Thread by @docrussjackson

Perhaps you've not heard of Thomas Sankara?

#THREAD

An African leader who vaccinated more than 2 million children against meningitis, yellow fever & measles, following which, between 18,000 & 50,000 children who died annually of measles & meningitis, lived.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa. It used to be called the Republic of Upper Volta, which was established on 11 December 1958 as a self-governing colony within the French Community, gaining indeprendence on 5 August 1960, with Maurice Yaméogo as President.

After protests by students & labour union members, Yaméogo was deposed in a 1966 coup d'état, led by Sangoulé Lamizana, who was deposed in a 1980 coup d'état, led by Saye Zerbo, whose Govt was overthrown in a 1982 coup d'état, led by Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo.

Enter into our #THREAD, Thomas Sankara, (1949 -1987) a charismatic military officer & proponent of Pan-Africanism, who was leader of the leftist faction of the Ouédraogo government & who became president of Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) in 1983 after a military coup.

Sankara’s Roman Catholic parents wanted him to be a priest, but he opted for a military career instead. At the age of 20, Sankara was sent for officer training in Madagascar, where he witnessed a popular uprising of students & workers that succeeded in toppling Madagascar’s Govt.

Before returning to Upper Volta in 1972, Sankara attended a parachute academy in France, where he was further exposed to left-wing political ideologies. In 1974 he was praised for his heroic performance in the border war with Mali, but later renounced the war as useless & unjust.

Sankara’s military achievements & charismatic leadership style made him a popular choice for political appointments during the coups, but his personal & political integrity put him at odds with the leadership of the military Govts, leading to his arrest on several occasions.

In January 1983, Sankara was selected as PM of the newly formed Council for the Salvation of the People headed by Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, which provided him with an entryway into international politics & a chance to meet with leaders of the nonaligned movement, including Castro.

Sankara’s anti-imperialist stance & grassroots popularity increasingly put him at odds with conservative elements within the CSP, including President Ouédraogo. Sankara was removed as prime minister in May & arrested once again.

On August 4, 1983, Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s close friend & fellow army colleague, led a group that freed Sankara, overthrew the Ouédraogo regime, & formed the National Council of the Revolution, with Sankara as its president.

Sankara declared his revolutionary objectives to be primarily concerned with the tasks of:

empowering women

eradicating corruption

fighting environmental degradation

increasing access to education & health care

and liquidating imperial domination.

This was in 1983!

His foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism, rejecting aid from organizations such as the IMF, saying "He who feeds you, controls you".

Sankara welcomed foreign aid from other sources but reduced reliance on aid by boosting domestic revenues & diversifying assistance.

On the first anniversary of the coup, the country’s name changed from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, broadly meaning 'land of upright/honest/incorruptible people' in the two most common indigenous languages.

afrolegends.com/2013/09/12/why…

His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency & land reform, prioritising education with a nationwide literacy campaign & promoting public health by vaccinating more than 2 million children against meningitis, yellow fever & measles.

Scores of schools, health centers, water reservoirs, and nearly 100 km of rail were constructed, with little or no external assistance. Total cereal production rose by 75% between 1983 & 1986.

Over 10 million trees were planted to combat the growing desertification of the Sahel.

Land was redistributed from private landowners, rural poll taxes & domestic rents were suspended & a road and railway construction programme was established

Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary & had pharmacies built in 5,384 out of 7,500 villages.

From 1982-1984 infant mortality dropped from 208/1,000 births to 145. School attendance increased from 6% to 22%.

He outlawed FGM, forced marriages & polygamy, appointed women to Snr Govt positions, encouraged them to work & stay in school, & encouraged condom use against AIDS.

Sankara encouraged the prosecution of officials accused of corruption, but also prosecuted counter-revolutionaries & "lazy workers".

His programmes for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa's poor & he remained popular with most of his country's citizens.

However, his policies alienated & antagonised several groups, including the small but powerful Burkinabé middle class, tribal leaders who were stripped of their long-held traditional privileges of forced labour & tribute payments, & the Govts of France & its ally the Ivory Coast.

Eventually, opposition parties & unions were banned & media freedoms curtailed, striking teachers were fired & replaced by inexperienced young people, which increased dissent, & on 15 October 1987, Sankara was assassinated by troops led by Blaise Compaoré, who assumed leadership.

Sankara was undoubtedly charismatic, & I want to end the thread with some of his original initiatives & ideas that contributed to his popularity, & which brought some international media attention to his government:

He sold off the Govt fleet of Mercedes cars & made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso) the official Ministers' car.

He reduced the salaries of well-off public servants (including his own) & forbade the use of government chauffeurs & first class airline tickets.

He spoke at the Organization of African Unity, against the neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade & finance.

He called for a united front of African nations, arguing that the poor & exploited had no obligation to repay money to the rich & exploiting.

In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).

He forced well-off civil servants to pay one month's salary to public projects.

He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was only available to the elite

As President, he lowered his salary to $450/month limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a refrigerator, & a broken freezer.

He famously criticized French president François Mitterand during a state dinner for hosting the leader of Apartheid South Africa.

He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabé cotton & sewn by Burkinabé craftsmen.

When asked why he didn't want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied: "There are seven million Thomas Sankaras".

He wrote the country's national anthem - Une Seule Nuit (One single Night) - himself.

"Thomas knew how to show his people that they could become dignified & proud through will power, courage, honesty & work" - Mariam Sankara, Thomas' widow.

“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas” - Thomas Sankara.

The brash young leader was not without flaw. Some of his policies resulted in costly missteps, such as firing politically disloyal civil servants and striking teachers, heavy-handed tactics to discipline lethargic bureaucrats, or arming partisan civilian militia.

He showed an uncommon ability to publicly admit failure & take corrective measures, when persuaded of his errors.

However, he made enemies abroad & within for challenging systems of power & refusing to compromise.

But in spite of his flaws, Sankara’s legacy has lived on. 🙏

Reading list:
globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/sanka…