Biography of thomas sankara speeches english

InSankara oversaw the renaming of the country to Burkina Faso 'Land of Incorruptible People'and personally wrote its national anthem. However, he welcomed some foreign aid in an effort to boost the domestic economy, diversify the sources of assistance, and make Burkina Faso self-sufficient. Sankara's health programmes distributed millions of doses of vaccines to children across Burkina Faso.

In addition, he banned what he considered the luxury of air conditioning in government offices, and homes of politicians. Inhe was formally charged with and found guilty for the murder of Sankara by a military tribunal. As the son of one of the few African functionaries then employed by the colonial state, he enjoyed a relatively privileged position.

The family lived in a brick house with the families of other gendarmes at the top of a hill overlooking the rest of Gaoua. He applied himself seriously to his schoolwork and excelled in mathematics and French. He went to church often and, impressed with his energy and eagerness to learn, some of the priests encouraged Thomas to go on to seminary school once he finished primary school.

Despite initially agreeing, he took the exam required for entry to the sixth grade in the secular educational system and passed. Many young intellectuals viewed it as a national institution that might potentially help to discipline the inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, counterbalance the inordinate influence of traditional chiefs, and generally help modernize the country.

Acceptance into the military academy was accompanied by a scholarship; Sankara could not easily afford the costs of further education otherwise. He took the entrance exam and passed. The trainee officers were taught by civilian professors in the social sciences. He invited a few of his brightest and more political students, among them Sankara, to join informal discussions outside the classroom about imperialismneocolonialismsocialism and communismthe Soviet and Chinese revolutionsthe liberation movements in Africa, and similar topics.

This was the first time Sankara was systematically exposed to a revolutionary perspective on Upper Volta and the world. Aside from his academic and extracurricular political activities, Sankara also pursued his passion for music and played the guitar. At the Antsirabe academy, the range of instruction went beyond standard military subjects, which allowed Sankara to study agricultureincluding how to raise crop yields and better the lives of farmers.

He took up these issues in his own administration and country. A year later he was sent to Madagascar for officer training at Antsirabewhere he witnessed popular uprisings in and against the government of Philibert Tsiranana. During this period he first read the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Leninwhich profoundly influenced his biography of thomas sankara speeches english views for the rest of his life.

He earned fame for his performance in the conflict, but years later would renounce the fighting as 'useless and unjust', a reflection of his growing political consciousness. Sankara was a decent guitarist. While his predecessors would censor journalists and newspapers, Sankara encouraged investigative journalism and allowed the media to print whatever it found.

But he was dismissed a few months later, on 17 May. The decision to arrest Sankara proved to be very unpopular with the younger officers in the military regime. Sankara identified as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Che Guevaraand Ghana's military leader Jerry Rawlings. His policy was oriented toward fighting corruption and promoting reforestation.

This was a way for Sankara to signal that he was going to try for political and social change. It is among the growing tens of thousands of immigrant workers from West and Central Africa who today are swelling the ranks of the working class in the imperialist centers, driven there by the whiplash of capital, that Sankara is best known and respected.

Many are astonished to see the face of Sankara on a street table in the neighborhood where they live or work, on the cover of a book of his speeches, edited, printed, and distributed in the United States by working people there who look to Sankara as a revolutionary leader. And it is important to add that the converse is equally true. Reading Sankara is for us an important part of broadening the historical and cultural horizons of those who have been born or lived for years in the imperialist centers.

From the very beginning, one of the hallmarks of the revolutionary course Sankara fought for was the mobilization of women to ight for their emancipation. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph.

Biography of thomas sankara speeches english

Women hold up the other half of the sky. Before top dignitaries of the French imperialist government, Sankara afirmed: 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 political battle above all, and not an act of fate. This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism.

Imperialism is the arsonist setting ire to our forests and our savannas. When he learned that a delegation from the Socialist Workers Party in the United States was present, he made a point of heading straight to our table to greet us. It was not just as an act of diplomacy; he came to talk politics with fellow revolutionists. He knew that the Militant newsweekly was one of the few papers outside Africa that regularly wrote about the revolutionary course unfolding in Burkina Faso, carrying interviews and speeches by Sankara whenever we could get them.

The central leader of the revolution was Thomas Sankara, who became president of the new government at the age of thirty-three. Thomas Sankara was born in December in Yako in the center of the country. While Sankara was continuing his training in Madagascar, tens of thousands of workers and students organized mass demonstrations and strikes in that toppled the government.

The scope and character of the popular mobilization had a deep impact on him. I cry out on behalf of the journalists who have been reduced to silence or else to lies simply to avoid the hardships of unemployment. I protest on behalf of the athletes of the entire world whose muscles are being exploited by political systems or by those who deal in the modern slavery of the stadium.

My country is the essence of all the miseries of peoples, a tragic synthesis of all the suffering of mankind but also, and above all, the synthesis of the hopes of our struggles. That is why I speak out on behalf of the sick who are anxiously looking to see what science can do for them--but that science has been taken over by the gun merchants.

My thoughts go to all those who nave been affected by the destruction of nature, those 30 million who are dying every year, crushed by that most fearsome weapon, hunger. As a soldier, I cannot forget that obedient soldier who does what he is told, whose finger is on the trigger and who knows that the bullet which is going to leave his gun will bring only a message of death.

Lastly, I speak out in indignation as I think of the Palestinians, whom this most inhuman humanity has replaced with another people, a people who only yesterday were themselves being martyred at leisure. I think of the valiant Palestinian people, the families which have been splintered and split up and are wandering throughout the world seeking asylum.

Courageous, determined, stoic and tireless, the Palestinians remind us all of the need and moral obligation to respect the rights of a people. Along with their Jewish brothers, they are anti-Zionists. Standing alongside my soldier brothers of Iran and Iraq, who are dying in a fratricidal and suicidal war, I wish also to feel close to my comrades of Nicaragua, whose ports are being mined, whose towns are being bombed and who, despite all, face up with courage and lucidity to their fate.

I suffer with all those in Latin America who are suffering from imperialist domination. I wish to stand side by side with the peoples of Afghanistan and Ireland, the peoples of Grenada and East Timor, each of those peoples seeking happiness in keeping with their dignity and the laws of their own culture. I rise up on behalf of all who seek in vain any forum in the world to make their voices heard and to have themselves taken seriously.

Many have already spoken from this rostrum. Many will speak after me. But only a few will take the real decisions, although we are all officially considered equals. I speak on behalf of all those who seek in vain for a forum in the world where they can be heard. Yes, I wish to speak for all those--the forgotten--because I am a man and nothing that is human is alien to me.

Our revolution in Burkina Faso takes account of the ills of all peoples. We are also inspired by all the experiences of mankind, from the very first breath of the first human being. We wish to enjoy the inheritance of all the revolutions of the world, all the liberation struggles of the third-world peoples. We are trying to learn from the great upheavals that have transformed the world.

We have drawn the lessons of the American revolution, the lessons of its victory against colonial domination, and the consequences of that victory. We endorse the doctrine of non-interference by Europeans in American affairs and non-interference by Americans in European affairs. InMonroe said "America for the Americans". The French revolution ofwhich disrupted the foundations of absolutism, has taught us the rights of man linked to the rights of peoples to freedom.

The great revolution of October transformed the world and made possible the victory of the proletariat, shook the foundations of capitalism and made possible the dreams of justice of the French Commune. Open to all the wishes of the peoples and their revolutions, learning also from the terrible failures that have led to truly sad infringements of human rights, we want to preserve from each revolution only that essence of purity that prohibits us from becoming servants to the realities of others, even though in our thinking we find that there is a community of interests among us.

There must be no more deceit. The new international economic order, for which we are struggling and will continue to struggle, can be achieved only if we manage to do away with the old order, which completely ignores us, only if we insist on the place which is ours in the political organization of the world, only if we realize our importance in the world and obtain the right to decision-making with respect to the machinery governing trade, economic and monetary affairs at the world level.

The new international economic order is simply one among all the other rights of peoples--the right to independence, to the free choice of the form and structure of government, the right to development-- and like all the rights of peoples it is a right which can be gained only through the struggle of the peoples. It will never be obtained by any act of generosity by any Power whatsoever.

I continue to have unshakeable confidence--a confidence I share with the immense community of non-aligned countries--that, despite our peoples' battering-ram cries of distress, our group will preserve its cohesion, strengthen its power of collective negotiation, find allies among all nations, and begin, together with all who can still hear us, to organize a really new biography of thomas sankara speeches english of international economic relations.

I agreed to come to speak before the Assembly because, despite the criticism of certain major contributors, the United Nations remains the ideal forum for our demands, the place where the legitimacy of countries which have no voice is recognized. This was expressed very accurately by the Secretary- General, when he wrote: "The United Nations reflects in a unique way the aspirations and frustrations of many nations and groups all over the world.

One of its great merits is that all nationsincluding the weak, the oppressed and the victims of injustice"--that is, us--"can get a hearing and have a platform even in the face of the hard realities of power. A just cause, however frustrated or disregarded, can find a voice in the United Nations. This is not always a well- liked attribute of the Organization, but it is an essential one.

Therefore, it is absolutely essential for the good of each of us that the United Nations be strengthened and provided with the means to take action. That is why we endorse the Secretary-General's proposals to this end, to help the Organization break the many deadlocks which have been carefully preserved by the great Powers in order to discredit it in the eyes of the world.

Since I recognize the admittedly limited merits of the Organization, I cannot but rejoice to see new Members join us That is why the delegation of Burkina Faso welcomes the admission of the th Member of the United Nations, the State of Brunei Darussalam. The folly of those who, by a quirk of fate, rule the world makes it imperative for the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries--which, I hope, the State of Brunei Darussalam will soon join--to consider as one of the permanent goals of its struggle the achievement of disarmament, which is an essential aspect of the principal conditions of our right to development.

In our view, there must be serious studies of all the factors which have led to the calamities which have befallen the world. In this connection, President Fidel Castro stated our view admirably at the opening of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana in Septemberwhen he said: "Three hundred billion dollars could buildschools, with a capacity for million children; or 60 million comfortable homes, for million people; or 30, hospitals, with 18 million beds; or 20, biographies of thomas sankara speeches english, with jobs for more than 20 million workers; or an irrigation system for million hectares of land--that, with the application of technology, could feed a billion people.

It is easy to see why the indignation of the peoples is easily transformed into rebellion and revolution in the face of the crumbs tossed to them in the ignominious form of some aid, to which utterly humiliating conditions are sometimes attached. It can be understood why, in the fight for development, we consider ourselves to be tireless combatants for peace.

We swear to struggle to ease tension, to introduce the principles of civilized life into international relations and to extend these to all parts of the world. That means that we can no longer stand by passively and watch people haggle over concepts. We reiterate our determination to work actively for peace; to take our place in the struggle for disarmament; to take action in the field of international politics as a decisive factor, free of all hindrance by any of the big Powers, whatever may be their designs.

Selected works Said, Edward W. In the early s, Burkina Faso, like many African nations, was deeply in debt. The infant mortality rate was the highest in the world, estimated at deaths per 1, infants. In this context, there was a growing popular dissatisfaction with the repressive neo-colonial political regime, evidenced by a series of labourunion strikes and military coups in these years.

The root of the disease was political. Sankara ambitiously set-out to de-link Burkina from this debilitating political disease by enacting programmes for auto-centric development, creating wide-sweeping reforestation programmes, implementing new educational models, transforming the national army, and working towards the emancipation of women.

His radical political thought is known as Sankarism or Sankarist tradition: a Pan-African, anti-imperialist, and communist-inspired political praxis that emphasises holistic social transformation through the permanent dismantling of neo- imperial structures of dispossession. In an interview with Swiss journalist Jean-Philippe Rapp inhe reflected on his experiences growing up during the end of the colonial period in Gaoua.

We woke up thinking about it; we drew pictures of it; we tried to suppress the longing that kept welling up inside of us. We did just about everything to try to convince them to lend it to us. One day, I realized all of our efforts were in vain. I understand that after a wonderful, refreshing meal, she wanted to rest, and it was irritating to be disturbed like this.

He was deeply troubled by the gap between the people living in relative luxury, whose primary concern was leisure, and those living in uncertainty, whose primary concern was food. The struggle for dignity and sustenance would remain at the centre of his political project. InSankara attended officer training in Madagascar. There he witnessed the popular uprising of students, farmers, and labourers against the French-appointed leader Philibert Tsiranana.

Two years later, he attended parachute academy in France and was exposed to some of the philosophies that would become the foundation for his revolutionary leadership, including Marxist political economy and development theory. At the age of 33, Sankara had risen as a military leader in the Upper Volta army.