chegitz guevara
7th November 2009, 19:16
Last night I attended a Militant Labor Forum (Socialist Workers Party USA) about the African socialist, Thomas Sankara, leader of the country of Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). It has become all to clear to me in recent years that my knowledge of African socialism is sorely deficient. Why is this? A legacy of my Trotskyist past, to be sure, but also, there just isn't that much out there on the great African revolutionaries: Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara, Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, and how many more can I name? Not many. And what can I tell you about their politics or theories? Nothing.
Unfortunately, the SWP left me with more questions than answers. They talked about a revolution, but from what I can read, it was a coup d'etat. Sankara's politics and ideas were great. In the four years of his rule, infant mortality dropped from 208 per 100,000 to 146 per 100,000, a 30% drop. He outlawed female genital mutilation. He had the northern part of the country reforested to defend against the encroachment of the Sahara.
Yet, I can find nothing about the self-organization of the masses. A revolution isn't just great politics. It isn't doing good works, of which Sankara did many (required all ministers to fly coach, sold the government's fleet of Mercedes-Benzes and replaced them with Renaults). It just seems like top-down socialism to me.
You can read up a little bit of what Sankara wrote here:
http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7314/731449.html
And a little about the Burkinabé Revolution here:
http://reddiarypk.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/on-the-burkinabe-revolution/
Unfortunately, the SWP left me with more questions than answers. They talked about a revolution, but from what I can read, it was a coup d'etat. Sankara's politics and ideas were great. In the four years of his rule, infant mortality dropped from 208 per 100,000 to 146 per 100,000, a 30% drop. He outlawed female genital mutilation. He had the northern part of the country reforested to defend against the encroachment of the Sahara.
Yet, I can find nothing about the self-organization of the masses. A revolution isn't just great politics. It isn't doing good works, of which Sankara did many (required all ministers to fly coach, sold the government's fleet of Mercedes-Benzes and replaced them with Renaults). It just seems like top-down socialism to me.
You can read up a little bit of what Sankara wrote here:
http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7314/731449.html
And a little about the Burkinabé Revolution here:
http://reddiarypk.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/on-the-burkinabe-revolution/