African Revolutionary Writers, Part 10b
Thomas Sankara
As we said in relation to
Huey Newton, the reading of the original words of political leaders is apt to
result in a re-evaluation of the received opinions about writers. In the case
of Thomas Sankara, the revision is downwards.
Sankara is the legendary
President of Burkina Faso, immortalised in the book “Thomas Sankara Speaks”, of
which the attached document is an extract.
The only other document
mentioned by Sankara in this speech, made shortly before his death in a coup
organised by his comrade Blaise Compaore, is his own Political
Orientation Speech of 2 October 1983, allegedly (according to
Wikipedia) written by another comrade, Valère Somé.
Compaore was President of
Burkina Faso until 2014, 28 years after the coup that killed Sankara. Valère
Somé survived as an oppositionist.
The “Political Orientation
Speech” was given soon after the coup
d’état of 1983 that first brought Sankara and Compaore to power. It is a
kind of ad hoc statement of good
intentions. It quotes no antecedents.
Otherwise the speech of 4
August 1987 (“Revolution is a Perpetual Teacher”) is all generalisation. No
other political figures are quoted, no events, no specific projects. It is not
like the speech of a president. It is all exhortation.
Every assertion is hedged
with a counter-assertion.
At times Sankara indicates
that he is about to go into details, but then he does not do so. At times he
says we must learn from other revolutions, but he mentions none. Other African
countries are not mentioned other than in the salutations at the beginning and
the end.
We have all heard such empty
speeches. They are called “clap-trap”.
The organisations mentioned
are all of the top-down kind.
The peasants, who surely
would have comprised a large part of his audience, are insulted from the start.
There is paranoia in this
speech. When you read it, you can suspect that Sankara already had fears that
were born out when he was couped and murdered on 15 October 1987, less than
three months later.
There is no actual politics.
It all reduces to appeals to strive for happiness and dignity. The mass agency
of which Sankara is proud to boast is overwhelmed by the “persuasion” that the
proposed vanguard is meant to exercise.
It is necessary to read all,
but this one is a shocking discovery. The great Sankara, with such a romantic
image and such a huge following, even today, turns out to be a revolutionary
fraud.
The next writer, Walter
Rodney, our last, was not a fraud.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Thomas Sankara,
Revolution is a perpetual teacher, 1987.
