The elections went off without a hitch. The polling stations opened on time, the people walked, waiting and cast their ballots. The observers and monitors performed their responsibilities. The election commission provided all the necessary facilities, services, support, guidance, training and management needed to complete the process. Civic groups remained vigilant, and some like Le Balai […]
Category Archives: Essays
They Called Them ‘Riots’, And The People ‘Rioters’
There have been outbreaks of violence against Mr. Compaoré at least six other times since 1999, most recently in 2011, with government buildings defaced and protesters taking to the streets. Mr. Compaoré has always managed to stay in office through a combination of negotiation, conciliation and restrained use of firepower. The New York Times, October […]
Death Of A Native Son
We must dare to invent the future. Thomas Sankara [2007a, 141-144] On the night of October 15, 1987, in a cemetery on the outskirts of the city of Ouagadougo, a group of soldiers arrive by truck, and begin frantically digging in the earth. Their bodies attack the hard ground with shovels, as other men stand […]
An Incomplete Triump
“Don’t shoot, you cannot kill ideas!” Surrendering Cuban revolutionary, after the failed attack against the Moncada garrison, Cuba. Within hours of Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the French government sent messages of congratulations to the coup leadership. But the job was not as yet done and within hours of his assassination they begin destroying Sankara’s economic and […]
Reimagining Society
“This is a somewhat troublesome man, [this] Thomas Sankara.” Francois Mitterrand, 1986 Fanon had warned that bourgeois anti-colonial nationalism was really only aimed at capturing the structures of colonialism for its own benefit. He had argued that the goal of the bourgeoisie’s project was “…to transfer into native hands those unfair advantages which are the legacy […]