonialism or colonialism is indirect domination, by a political power made up mainly or completely of native agents; this is called neocolonialism.

In the first case, the social structure of the dominated people, whatever its stage of development, can suffer the following consequences: (a) total destruction, generally accompanied by immediate or gradual elimination of the native population and, consequently, by the substitution of a population from outside; (b) partial destruction, generally accompanied by a greater or lesser influx of population from outside; (c) apparent conservation, conditioned by confining the native society to zones or reserves generally offering no possibilities of living, accompanied by massive implantation of population from outside.

The two latter cases are those which we must consider in the framework of the problematic national liberation, and they are extensively present in Africa. One can say that in either case the influence of imperialism on the historical process of the dominated people produces paralysis, stagnation and even in some cases regression in this process. However this paralysis is not complete. In one sector or another of the socio-economic whole in question, noticeable transformations can be expected, caused by the permanent action of some internal (local) factors or by the action of new factors introduced by the colonial domination, such as the introduction of money and the development of urban centers. Among these transformations we should anticipate a progressive loss of prestige of the ruling native classes or sectors, the forced or voluntary exodus of part of the peasant population to the urban centers, with the consequent development of new social strata; salaried workers, clerks, employees in commerce and the liberal professions, and an instable stratum of unemployed. In the countryside there develops, with very varied intensity and always linked to the urban milieu, a stratum made up of small landowners. In the case of neo-colonialism, whether the majority of the colonized population is of native or foreign origin, the imperialist action takes the form of creating a local bourgeoisie or pseudo-bourgeoisie, controlled by the ruling class of the dominating country.

The transformations in the social structure are not so marked in the lower strata, above all in the countryside, which retains the characteristics of the colonial phase; but the creation of a native pseudo-bourgeoisie which generally develops out of a petty bourgeoisie of bureaucrats and accentuates the differentiation between the social strata and intermediaries in the commercial system (compradores), by strengthening the economic activity of local elements, opens up new perspectives in the social dynamic, mainly by the development of an urban working class, the introduction of private agricultural property and the progressive appearance of an agricultural proletariat. These more or less noticeable transformations of the social structure, produced by a significant increase in the level of productive forces, have a direct influence on the historical process of the socio-economic whole in question. While in classical colonialism this process is paralyzed, neo-colonialist domination, by allowing the social dynamic to awaken (conflicts of interests between native social strata or class struggles), creates the illusion that the historical process is returning to its normal evolution. This illusion will be reinforced by the existence of a political power (national state) composed of native elements. In reality it is scarcely even an illusion, since the submission of the local ‘ruling’ class to the ruling class of the dominating country limits or prevents the development of the national productive forces.

But in the concrete conditions of the present-day world economy this dependence is fatal and thus the local pseudo-bourgeoisie, however nationalist it may be, cannot effectively fulfill its historical function; it cannot freely direct the development of the productive forces; in brief it cannot be a national bourgeoisie. For as we have seen, the productive forces are the motive force of history, and total freedom of the process of their development is an indispensable condition for their proper functioning.

We therefore see that both in colonialism and in neo-colonialism the essential characteristic of imperialist domination remains the same: the negation of the historical process of the dominated people by means of violent usurpation of the freedom of development of the national productive forces. This observation, which identifies the essence of the two apparent forms of imperialist domination, seems to us to be of major importance for the thought and action of liberation movements, both in the course of struggle and after the winning of independence.

On the basis of this, we can state that national liberation is the phenomenon in which a given socio-economic whole rejects the negation of its historical process. In other words, the national liberation of a people is the regaining of the historical personality of that people, its return to history through the destruction of the imperialist domination to which it was subjected.

We have seen that violent usurpation of the freedom of the process of development of the productive forces of the dominated socio-economic whole constitutes the principal and permanent characteristic of imperialist domination, whatever its form. We have also seen that this freedom alone can guarantee the normal development of the historical process of a people. We can therefore conclude that national liberation exists only when the national productive forces have been completely freed from every kind of foreign domination.

It is often said that national liberation is based on the right of every people to freely control its own destiny and that the objective of this liberation is national independence. Although we do not disagree with this vague and subjective way of expressing a complex reality, we prefer to be objective, since for us the basis of national liberation, whatever the formulas adopted on the level of international law, is the inalienable right of every people to have its own history, and the objective of national liberation is to regain this right usurped by imperialism, that is to say, to free the process of development of the national productive forces.

For this reason, in our opinion, any national liberation movement which does not take into consideration this basis and this objective may certainly struggle against imperialism, but will surely not be struggling for national liberation.

This means that, bearing in mind the essential characteristics of the present world economy, as well as experiences already gained in the field of anti-imperialist struggle, the principal aspect of national liberation struggle is the struggle against neo-colonialism. Furthermore, if we accept that national liberation demands a profound mutation in the process of development of the productive forces, we see that this phenomenon of national liberation necessarily corresponds to a revolution. The important thing is to be conscious of the objective and subjective conditions in which this revolution can be made and to know the type or types of struggle most appropriate for its realization.

We are not going to repeat here that these conditions are favorable in the present phase of the history of humanity; it is sufficient to recall that unfavorable conditions also exist, just as much on the international level as on the internal level of each nation struggling for liberation.

On the international level, it seems to us that the following factors, at least, are unfavorable to national liberation movements: the neo-colonial situation of a great number of states which, having won political independence, are now tending to join up with others already in that situation; the progress made by neo-capitalism, particularly in Europe, where imperialism is adopting preferential investments, encouraging the development of a privileged proletariat and thus lowering the revolutionary level of the working classes; the open or concealed neo-colonial position of some European states which, like Portugal, still have colonies; the so-called policy of ‘aid for undeveloped countries’ adopted by imperialism with the aim of creating or reinforcing native pseudo-bourgeoisies which are necessarily dependent on the international bourgeoisie, and thus obstructing the path of revolution; the claustrophobia and revolutionary timidity which have led some recently independent states whose internal economic and political conditions are favorable to revolution to accept compromises with the enemy or its agents; the growing contradictions between anti-imperialist states; and, finally, the threat to world peace posed by the prospect of atomic war on the part of imperialism. All these factors reinforce the action of imperialism against the national liberation movements.

If the repeated interventions and growing aggressiveness of imperialism against the peoples can be interpreted as a sign of desperation faced with the size of the national liberation movements, they can also be explained to a certain extent by the weaknesses produced by these unfavorable factors within the general front of the anti-imperialist struggle.

On the internal level, we believe that the most important weaknesses or unfavorable factors are inherent in the socio-economic structure and in the tendencies of its evolution under imperialist pressure, or to be more precise in the little or no attention paid to the characteristics of this structure and these tendencies by the national liberation movements in deciding on the strategy of their struggles.

By saying this we do not wish to diminish the importance of other internal factors which are unfavorable to national liberation, such as economic under-development, the consequent social and cultural backwardness of the popular masses, tribalism and other contradictions of lesser importance. It should however be pointed out that the existence of tribes only manifests itself as an important contradiction as a function of opportunistic attitudes, generally on the part of detribalised individuals or groups, within the national liberation movements. Contradictions between classes, even when only embryonic, are of far greater importance than contradictions between tribes.

Although the colonial and neo-colonial situations are identical in essence, and the main aspect of the struggle against imperialism is neo-colonialist, we feel it is vital to distinguish in practice these two situations. In fact the horizontal structure, however it may differ from the native society, and the absence of a political power composed of national elements in the colonial situation make possible the creation of a wide front of unity and struggle, which is vital to the success of the national liberation movement. But this possibility does not remove the need for a rigorous analysis of the native social structure, of the tendencies of its evolution, and for the adoption in practice of appropriate measures for ensuring true national liberation. While recognizing that each movement knows best what to do in its own case, one of these measures seems to us indispensable, namely, the creation of a firmly united vanguard, conscious of the true meaning and objective of the national liberation struggle which it must lead. This necessity is all the more urgent since we know that with rare exceptions the colonial situation neither permits nor needs the existence of significant vanguard classes (working class conscious of its existence and rural proletariat) which could ensure the vigilance of the popular masses over the evolution of the liberation movement. On the contrary, the generally embryonic character of the working classes and the economic, social and cultural situation of the physical force of most importance in the national liberation struggle-the peasantry-do not allow these two main forces to distinguish true national independence from fictitious political independence. Only a revolutionary vanguard, generally an active minority, can be aware of this distinction from the start and make it known, through the struggle, to the popular masses. This explains the fundamentally political nature of the national liberation struggle and to a certain extent makes the form of struggle important in the final result of the phenomenon of national liberation.

In the neo-colonial situation the more or less vertical structure of the native society and the existence of a political power composed of native elements-national state-already worsen the contradictions within that society and make difficult if not impossible the creation of as wide a front as in the colonial situation. On the one hand the material effects (mainly the nationalization of cadres and the increased economic initiative of the native elements, particularly in the commercial field) and the psychological effects (pride in the belief of being ruled by one’s own compatriots, exploitation of religious or tribal solidarity between some leaders and a fraction of the masses) together demobilize a considerable part of the nationalist forces. But on the other hand the necessarily repressive nature of the neo-colonial state against the national liberation forces, the sharpening of contradictions between classes, the objective permanence of signs and agents of foreign domination (settlers who retain their privileges, armed forces, racial discrimination), the growing poverty of the peasantry and the more or less notorious influence of external factors all contribute towards keeping the flame of nationalism alive, towards progressively raising the consciousness of wide popular sectors and towards reuniting the majority of the population, on the very basis of awareness of neo-colonialist frustration, around the ideal of national liberation. In addition, while the native ruling class becomes progressively more bourgeois, the development of a working class composed of urban workers and agricultural proletarians, all exploited by the indirect domination of imperialism, opens up new perspectives for the evolution of national liberation. This working class, whatever the level of its political consciousness (given a certain minimum, namely the awareness of its own needs), seems to constitute the true popular vanguard of the national liberation struggle in the neo-colonial case. However it will not be able to completely fulfill its mission in this struggle (which does not end with the gaining of independence) unless it firmly unites with the other exploited strata, the peasants in general (hired men, sharecroppers, tenants and small farmers) and the nationalist petty bourgeoisie. The creation of this alliance demands the mobilization and organization of the nationalist forces within the framework (or by the action) of a strong and well-structured political organization.

Another important distinction between the colonial and neo-colonial situations is in the prospects for the struggle. The colonial situation (in which the nation class fights the repressive forces of the bourgeoisie of the colonizing country) can lead, apparently at least, to a nationalist solution (national revolution); the nation gains its independence and theoretically adopts the economic structure which best suits it. The neo-colonial situation (in which the working classes and their allies struggle simultaneously against the imperialist bourgeoisie and the native ruling class) is not resolved by a nationalist solution; it demands the destruction of the capitalist structure implanted in the national territory by imperialism, and correctly postulates a socialist solution.

This distinction arises mainly from the different levels of the productive forces in the two cases and the consequent sharpening of the class struggle.

It would not be difficult to show that in time the distinction becomes scarcely apparent. It is sufficient to recall that in our present historical situation — elimination of imperialism which uses every means to perpetuate its domination over our peoples, and consolidation of socialism throughout a large part of the world — there are only two possible paths for an independent nation: to return to imperialist domination (neo-colonialism, capitalism, state capitalism), or to take the way of socialism. This operation, on which depends the compensation for the efforts and sacrifices of the popular masses during the struggle, is considerably influenced by the form of struggle and the degree of revolutionary consciousness of those who lead it. The facts make it unnecessary for us to prove that the essential instrument of imperialist domination is violence. If we accept the principle that the liberation struggle is a revolution and that it does not finish at the moment when the national flag is raised and the national anthem played, we will see that there is not, and cannot be national liberation without the use of liberating violence by the nationalist forces, to answer the criminal violence of the agents of imperialism. Nobody can doubt that, whatever its local characteristics, imperialist domination implies a state of permanent violence against the nationalist forces. There is no people on earth which, having been subjected to the imperialist yoke (colonialist or neo-colonialist), has managed to gain its independence (nominal or effective) without victims. The important thing is to determine which forms of violence have to be used by the national liberation forces in order not only to answer the violence of imperialism, but also to ensure through the struggle the final victory of their cause, true national independence. The past and present experiences of various peoples, the present situation of national liberation struggles in the world (especially in Vietnam, the Congo and Zimbabwe) as well as the situation of permanent violence, or at least of contradictions and upheavals, in certain countries which have gained their independence by the so-called peaceful way, show us not only that compromises with imperialism do not work, but also that the normal way of national liberation, imposed on peoples by imperialist repression, is armed struggle.

We do not think we will shock this assembly by stating that the only effective way of definitively fulfilling the aspirations of the peoples, that is to say of attaining national liberation, is by armed struggle. This is the great lesson which the contemporary history of liberation struggle teaches all those who are truly committed to the effort of liberating their peoples.

It is obvious that both the effectiveness of this way and the stability of the situation to which it leads after liberation depend not only on the characteristics of the organization of the struggle but also on the political and moral awareness of those who, for historical reasons, are capable of being the immediate heirs of the colonial or neo-colonial state. For events have shown that the only social sector capable of being aware of the reality of imperialist domination and of directing the state apparatus inherited from this domination is the native petty bourgeoisie. If we bear in mind the aleatory characteristics and the complexity of the tendencies naturally inherent in the economic situation of this social stratum or class, we will see that this specific inevitability in our situation constitutes one of the weaknesses of the national liberation movement.

The colonial situation, which does not permit the development of a native pseudo-bourgeoisie and in which the popular masses do not generally reach the necessary level of political consciousness before the advent of the phenomenon of national liberation, offers the petty bourgeoisie the historical opportunity of leading the struggle against foreign domination, since by nature of its objective and subjective position (higher standard of living than that of the masses, more frequent contact with the agents of colonialism, and hence more chances of being humiliated, higher level of education and political awareness, etc.) it is the stratum which most rapidly becomes aware of the need to free itself from foreign domination. This historical responsibility is assumed by the sector of the petty bourgeoisie which, in the colonial context, can be called revolutionary, while other sectors retain the doubts characteristic of these classes or ally themselves to colonialism so as to defend, albeit illusorily, their social situation.

The neo-colonial situation, which demands the elimination of the native pseudo-bourgeoisie so that national liberation can be attained, also offers the petty bourgeoisie the chance of playing a role of major and even decisive importance in the struggle for the elimination of foreign domination. But in this case, by virtue of the progress made in the social structure, the function of leading the struggle is shared (to a greater or lesser extent) with the more educated sectors of the working classes and even with some elements of the national pseudo-bourgeoisie who are inspired by patriotic sentiments. The role of the sector of the petty bourgeoisie which participates in leading the struggle is all the more important since it is a fact that in the neo-colonial situation it is the most suitable sector to assume these functions, both because of the economic and cultural limitations of the working masses, and because of the complexes and limitations of an ideological nature which characterize the sector of the national pseudo-bourgeoisie which supports the struggle. In this case it is important to note that the role with which it is entrusted demands from this sector of the petty bourgeoisie a greater revolutionary consciousness, and the capacity for faithfully interpreting the aspirations of the masses in each phase of the struggle and for identifying themselves more and more with the masses.

But however high the degree of revolutionary consciousness of the sector of the petty bourgeoisie called on to fulfill this historical function, it cannot free itself from one objective of reality: the petty bourgeoisie, as a service class (that is to say that a class not directly involved in the process of production) does not possess the economic base to guarantee the taking over of power. In fact history has shown that whatever the role — sometimes important — played by individuals coming from the petty bourgeoisie in the process of a revolution, this class has never possessed political control. And it never could possess it, since political control (the state) is based on the economic capacity of the ruling class, and in the conditions of colonial and neo-colonial society this capacity is retained by two entities: imperialist capital and the native working classes.

To retain the power which national liberation puts in its hands, the petty bourgeoisie has only one path: to give free rein to its natural tendencies to become more bourgeois, to permit the development of a bureaucratic and intermediary bourgeoisie in the commercial cycle, in order to transform itself into a national pseudo-bourgeoisie, that is to say in order to negate the revolution and necessarily ally. In order not to betray these objectives the petty bourgeoisie has only one choice: to strengthen its revolutionary consciousness, to reject the temptations of becoming more bourgeois and the natural concerns of its class mentality, to identify itself with the working classes and not to oppose the normal development of the process of revolution. This means that in order to truly fulfill the role in the national liberation struggle, the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie must be capable of committing suicide as a class in order to be reborn as revolutionary workers, completely identified with the deepest aspirations of the people to which they belong.

This alternative — to betray the revolution or to commit suicide as a class — constitutes the dilemma of the petty bourgeoisie in the general framework of the national liberation struggle. The positive solution in favor of the revolution depends on what Fidel Castro recently correctly called the development of revolutionary consciousness. This dependence necessarily calls our attention to the capacity of the leader of the national liberation struggle to remain faithful to the principles and to the fundamental cause of this struggle. This shows us, to a certain extent, that if national liberation is essentially a political problem, the conditions for its development give it certain characteristics which belong to the sphere of morals.

We will not shout hurrahs or proclaim here our solidarity with this or that people in struggle. Our presence is in itself a cry of condemnation of imperialism and a proof of solidarity with all peoples who want to banish from their country the imperialist yoke, and in particular with the heroic people of Vietnam. But we firmly believe that the best proof we can give of our anti-imperialist position and of our active solidarity with our comrades in this common struggle is to return to our countries, to further develop this struggle and to remain faithful to the principles and objectives of national liberation.

Our wish is that every national liberation movement represented here may be able to repeat in its own country, arms in hand, in unison with its people, the already legendary cry of Cuba:

Patria O Muerte, Venceremos!

Death to the Forces of Imperialism!

Free, Prosperous and Happy Country for Each of our Peoples!

Venceremos!

https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa ... theory.htm

[blindpig]

“Tell no lies. (…) Claim no easy victories”
(Amilcar Cabral, 1965)
If there was ever such a thing as a practical philosopher,
then Amílcar Cabral would have stood as one of the first of
such kind. Amílcar Cabral, born in 1924 in Cape Verde and
assassinated in 1973, is remembered first and foremost as the
leader of the liberation wars in Cape Verde and Guiné Bissau.
A brilliant strategist, diplomat and guerrilla tactician,
Amílcar Cabral was further notable for his profoundly humane
and uniquely independent political vision. Though frequently
approached as a thinker through his published speeches, it is
difficult to assemble a picture of Cabral’s thought with no
reference to his life, and the gestures with which he filled
it (c.f. Chabal, 1983).
Born in Guiné-Bissau and raised in Cape Verde, Cabral’s
childhood was marked by both a love of learning and the
witnessing of colonial injustices, in particular during the
1940s drought and famine (c.f. Villen 2013). In 1945, earning
one of very few scholarships of its kind, Cabral secured a
place to learn agronomy in Lisbon. The next seven years in the
‘Metropolis’ would be highly significant for Cabral in that it
would provide access to the writings of pan-Africanist
cultural/political movements; as well as with connections with
fellow lusophone African students (e.g. Mario de Andrade,
Marcelino dos Santos, Agostinho Neto). It would be during
these years, and under the guise of the ‘Centre for African
Studies’ in Lisbon, that all important bonds would be forged
between key figures of the liberation struggles in Angola and
Mozambique. Deeply impressed by Leopold Senghor’s and Aimé
Cesaire’s Négritude as well as by Nkrumah’s political visions,
Cabral’s emphasis on the need for re-Africanisation had its
root at this time (see Rabaka, 2015). Parallel to this
influence, Cabral would also be introduced to Marxist ideas,
ideas he would use during the liberation struggles in a
strongly pragmatic, creative and anti-dogmatic way. Lastly,
but also significantly, Cabral’s seven years in Portugal made
him deeply sensitive in his position towards Portuguese
people. Retaining a position of open-heartedness and kindness
to what he saw as misguided people, Cabral quickly identified
Portuguese fascism and its renewed imperialist discourse as
the greatest source of immediate political evil.
Returning to Guiné-Bissau in 1952, Cabral was engaged by the
colonial Forestry and Agricultural civil service. In this role
he would conduct a comprehensive census of the country,
awarding him with a deep engagement with the social,
environmental and economic conditions of Guiné. At this time,
Cabral also began his political work mobilizing local
populations to demand for a better status. This was soon
noticed and culminated in the Colonial Governor asking for him
to be ‘transferred’. Unwittingly, this would lead Cabral to
further radicalise his struggles. Returning to Lisbon, Cabral
found work, which, for five years, would send him on long
missions in Angola. In these missions, Cabral would quickly
tap into the underground networks agitating for liberation.
Involved simultaneously in the underground anti-colonial
networks in Lisbon, Cabral would in 1955 participate in the
Bandung Conference. This participation, though poorly
documented, is crucial to understanding Cabral’s emphasis on
diplomatic mobilization as part of decolonial struggles. This
mobilization was both in terms of coordinating and uniting
anti-imperial struggles as well as mustering international
legitimation and support. In Cabral’s own life, this was born
out in uniting Lusophone African struggles under a common
front as well as by tirelessly working on garnering diplomatic
and popular support for Guinea’s liberation war (c.f.
Gliejeses 1997, Dadha 1995).
Galvanized by the international momentum against (neo)colonialism,
Cabral would, in 1956, establish the African
Party for the Independence of Guiné and Cabo Verde (PAIGC).
Having spent the first years doing political work in Guiné’s
cities, PAIGC would after 1959 focus its efforts on the
countryside. By 1963, PAIGC began its armed guerrilla
insurgency and within ten years achieved control over most of
Guiné’s territory and declared independence. Supremely
successful in terms of guerrilla warfare, Guiné’s liberation
was in no small part due to Cabral’s leadership and foresight
into grassroots politics, diplomacy and livelihood
improvement. Most significantly, in Cabral’s life, insurgency
emerged as the most fertile site for theory. Drawing on
practical problems in the politics and logistics of
insurgency, Cabral regarded insurgency as the key context in
which to conceive and form an African nationalism that would
succeed in overcoming colonial legacies. In Cabral’s thought,
national liberation relied on a unique process of cultural
renovation, whereby military struggle would be actively
subsumed under a deeper form of struggle towards the resignification
of local non-European cultures and the formation
of social forms shorn of colonial subconscious. Indeed, such
was Cabral’s insistence on this, that Paulo Freire saw his
pedagogical attitudes as uniquely inspiring (c.f. Pereira and
Vittoria, 2012).
A man of action more than words, Cabral’s theories seem to be
still fully understandable by reference to the extraordinary
events of the liberation insurgency of Guiné-Bissau.
Assassinated in 1973, before the fall of Portuguese fascism
and colonialism, Cabral’s death left a tragic absence, a
foreclosure, in the construction of independence in lusophone
Africa. Remembered as a moral paragon and political giant in
the African liberation wars, Cabral continues to lack the
scholarly appreciation his life and work deserves. Engaging
with Cabral, however, remains a worthy, necessary and
empowering project. In his poetry, in his speeches, in his
party archives and in the oral memories of his life, Cabral
offers a uniquely visionary and sensitive approach to the
historical task of decolonisation. Living beyond the grave,
Cabral’s incisive, humane, and pragmatic voice may well
continue to teach us – if only we listen.


Amilcar Cabral: (The Cancer of Betrayal -english subtitles) Discours sur Le Cancer de la Trahison
(only Eng translation I could find.bp)

https://globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers ... ?print=pdf

[blindpig]

“We must unite now or perish” – President Kwame Nkrumah

NEW AFRICAN MAGAZINE3 MAY 2013

Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah’s speech at the founding of the OAU has since become a classic, even iconic. In front of 31 other African heads of state who met in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on 24 May 1963, Nkrumah appealed, cajoled, and did everything in perhaps his greatest speech ever to convince his colleagues to go the whole hog and create a strong continental union. Sadly, they decided otherwise. Below is an extract from that speech.


I am happy to be here in Addis Ababa on this most historic occasion. I bring with me the hopes and fraternal greetings of the government and people of Ghana. Our objective is African union now. There is no time to waste. We must unite now or perish. I am confident that by our concerted effort and determination, we shall lay here the foundations for a continental Union of African States.

A whole continent has imposed a mandate upon us to lay the foundation of our union at this conference. It is our responsibility to execute this mandate by creating here and now, the formula upon which the requisite superstructure may be created. On this continent, it has not taken us long to discover that the struggle against colonialism does not end with the attainment of national independence. Independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs; to construct our society according to our aspirations, unhampered by crushing and humiliating neo-colonialist control and interference. From the start we have been threatened with frustration, where rapid change is imperative, and with instability, where sustained effort and ordered rule are indispensable. No sporadic act nor pious resolution can resolve our present problems. Nothing will be of avail, except the united act of a united Africa.

We have already reached the stage where we must unite or sink into that condition which has made Latin America the unwilling and distressed prey of imperialism after one-and-a-half centuries of political independence. As a continent, we have emerged into independence in a different age, with imperialism grown stronger, more ruthless and experienced, and more dangerous in its international associations. Our economic advancement demands the end of colonialist and neo-colonialist domination of Africa.

But just as we understood that the shaping of our national destinies required of each of us our political independence and bent all our strength to this attainment, so we must recognise that our economic independence resides in our African union and requires the same concentration upon the political achievement. The unity of our continent, no less than our separate independence, will be delayed, if indeed we do not lose it, by hobnobbing with colonialism. African unity is, above all, a political kingdom which can only be gained by political means. The social and economic development of Africa will come only within the political kingdom, not the other way round. Is it not unity alone that can weld us into an effective force, capable of creating our own progress and making our valuable contribution to world peace? Which independent African state, which of you here, will claim that its financial structure and banking institutions are fully harnessed to its national development?

Which will claim that its material resources and human energies are available for its own national aspirations? Which will disclaim a substantial measure of disappointment and disillusionment in its agricultural and urban development?

Instability and frustration

In independent Africa, we are already reexperiencing the instability and frustration which existed under colonial rule. We are fast learning that political independence is not enough to rid us of the consequences of colonial rule.

The movement of the masses of the people of Africa for freedom from that kind of rule was not only a revolt against the conditions which it imposed. Our people supported us in our fight for independence because they believed that African governments could cure the ills of the past in a way which could never be accomplished under colonial rule. If, therefore, now that we are independent we allow the same conditions to exist that existed in colonial days, all the resentment which overthrew colonialism will be mobilised against us.

The resources are there. It is for us to marshal them in the active service of our people. Unless we do this by our concerted efforts, within the framework of our combined planning, we shall not progress at the tempo demanded by today’s events and the mood of our people. The symptoms of our troubles will grow, and the troubles themselves become chronic. It will then be too late for pan-African unity to secure for us stability and tranquillity in our labours for a continent of social justice and material well-being.

Our continent certainly exceeds all the others in potential hydro-electric power, which some experts assess as 42% of the world’s total. What need is there for us to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water for the industrialised areas of the world? It is said, of course, that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications, and no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilise our resources for our own social needs. Yet all stock exchanges in the world are preoccupied with Africa’s gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ore. Our capital flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to have originated from our shores.

Africa provides more than 60% of the world’s gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries – the basic economic might of the foreign powers – comes from our continent.

Experts have estimated that the Congo Basin alone can produce enough food crops to satisfy the requirements of nearly half the population of the whole world, and here we sit talking about gradualism, talking about step by step. Are you afraid to take the bull by the horns?

For centuries, Africa has been the milch cow of the Western world. Was it not our continent that helped the Western world to build up its accumulated wealth? We have the resources. It was colonialism in the first place that prevented us from accumulating the effective capital; but we ourselves have failed to make full use of our power in independence to mobilise our resources for the most effective take-off into thorough-going economic and social development.

We have been too busy nursing our separate states to understand fully the basic need of our union, rooted in common purpose, common planning and common endeavour. A union that ignores these fundamental necessities will be but a sham. It is only by uniting our productive capacity and the resultant production that we can amass capital. And once we start, the momentum will increase. With capital controlled by our own banks, harnessed to our own true industrial and agricultural development, we shall make our advance.

We shall accumulate machinery and establish steel works, iron foundries and factories; we shall link the various states of our continent with communications by land, sea, and air. We shall cable from one place to another, phone from one place to the other and astound the world with our hydro-electric power; we shall drain marshes and swamps, clear infested areas, feed the under-nourished, and rid our people of parasites and disease.



Camels and donkeys no more

It is within the possibility of science and technology to make even the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation for agricultural and industrial development. We shall harness the radio, television, giant printing presses to lift our people from the dark recesses of illiteracy. A decade ago, these would have been visionary words, the fantasies of an idle dreamer. But this is the age in which science has transcended the limits of the material world, and technology has invaded the silences of nature. Time and space have been reduced to unimportant abstractions. Giant machines make roads, clear forests, dig dams, lay out aerodromes; monster trucks and planes distribute goods; huge laboratories manufacture drugs; complicated geological surveys are made; mighty power stations are built; colossal factories erected – all at an incredible speed. The world is no longer moving through bush paths or on camels and donkeys.

We cannot afford to pace our needs, our development, our security, to the gait of camels and donkeys. We cannot afford not to cut down the overgrown bush of outmoded attitudes that obstruct our path to the modern open road of the widest and earliest achievement of economic independence and the raising up of the lives of our people to the highest level.

Even for other continents lacking the resources of Africa, this is the age that sees the end of human want. For us it is a simple matter of grasping with certainty our heritage by using the political might of unity. All we need to do is to develop with our united strength the enormous resources of our continent.

What use to the farmer is education and mechanisation, what use is even capital for development, unless we can ensure for him a fair price and a ready market? What has the peasant, worker and farmer gained from political independence, unless we can ensure for him a fair return for his labour and a higher standard of living? Unless we can establish great industrial complexes in Africa, what have the urban worker, and those peasants on overcrowded land gained from political independence? If they are to remain unemployed or in unskilled occupation, what will avail them the better facilities for education, technical training, energy, and ambition which independence enables us to provide?

There is hardly any African state without a frontier problem with its adjacent neighbours. It would be futile for me to enumerate them because they are already so familiar to us all.

But let me suggest that this fatal relic of colonialism will drive us to war against one another as our unplanned and uncoordinated industrial development expands, just as happened in Europe. Unless we succeed in arresting the danger through mutual understanding on fundamental issues and through African unity, which will render existing boundaries obsolete and superfluous, we shall have fought in vain for independence. Only African unity can heal this festering sore of boundary disputes between our various states. The remedy for these ills is ready in our hands. It stares us in the face at every customs barrier, it shouts to us from every African heart.

By creating a true political union of all the independent states of Africa, with executive powers for political direction, we can tackle hopefully every emergency and every complexity. This is because we have emerged in the age of science and technology in which poverty, ignorance, and disease are no longer the masters, but the retreating foes of mankind. Above all, we have emerged at a time when a continental land mass like Africa with its population approaching 300 million is necessary to the economic capitalisation and profitability of modern productive methods and techniques. Not one of us working singly and individually can successfully attain the fullest development. Certainly, it will not be possible to give adequate assistance to sister states trying, against the most difficult conditions, to improve their economic and social structures. Only a united Africa functioning under a union government can forcefully mobilise the material and moral resources of our separate countries and apply them efficiently and energetically to bring a rapid change in the conditions of our people.

Political union

Unite we must. Without necessarily sacrificing our sovereignties, big or small, we can here and now forge a political union based on defence, foreign affairs and diplomacy, and a common citizenship, an African currency, an African monetary zone, and an African central bank. We must unite in order to achieve the full liberation of our continent. We need a common defence system with African high command to ensure the stability and security of Africa. We have been charged with this sacred task by our own people, and we cannot betray their trust by failing them. We will be mocking the hopes of our people if we show the slightest hesitation or delay in tackling realistically this question of African unity. We need unified economic planning for Africa.

Until the economic power of Africa is in our hands, the masses can have no real concern and no real interest for safeguarding our security, for ensuring the stability of our regimes, and for bending their strength to the fulfilment of our ends. With our united resources, energies and talents we have the means, as soon as we show the will, to transform the economic structures of our individual states from poverty to that of wealth, from inequality to the satisfaction of popular needs. Only on a continental basis shall we be able to plan the proper utilisation of all our resources for the full development of our continent. How else will we retain our own capital for own development? How else will we establish an internal market for our own industries?

By belonging to different economic zones, how will we break down the currency and trading barriers between African states, and how will the economically stronger amongst us be able to assist the weaker and less developed states? It is important to remember that independent financing and independent development cannot take place without an independent currency. A currency system that is backed by the resources of a foreign state is ipso facto subject to the trade and financial arrangements of that foreign country.

Because we have so many customs and currency barriers as a result of being subject to the different currency systems of foreign powers, this has served to widen the gap between us in Africa. How, for example, can related communities and families trade with, and support one another successfully, if they find themselves divided by national boundaries and currency restrictions? The only alternative open to them in these circumstances is to use smuggled currency and enrich national and international racketeers and crooks who prey upon our financial and economic difficulties.

Common citizenship

No independent African state today by itself has a chance to follow an independent course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. This position will not change unless we have a unified policy working at the continental level. The first step towards our cohesive economy would be a unified monetary zone, with, initially, an agreed common parity for our currencies. To facilitate this arrangement, Ghana would change to a decimal system.

When we find that the arrangement of a fixed common parity is working successfully, there would seem to be no reason for not instituting one common currency and a single bank of issue. With a common currency from one common bank of issue, we should be able to stand erect on our own feet because such an arrangement would be fully backed by the combined national products of the states composing the union. After all, the purchasing power of money depends on productivity and the productive exploitation of the natural, human and physical resources of the nation.

While we are assuring our stability by a common defence system, and our economy is being orientated beyond foreign control by a common currency, monetary zone, and central bank of issue, we can investigate the resources of our continent. We can begin to ascertain whether in reality we are the richest, and not, as we have been taught to believe, the poorest among the continents. We can determine whether we possess the largest potential in hydro-electric power, and whether we can harness it and other sources of energy to our industries. We can proceed to plan our industrialisation on a continental scale, and to build up a common market for nearly 300 million people. Common continental planning for the industrial and agricultural development of Africa is a vital necessity!

So many blessings flow from our unity; so many disasters must follow on our continued disunity. The hour of history which has brought us to this assembly is a revolutionary hour. It is the hour of decision. The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity. The people of Africa call for the breaking down of the boundaries that keep them apart. They demand an end to the border disputes between sister African states – disputes that arise out of the artificial barriers raised by colonialism. It was colonialism’s purpose that divided us.

It was colonialism’s purpose that left us with our border irredentism, that rejected our ethnic and cultural fusion. Our people call for unity so that they may not lose their patrimony in the perpetual service of neo-colonialism. In their fervent push for unity, they understand that only its realisation will give full meaning to their freedom and our African independence. It is this popular determination that must move us on to a union of independent African states. In delay lies danger to our well-being, to our very existence as free states.

It has been suggested that our approach to unity should be gradual, that it should go piecemeal. This point of view conceives of Africa as a static entity with “frozen” problems which can be eliminated one by one and when all have been cleared then we can come together and say: “Now all is well, let us now unite.”

This view takes no account of the impact of external pressures. Nor does it take cognisance of the danger that delay can deepen our isolations and exclusiveness; that it can enlarge our differences and set us drifting further and further apart into the net of neo-colonialism, so that our union will become nothing but a fading hope, and the great design of Africa’s full redemption will be lost, perhaps, forever.

The dangers of regionalism

The view is also expressed that our difficulties can be resolved simply by a greater collaboration through cooperative association in our inter-territorial relationships. This way of looking at our problems denies a proper conception of their inter-relationship and mutuality. It denies faith in a future for African advancement in African independence. It betrays a sense of solution only in continued reliance upon external sources through bilateral agreements for economic and other forms of aid.

The fact is that although we have been cooperating and associating with one another in various fields of common endeavour even before colonial times, this has not given us the continental identity and the political and economic force which would help us to deal effectively with the complicated problems confronting us in Africa today.

As far as foreign aid is concerned, a United Africa should be in a more favourable position to attract assistance from foreign sources. There is the far more compelling advantage which this arrangement offers, in that aid will come from anywhere to a United Africa because our bargaining power would become infinitely greater. We shall no longer be dependent upon aid from restricted sources. We shall have the world to choose from.

What are we looking for in Africa? Are we looking for Charters, conceived in the light of the United Nations’ example? A type of United Nations Organisation whose decisions are framed on the basis of resolutions that in our experience have sometimes been ignored by member states? Where groupings are formed and pressures develop in accordance with the interest of the groups concerned?

Or is it intended that Africa should be turned into a loose organisation of states on the model of the Organisation of American States, in which the weaker states within it can be at the mercy of the stronger or more powerful ones politically or economically and all at the mercy of some powerful outside nation or group of nations? Is this the kind of association we want for ourselves in the United Africa we all speak of with such feeling and emotion?

We all want a united Africa, united not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together in dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a continental basis.

We are African!

We meet here today not as Ghanaians, Guineans, Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans, Malians, Liberians, Congolese or Nigerians, but as Africans. Africans united in our resolve to remain here until we have agreed on the basic principles of a new compact of unity among ourselves which guarantees for us and our future a new arrangement of continental government. If we succeed in establishing a new set of principles as the basis of a new charter or statute for the establishment of a continental unity of Africa, and the creation of social and political progress for our people, then in my view, this conference should mark the end of our various groupings and regional blocs. But if we fail and let this grand and historic opportunity slip by, then we shall give way to greater dissension and division among us for which the people of Africa will never forgive us. And the popular and progressive forces and movements within Africa will condemn us. I am sure therefore that we shall not fail them.

To this end, I propose for your consideration the following: As a first step, a declaration of principles uniting and binding us together and to which we must all faithfully and loyally adhere, and laying the foundations of unity, should be set down.

As a second and urgent step for the realisation of the unification of Africa, an All-Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers should be set up now. The Committee should establish on behalf of the heads of our governments, a permanent body of officials and experts to work out a machinery for the union government of Africa. This body of officials and experts should be made up of two of the best brains from each independent African state. The various charters of existing groupings and other relevant documents could also be submitted to the officials and experts. We must also decide on a location where this body of officials and experts will work, to be the new headquarters or capital of our union government. Some central place in Africa might be the fairest suggestion, either in Bangui in the Central African Republic or Leopoldville [Kinshasa] in Congo. My colleagues may have other proposals.

The Committee of Foreign Ministers, officials and experts, should be empowered to establish: (1) A commission to frame a constitution for a Union Government of African States. (2) A commission to work out a continent-wide plan for a unified or common economic and industrial programme for Africa; this should include proposals for setting up: (a) A common market for Africa. (b) An African currency. (c) An African monetary zone. (d) An African central bank. (e) A continental communication system. (f) A commission to draw up details for a common foreign policy and diplomacy. (g) A commission to produce plans for a common system of defence. (h) A commission to make proposals for a common African citizenship. Africa must unite!

The day after Nkrumah’s speech, the 32 independent African nations assembled in Addis Ababa failed to go the whole hog for a strong United States of Africa. Instead they settled for a loose and weak Organisation of African Unity (OAU), whose Charter was signed the same day (25 May 1963) by the following countries: Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Libya, Malagasy, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika. Tshad [later Chad], Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, UAR [Egypt], and Upper Volta [later Burkina Faso].

http://newafricanmagazine.com/we-must-u ... or-perish/

[blindpig]

Patrice Lumumba

SPEECH AT THE CEREMONY OF THE PROCLAMATION OF THE CONGO'S INDEPENDENCE
June 30, 1960

Source: Patrice Lumumba, The Truth about a Monstrous Crime of the Colonialists, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961, pp. 44-47.
Written: by Patrice Lumumba;
Transcribed: by Thomas Schmidt.

Men and women of the Congo,

Victorious independence fighters,

I salute you in the name of the Congolese Government.

I ask all of you, my friends, who tirelessly fought in our ranks, to mark this June 30, 1960, as an illustrious date that will be ever engraved in your hearts, a date whose meaning you will proudly explain to your children, so that they in turn might relate to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren the glorious history of our struggle for freedom.

Although this independence of the Congo is being proclaimed today by agreement with Belgium, an amicable country, with which we are on equal terms, no Congolese will ever forget that independence was won in struggle, a persevering and inspired struggle carried on from day to day, a struggle, in which we were undaunted by privation or suffering and stinted neither strength nor blood.

It was filled with tears, fire and blood. We are deeply proud of our struggle, because it was just and noble and indispensable in putting an end to the humiliating bondage forced upon us.

That was our lot for the eighty years of colonial rule and our wounds are too fresh and much too painful to be forgotten.

We have experienced forced labour in exchange for pay that did not allow us to satisfy our hunger, to clothe ourselves, to have decent lodgings or to bring up our children as dearly loved ones.

Morning, noon and night we were subjected to jeers, insults and blows because we were "Negroes". Who will ever forget that the black was addressed as "tu", not because he was a friend, but because the polite "vous" was reserved for the white man?

We have seen our lands seized in the name of ostensibly just laws, which gave recognition only to the right of might.

We have not forgotten that the law was never the same for the white and the black, that it was lenient to the ones, and cruel and inhuman to the others.

We have experienced the atrocious sufferings, being persecuted for political convictions and religious beliefs, and exiled from our native land: our lot was worse than death itself.

We have not forgotten that in the cities the mansions were for the whites and the tumbledown huts for the blacks; that a black was not admitted to the cinemas, restaurants and shops set aside for "Europeans"; that a black travelled in the holds, under the feet of the whites in their luxury cabins.

Who will ever forget the shootings which killed so many of our brothers, or the cells into which were mercilessly thrown those who no longer wished to submit to the regime of injustice, oppression and exploitation used by the colonialists as a tool of their domination?

All that, my brothers, brought us untold suffering.

But we, who were elected by the votes of your representatives, representatives of the people, to guide our native land, we, who have suffered in body and soul from the colonial oppression, we tell you that henceforth all that is finished with.

The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed and our beloved country's future is now in the hands of its own people.

Brothers, let us commence together a new struggle, a sublime struggle that will lead our country to peace, prosperity and greatness.

Together we shall establish social justice and ensure for every man a fair remuneration for his labour.

We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa.

We shall see to it that the lands of our native country truly benefit its children.

We shall revise all the old laws and make them into new ones that will be just and noble.

We shall stop the persecution of free thought. We shall see to it that all citizens enjoy to the fullest extent the basic freedoms provided for by the Declaration of Human Rights.

We shall eradicate all discrimination, whatever its origin, and we shall ensure for everyone a station in life befitting his human dignity and worthy of his labour and his loyalty to the country.

We shall institute in the country a peace resting not on guns and bayonets but on concord and goodwill.

And in all this, my dear compatriots, we can rely not only on our own enormous forces and immense wealth, but also on the assistance of the numerous foreign states, whose co-operation we shall accept when it is not aimed at imposing upon us an alien policy, but is given in a spirit of friendship.

Even Belgium, which has finally learned the lesson of history and need no longer try to oppose our independence, is prepared to give us its aid and friendship; for that end an agreement has just been signed between our two equal and independent countries. I am sure that this co-operation will benefit both countries. For our part, we shall, while remaining vigilant, try to observe the engagements we have freely made.

Thus, both in the internal and the external spheres, the new Congo being created by my government will be rich, free and prosperous. But to attain our goal without delay, I ask all of you, legislators and citizens of the Congo, to give us all the help you can.

I ask you all to sink your tribal quarrels: they weaken us and may cause us to be despised abroad.

I ask you all not to shrink from any sacrifice for the sake of ensuring the success of our grand undertaking.

Finally, I ask you unconditionally to respect the life and property of fellow-citizens and foreigners who have settled in our country; if the conduct of these foreigners leaves much to be desired, our Justice will promptly expel them from the territory of the republic; if, on the contrary, their conduct is good, they must be left in peace, for they, too, are working for our country's prosperity.

The Congo's independence is a decisive step towards the liberation of the whole African continent.

Our government, a government of national and popular unity, will serve its country.

I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence.

Eternal glory to the fighters for national liberation!

Long live independence and African unity!

Long live the independent and sovereign Congo!

http://www.blackpast.org/1958-patrice-l ... eech-accra

[blindpig]

Libya: Ten Things About Gaddafi They Don’t Want You to Know
By Global Research News
Global Research, November 29, 2017
Urban Times 16 May 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Media Disinformation, Poverty & Social Inequality
print 1130 29 14 1234

This article was first published by Global Research in November 2014. Today Libya as a Nation State has been destroyed by US-NATO.

What do you think of when you hear the name Colonel Gaddafi? Tyrant? Dictator? Terrorist? Well, a national citizen of Libya may disagree but we want you to decide.

For 41 years until his demise in October 2011, Muammar Gaddafi did some truly amazing things for his country and repeatedly tried to unite and empower the whole of Africa.

So despite what you’ve heard on the radio, seen in the media or on the TV, Gaddafi did some powerful things that are not characteristic of a “vicious dictator” as portrayed by the western media.

Here are ten things Gaddafi did for Libya that you may not know about…



1. In Libya a home is considered a natural human right
In Gaddafi’s Green Book it states: ”The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum.

2. Education and medical treatment were all free
Under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad.

3. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project
The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great manmade river was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. It was funded by the Gaddafi government and it said that Gaddafi himself called it ”the eighth wonder of the world”.



4. It was free to start a farming business
If any Libyan wanted to start a farm they were given a house, farm land and live stock and seeds all free of charge.

5. A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies
When a Libyan woman gave birth she was given 5000 (US dollars) for herself and the child.

6. Electricity was free
Electricity was free in Libya meaning absolutely no electric bills!

7. Cheap petrol
During Gaddafi’s reign the price of petrol in Libya was as low as 0.14 (US dollars) per litre.

8. Gaddafi raised the level of education
Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. This figure was brought up to 87% with 25% earning university degrees.

9. Libya had It’s own state bank
Libya had its own State bank, which provided loans to citizens at zero percent interest by law and they had no external debt.

10. The gold dinar
Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise, Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency linked to gold. Following in the foot steps of the late great pioneer Marcus Garvey who first coined the term ”United States of Africa”. Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the world economy into chaos.

The Dinar was widely opposed by the ‘elite’ of today’s society and who could blame them. African nations would have finally had the power to bring itself out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity. They would have been able to finally say ‘no’ to external exploitation and charge whatever they felt suitable for precious resources. It has been said that the gold Dinar was the real reason for the NATO led rebellion, in a bid to oust the outspoken leader.

So, was Muammar Gaddafi a Terrorist?

Few can answer this question fairly, but if anyone can, it’s a Libyan citizen who has lived under his reign? Whatever the case, it seems rather apparent that he did some positive things for his country despite the infamous notoriety surrounding his name. And that’s something you should try to remember when judging in future.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-ten ... ow/5414289

(an 'iffy' link but this is commonly known stuff and the layout was good.)

[blindpig]

Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara: An icon of revolution
Posted Nov 26, 2020 by Yanis Iqbal

Originally published: LINKS (November 19, 2020)

October 15 was the 33rd anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s death. On this day, he was murdered by imperialist forces at the tender age of 37. A Pan-Africanist, internationalist and Marxist, he was committed to the total liberation of the oppressed masses from the clutches of imperialism. Instead of bourgeois nationalism, Sankara believed in radical nationalism: a combination of anti-imperialist courage and unabashed humanism that pushes for revolution instead of neo-colonial settlement. Thus, he belonged to a pantheon of African revolutionaries like Amilcar Cabral, Samora Machel and Patrice Lumumba who understood the necessity of adopting socialism for the fundamental transformation of their respective societies. Looking at the short life of Sankara, one can’t help but be moved by the way in which he emerged through the anguish and aspirations of millions of Burkinabe civilians and commanded a radical project of socialist transformation.

Man of the masses
On November 25, 1980, a group of military officers led by Colonel Saye Zerbo staged a coup against Aboubakar Sangoulé Lamizana’s largely dysfunctional government, citing, among other reasons for their action, an “erosion of state authority.” Establishing the Military Committee for the Enhancement of National Progress (CMRPN), Zerbo detained the former president and many other officials, scrapped the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly, outlawed parties, and prohibited all political activities. After taking power, Zerbo harshly implemented a comprehensive austerity package which reduced budgetary expenditure and weakened the fiscal capacity of the public sector. In addition to austerity, Zerbo’s CMRPN repressed the labor movement, formally suspended the right to strike and arrested radical students.

As the concoction of austerity and authoritarianism was being prepared, corruption was simultaneously increasing. Reports revealed massive embezzlement at a publicly owned investment bank by its former head; exposed a Ministry of Finance service director for taking payments from several merchants in exchange for forged documents authorizing wheat imports; and raised questions about real estate speculation done by private merchants, state officials and army officers which was increasing housing rents for citizens. These corruption cases received a remarkable amount of coverage during Sankara’s tenure as the secretary of information from November 1981 through April 1982. As secretary of information, he put a halt to the intimidatory tactics of the state and encouraged reporters to provide citizens with the “most accurate information possible”.

On April 12, 1982, Sankara sent a formal letter of resignation to the president. In it, he criticized the CMRPN for its “class” character and for serving the “interests of a minority”. He further announced his resignation publicly over a live radio and proclaimed: “Woe to those who would gag their people.” In response, the CMRPN stripped Sankara of his rank as captain, arrested him and deported him to a military camp in the Western town of Dedougou. By this time, the military was factionalized and one of the factions decided to overthrow Zerbo through a coup. Sankara was against a strictly military takeover and wanted a political program to be elaborated so that fundamental social changes could be produced. Though Sankara’s supporters refrained from undertaking any military action, other military officers moved ahead with a coup. On November 7, 1982, a military action, led principally by Commander Gabriel Somé Yorian – a politically conservative officer who had served as a minister in every government since 1971 – occupied key locations in Ouagadougou, overthrew the CMRPN and formed a military-led government called the Council of Popular Salvation (CSP).

The CSP was unstable and faction-ridden from the start. While the conservative bloc wanted to operate within the pre-existing framework of imperialist subjection and make minor changes, the revolutionary junior officials – who were drawn into coalitions that included leaders of organized left-wing parties, academics, student activists, trade unionists, and other civilians – were oriented towards the construction of an anti-imperialist front. Sankara – who was restored to his previous rank of captain – used the administration as a public platform to propagate revolutionary ideals and agitate for more changes. When he was sent to talk to a congress of the secondary and university teachers’ union, Sankara said that the army was facing “the same contradictions as the Voltaic people” and affirmed that “struggles for liberty” were gaining support within the military.

On January 10, 1983, Sankara was named prime minister by an assembly of the CSP. While taking the oath on February 1, he emphasized government members were there to serve the people, “not to serve themselves.” The people wanted freedom, he said, but “this freedom should not be confused with the freedom of a few to exploit the rest through illicit profits, speculation, embezzlement, or theft.” As prime minister, Sankara embarked on an extended international trip, which culminated in his attendance at the summit of the Non-Aligned Countries in New Delhi, India. His trip included visits to Libya and North Korea, considered as pariahs by the Western governments. From March 7-13 1983, Sankara was at the summit of the Non-Aligned Countries, where he met various Third World revolutionary leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba, Samora Machel of Mozambique, and Maurice Bishop of Grenada.

In his speech to the summit, Sankara criticized US foreign policy. “The Israeli government, publically supported by the United States, despite the unanimous condemnation of the entire world, invaded Lebanon with its army, submitted the capital Beirut to ruthless destruction”, he said. “Despite the ceasefire called for by the international community, the Israeli government has allowed the indescribable massacres of Sabra and Shatila, and whose leaders [in Israel] should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.” On top of US policies in the Middle East, Sankara condemned US imperialism in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and expressed solidarity with the people of South Africa, Mozambique and Angola.

On his return from New Delhi, political divisions within the CSP deepened. On March 26, 1983, Sankara gave a fiery speech at a mass rally organized by the government where he clearly outlined his revolutionary plans. In his speech, Sankara criticized bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and traditional and religious leaders. Using a participatory call-and-response method, he said:

“Are you in favor of us keeping corrupt civil servants in our administration?

[Shouts of “No!”]

So we must get rid of them. We will get rid of them.

Are you in favor of us keeping corrupt soldiers in our army?

[Shouts of “No!”]

So we must get rid of them. We will get rid of them.

Perhaps this will cost us our life, but we are here to take risks. We are here to dare. And you are here to continue the struggle at all costs.”

While Sankara’s speech elicited an enthusiastic response from the people, the speech of President Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo – who belonged to the conservative faction – was lackluster and failed to electrify the crowd. As is evident from this, the gulf between the revolutionary and conservative factions was widening.

On May 17, 1983, military units detained Sankara and Commander Lingani and took up strategic positions around the capital. These were the intimations of a new coup against Sankara’s radical faction. President Ouédraogo announced that the CSP had decided to “remove from its ranks all those who were working to turn it from its initial path through behavior, declarations, and acts that were as demagogic as they were irresponsible.” He was implicitly accusing Sankara and Lingani of breaking the stranglehold of the conservative faction and advancing an alternative, revolutionary policy paradigm.

In order to reconstitute a conservative administration, President Ouédraogo named Colonel Somé Yorian, one of the primary authors of the coup, as the secretary general of national defense and purged the cabinet of all those individuals who were politically associated with Sankara. The new administration came to be widely known as the CSP-II. This counter-offensive against Sankara had the involvement of the French imperialists. On May 16 – just a day before the coup – Guy Penne, the adviser on African affairs to French President François Mitterrand, had arrived in Ouagadougou and left the next afternoon, while the coup was under way, and after agreeing to provide the new government with more financial aid.

The decision to oust Sankara did not go as planned. Over May 20‒21, popular demonstrations were organized throughout Ouagadougou, involving students, radicalized poor people and trade unionists. Protest cries of “Free Sankara!” roared all over the streets and anti-imperialist slogans, particularly against France, reverberated throughout the city. Clandestine committees of civilians were formed and revolutionary supporters of Sankara underwent military training in the garrison in Pô where the troops of Sankara’s old commando training base had refused to recognize the authorities in Ouagadougou. It was here that Captain Blaise Compaoré, a captain and co-revolutionary, had fled in order to evade arrest.

On August 4, 1983, 250 commandos from Pô left the garrison for the capital with aim of overthrowing the CSP-II. With the help of the clandestine civilian groups, the city’s power was cut and at 9:30 pm, the commandos captured all their targets. In the meantime, junior officers took over the air base and the artillery camp. By 10 pm, Sankara proclaimed the overthrow of the government on the radio. In his address to the nation on the evening of 4 August, Sankara announced the formation of the National Council of the Revolution (CNR) and urged supporters to immediately form Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) “everywhere, in order to fully participate in the CNR’s great patriotic struggle and to prevent our enemies here and abroad from doing our people harm.” The new government’s main goal, he said, was to work in conjunction with the people and help them achieve their “profound aspirations for liberty, true independence, and economic and social progress.”

Building a socialist economy
The CNR was resolutely opposed to the various forms of subjugation existing in the country and its critique of the established system was sweeping. The general outlook of the CNR administration was defined by Sankara in his important Political Orientation speech – given on October 2, 1983 – where he used Marxist and dependency theory to construct the theoretical foundations of the August revolution. In the speech, he stated: “The fear that the struggle of the popular masses would lead to truly revolutionary solutions had been the basis for the choice made by imperialism: From that point on, it would maintain stranglehold over our country and perpetuate the exploitation of our people through the use of Voltaic intermediaries”. Terming this as “neo-colonialism”, Sankara said that the “primary goal of the revolution is to transfer power from the hands of the Voltaic bourgeoisie allied with imperialism to the hands of the alliance of popular classes that constitute the people.” Sakara’s incisive condemnation of imperialism was accompanied by the use of a moral lexicon which interwove a militant revolutionary attitude with the soft glow of emotions. Integrity, for example, was highly emphasized by the CNR and on the first anniversary of the August 4 revolution, the council renamed the country “Burkina Faso”: land of the upright people.

Sankara’s government promoted the construction of an independent, self-sufficient, and planned national economy. Sankara’s model of self-reliance meant that the national economy would operate based on domestic interests. The needs of peasants and rural communities would take precedence over exports that served international interests. The government would depart from a tone-deaf approach in allocating resources and focus instead on the needs of people and institutions at the local level. In order to achieve this goal, the government relied on social mobilization and community self-help projects to promote development. These new initiatives produced noticeable changes in the public health sector. By 1986, the government built 7,460 primary health posts (almost one per village) throughout the country; public health spending increased by 27% between 1983 and 1987; and 2.5 million children received vaccinations. Under Sankara, Burkina Faso also became the first country to acknowledge the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

A self-reliant economic framework – which prioritized social development over profit maximization – translated into staunch anti-neoliberalism. Sankara refused to accept the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were imposing on Third World nations throughout the 1980s. He abhorred the idea of passively receiving loans from imperialist institutions. In a speech given in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the twenty-fifth conference of member states of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), he powerfully declared: “The debt is another form of neo-colonialism, one in which the colonialists have transformed themselves into technical assistants. Actually, it would be more accurate to say technical assassins… The debt in its present form is a cleverly organised re-conquest of Africa under which our growth and development are regulated by stages and norms totally alien to us.”

In order to avoid a large budget deficit, Sankara proposed a model of modest living. To this end, the CNR transformed the civil service and erased any sign of ostentatious living. The revolutionary government froze civil service salaries; reduced housing allowances by 25‒50%; and made it obligatory for public employees to contribute to a variety of special funds and levies to aid drought victims or finance development projects. Two-thirds of the government’s auto fleet was sold off, and only small cars were kept. Sankara himself used a small, low-priced Peugeot 205.

Imperialist assassination
On October 15, 1987, Sankara was attending a meeting with his small team of advisors at the Conseil de l’Entente headquarters. Fifteen minutes into the meeting, shooting erupted in the small courtyard outside, in which the president’s driver and two bodyguards were killed. Upon hearing the gunfire, everyone inside took cover. Sankara got up and told his aides, “It’s me they want.” He left the room to face the assailants. He was shot numerous times, and died on the spot. The gunmen then entered the meeting room and killed everyone but Alouna Traoré, who survived and fled the country.

Sankara’s assassination was a result of a complex convergence of interests. Firstly, Blaise Compaoré had personal interests in overthrowing Sankara and concentrating power in his own hands. Compaoré had married Chantale Terrasson de Fougères, the adopted daughter of Côte d’Ivoire’s President Houphouët- Boigny. While Compaoré and Fougères wanted to live an ostentatious life, Sankara’s radical project of modest living – aimed at helping the poor and establishing a socialistic culture of humanism – constantly acted as a hurdle in their pursuit of personal ambitions.

Secondly, geo-political actors like France and the US were interested in killing Sankara and re-incorporating Burkina Faso into the structural arrangement of imperialist subordination and global capitalism. The imperialist interests of major powers neatly coincided with the personal interests of Compaoré. Thus, Compaoré functioned as an imperial-backed domestic actor who could simultaneously enrich himself and advance the objectives of neoliberalism by murdering Sankara.

For France and the US, Sankara’s revolutionary policies constituted a tangible threat to imperialism. When French president Francois Mitterrand had arrived in Ouagadougou in November 1986, he had directly experienced the threat posed by Sankara’s revolutionary politics to the project of unfettered neo-colonialism. During Mitterrand’s visit, Sankara disrupted the normal diplomatic discourse and presented the French president with a forceful anti-imperialist dialogue. He talked about colonial policies in Palestine; defended Nicaragua against US hybrid warfare; and criticized Paris for its policies in the African continent and towards African immigrants in France. At the end, Mitterrand said, “I admire his great qualities, but he is too forthright; in my opinion he goes too far.” He also added, “This is a somewhat troublesome man, President Sankara”. A year after these remarks, Sankara was assassinated. Many believe that Jacques Foccart, a key French intelligence figure with extensive networks throughout Africa, had actively engaged in the assassination plans.

The US, too, had concerns about Sankara’s revolutionary project. Sankara had converted Upper Volta – a formal colony till 1919 and a neo-colony till 1960 – into Burkina Faso – the land of revolutionaries who challenged imperialism. This was bound to be troublesome for the US which was building an informal empire and wanted a friction-free Global South, subservient to it. Herman Jay Cohen – former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs – wrote that, as a member of the American Executive, “I accused Sankara of trying to destabilize the entire region of West Africa…I insisted that Sankara was hurting the image of the entire French community in West Africa”. From this, it is evident that the US was interested in containing Sankara’s revolutionary project and coordinating its hegemony with France’s sub-imperial dominance in Africa. To do this, the US used the services of Liberian mercenaries who helped assassinate Sankara. Charles Taylor, for instance, was a Liberian who was released from a US jail with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then asked to infiltrate African revolutionary movements. It was later found that Taylor had been involved in the assassination of Sankara. It is important to remember that the Liberian mercenaries were not solely financed by the US. There was another agreement that Compaoré and Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya would help Charles Taylor and his men seize power in Liberia in return for the assassination of Sankara. Qaddafi chose to fund the murder of Sankara since the relations between the two had become strained over the latter’s efforts to mediate among different warring factions in Chad (a war in which Libya had intervened).

A week before his assassination, Sankara gave a speech in Ouagadougou at the inauguration of an exhibition honoring the life of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, who had been killed exactly twenty years earlier. In the speech, Sankara proclaimed: “we want to tell the whole world today that for us Che Guevara is not dead… you cannot kill ideas. Ideas do not die. That’s why Che Guevara, an embodiment of revolutionary ideas and self-sacrifice, is not dead.” These words aptly describe Sankara’s assassination. Though Sankara was murdered by imperialist bullets, his revolutionary conviction in class struggle and humanism continues to inspire countless many to oppose oppression and exploitation.

https://mronline.org/2020/11/26/thomas- ... evolution/