29 oct. 2010 Mwaura Kaara

AS WE exit the month of October, I trust we did not lose the opportunity to reflect on what the future holds.

On October 15 1987 Thomas Sankara was assassinated, having seized power in 1983 in a popular Pan African coup in what was then Upper Volta.

Sankara had a vision to change the way things were, as embodied in how he changed the name of the country to Burkina Faso, meaning ‘the land of honest men’. This implicitly implied that honesty was a predominant factor in the whole question of social change.

His vision was to change the way things were – to show that there were other ways to make political and other socio-economic organisations work for the people, rather than corporations acting at the whims of western governments.

In essence he sought to reaffirm the sovereignty of the citizens of Burkina Faso, as a lesson to export to the rest of Africa.

His 1983 revolution sought to create a model of social democracy in one of Africa’s poorest countries. The revolution sought to deal with key issues of land rights, labour rights, education and agriculture.

The question of women and their role in the total emancipation of society, coupled with the prudent use of government institutions and resources to the service of the people were at the fore front.

Sankara stands out for his support of the women’s movement, having stated: “There is no true social revolution without the liberation of women”.

Some of Sankara’s priorities were the banning of female genital mutilation, promotion of contraception and discouraging polygamy. His quest to move his people from poverty to power saw him embark on nationalisation. This no doubt caused ripples with the business elite and French government.

After only four years (1987) in power, Sankara was assassinated in an ‘imperialist’ coup, orchestrated by his comrade Blaise Campore, who has overturned Sankara’s policies and gains and remains in power today.

In reflecting on Sankara, I am reminded of African American poet, Countee Cullen, in his poem Heritage. He raises the question: “What is Africa to me?”. It is for this that I will expand the question, asking: “What is Africa to Africans, and what is Africa to the world?”

If we have a whole revolution for social change, we have to look at when we had it as against when we lost it. We have to draw on the past in order to make the present and future.

Freedom is not free. It is something you take with your own hands. It is not handed from one generation to another. It is the challenge of each generation to assume the responsibility of securing their being, manhood and womanhood, the true definition of being on earth in the analysis of nationhood.

It is on the historical lessons of secured freedoms set out by Sankara that can lift us up to the global level. Can we get a leadership to assume this responsibility?

In showing the way to the future, Sankara stated “I would like to leave behind me the conviction that if we maintain a certain amount of caution and organisation, we deserve victory. You cannot carry out fundamental change without an amount of madness. In this case, it comes from unconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.”

This is the kind of madness African leadership is missing today.

Mwaura Kaara

The writer is regional youth coordinator of the UN Millennium Campaign, Africa. At present he is a visiting scholar for the Ragnar Sohlman at the Network of North South and the Dag Hammarskjöld Programme, Oslo, Norway.

Source : http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/incoming/2010/10/29/honesty-must-be-predominant-in-social-change

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