Thomas Sankara et la condition féminine: un discours révolutionnaire?

CHAPTER I.

METHODS OF THE ARGUMENTATION

The feminist speech of Sankara aims at convincing, to persuade its public, to modify its opinion. As Charles poses it. Perelman, in its work. The Empire rhetoric, rhetoric and argumentation^95(*), there exists a fundamental difference between a demonstration and an argumentation. « In a mathematical demonstration, the axioms are not under discussion; that one regards them as obvious, like truths or as of simple assumptions one is hardly worried to know if they are or not accepted by the audience ». The demonstration is regarded as formally correct, when it is in conformity with clarified rules. The deduction which makes it possible to pass from the premises to the consequences plays a part determining in the demonstration. On the other hand argumentation, according to Charles. Perelman, seeks with « to cause or increase the adhesion of an audience to the theses which one presents at his approval. »

The speech sankarist claims, by the argumentation which melts it, at the same time « to gain the adhesion of the spirits » and « to incite with the action » .C' is to say that Sankara recognizes the virtues of the argumentative speech. Saint Augustin, in chapter 13 of book 4 of his work Of the Christian Doctrines, analyzes the deep springs of this type of speech :

« The audience will not be really persuaded that if it is led by your promises and is frightened by your threats, if it rejects what you condemn and embraces what you recommend; if it deplores in front of what you present like lamentable; if it apitoie in front of those which you present like worthy of pity and deviates from those which you present to him like men to fear and to avoid »^96(*).

The goal of an argumentation is not to prove the truth of a conclusion starting from premises, but as the analysis finely Perelman « to transfer on the conclusions the adhesion granted to the premises ». An argumentation is based on various argumentative techniques which can be either at the level of the reasoning or to that of the arguments suggested.

1.1 THE SKILLS RHETORICS

Theoretically, the reasoning takes the following form: thesis antérieure---> prémisses---> arguments---> conclusion---> new thesis. Thomas Sankara does not adapt to this diagram. He removes certain stages or implies them or even the reverse. He generally uses the syllogism. The syllogism is presented in the form of a degree zero of the argumentative structure. It retains only the premises and the conclusion.

Here some syllogisms in the Sankariste speech. « Our revolution interests all oppressed, all those which are exploited in the current company (major premise: assertion of a general nature). It interests consequently the woman (conclusion), because the base of its domination by the man is in the system of organization of the political and economic life of the company (minor premise) »^97(*) Sankara builds its reasoning by truncated syllogisms: « The women and the men of our company are all victims of oppression and the domination imperialist (major) (minor: However only the unit combat releases = implied). This is why they carry out the same combat (conclusion) »^98(*). It perseveres in the use of the truncated syllogisms: « The first timidity of the man comes to him as of the moment when it is aware that it looks at a woman (major)....I nevertheless remain a man who looks at of each one of you the mother, the sister or the wife (minor) »^99(*). The conclusion, which would be « therefore, I am struck by timidity » is implied.

The truncated syllogisms tend towards the form of the enthymèmes like « I think, therefore I am » of Descartes. Indeed, the speaker is not a logician. He can allow himself not to enumerate all the links of his reasoning. Sankara, thus leaves implied premises which it regards as allowed or known of all. Aristote presented, in its Rhétorique work, the enthymème as a syllogism rhetoric^100(*) a enthymème allows a simplification of the language, It facilitates the assimilation of the message by the audience. It is a shortened form of the reasoning which presents general elements that one advances, but that one does not show. By this technique, Sankara is put safe from any dispute, which is of a great skill rhetoric.

The argumentation, against the demonstration does not develop in a definite system. It draws from a body of arguments which the defended thesis necessarily does not imply. The arguments are, on the plan rhetoric, more or less forts according to their specificity. There is a series of arguments which do not approach the formal thought, of nature logical or mathematical and which calls so that Charles Perelman calls « the structure of reality ». These arguments are based on the connections which exist between the elements of « reality »^101(*) that it is about the report/ratio of causality, reasoning by the model or the example, and of the argument of authority.

The argument of the effectiveness consists in recommending a measurement or a decision while being based on the favorable or unfavourable consequences which they would involve. The utility of the reasoning by the consequences seems so well to go from oneself that it does not need to be justified. The experiment that agrees in its Sankara speeches, enables him to pre-empt the consequences. Thus for Sankara, to take part in the revolution is an obviousness, since it poses like consequence the positive transformation of the company. The awaited result is « a company which not only determines new social reports/ratios but causes a cultural change by upsetting the relations of being able between men and women, and in. condemning one and the other to reconsider the nature of each one. »^102(*) Sankara emphasizes the existence of a correlation between the Cultural revolution and the necessary Women's Liberation. It is according to him, indeed one of the awaited consequences of the revolution that of « to create a new mentality at the voltaic woman who allows him to assume the destiny of the country at the sides of the man ».

The will of the powerful orator is to make appreciate the revolution by the determination of its effects which it regards as positive. To pose the revolutionary act is accompanied in the speech sankarist by the statement by a precise quantitative result. It cannot be a question within the framework of this research of multiplying the examples. Indeed the argument of the effectiveness is major in the speech sankarist since the argumentation seeks to show the people burkinabé the better world which awaits it thanks to the revolution.

The argumentation for the example is rather frequent at Sankara. To leave an abstracted development, it uses illustrations which make it possible to examine a fact in a more concrete way, more precise. In fact evidence is used as base with a rule or a principle. « It is indeed an argumentation aiming at passing from the particular case towards a generalization. »^103(*)

Concerning the cynicism of the man at the place of the woman, Sankara expresses it by a series of examples: « it was the case, pays one, in this manufacturer of the time, which employed only women with its weaving looms mechanical. It gave the preference to the married women and among them, with those which had at the house of the family to maintain, because they showed much more attention and of docility that the single people »^104(*). The president of CNR enumerates the sufferings of the woman in the traditional or modern company: « The weight of the secular traditions of our company dedicates the woman with the row of beast of burden. All the plagues of the neo-colonial company, the woman undergoes them doubly: firstly, she knows the same sufferings as the man; secondly, it undergoes on behalf of the man of other sufferings. »^105(*) The argumentation for the example makes it possible to denounce with more obviously the yoke which weighs on the women.

« Already with the four faces of the combat against the disease, the hunger, the destitution, the degeneration, our sisters undergo each day the pressure of the changes on which they do not have a catch. When each one of our 800.000 male emigrants from goes away, a woman assumes an extra work of work. Thus, the two million Burkinabé residing out of the own territory contributed to worsen the imbalance of the sex-ratio which, today, makes that the women constitute 51,7% of the total population. Potentially active population resident, they are 52,1% »^106(*)

All these examples appear undeniable, « because it is reality of what is evoked which is used as base with the conclusion »^107(*). Not to generalize unduly, Sankara starts from sufficiently varied examples. The examples relate in particular to the political, social, economic situation of the woman. Treating division of the labor which devalues the function by the woman, Sankara rejects the flexible rule of manner. It uses in a skilful way of the examples expressed with the interro-negative form, which pushes the audience to revise its positions and to dare the change. « Occupation without remuneration of course bus generally does not say one a one woman to the house only it « does not do anything? » One does not register on the documents of identity of the not remunerated women the mention « housewife » for saying that those don't have employment? That they « do not work? »^108(*). These examples formulated in the form of rhetorics questions leave the interlocutors vis-a-vis their own conscience. They have a force of persuasion by the very fact that they cannot be called into question.

To give more force to his ideas, president Sankara uses arguments of authority. The called upon authorities are variable and coincide with those underlined by Perelman : « the common opinion », « scientists », « philosophers », them « fathers of the Church », « prophets »; Impersonal authorities like « physics », « doctrines », « the religion », « the bible »; and authorities indicated by name^109(*)

When Sankara is posted like Marxist-Leninist, it legitimates its matter by drawing precise references in works of Marx or Engels. The force of the argumentation draws from the duly quoted authority, a very important support.

In the same way that Sankara emphasizes the authority Marxist-Leninist which agrees with the exposed thesis, it devaluates the authority which under tightens the thesis of the adversary. Don't the enemies of the revolution, middle-class men and feudal hide behind the ancient philosophers and the established religions? Sankara denounces them with virulence:

« Détrônée by the private property, expelled of itself, plastered with the rank of nurse and maidservant, made inessential by philosophies (Aristote, Pythagore and others) and the religions the most installed, devalued by the myths, the woman shared the fate of the slave who in the slave company was only one beast of burden to human face »^110(*)

The political speech of Sankara is thus a built speech. It is founded on an argumentative structure not deprived of skills rhetorics. To affirm without proving via truncated syllogisms, to establish relations of causality without to justify them, to legitimate a new political program by referring to uncontested authorities of the past, are as many techniques argumentative which are used as tools with the expression of a political good-will, that to force to a major change socio-policy.

* ⁹⁵ PERELMAN (CH), the Empire rhetoric, rhetoric and argumentation, Paris, Vrin, 1977, p. 23.

* ⁹⁶ SAINT AUGUSTIN, Of the Christian doctrines Delivers IV, chapter 13 city by PERELMAN (CH), COp cit., p. 26.

* ⁹⁷ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., pp. 63-64.

* ⁹⁸ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 64.

* ⁹⁹ SAINT AUGUSTIN, COp cit., p. 221.

* ¹⁰⁰ ARISTOTE, Rhétorique Delivers I, 1357, quoted by PERELMAN (CH), COp cit., p. 51.

* ¹⁰¹ PERELMAN (CH), COp cit., p. 96.

* ¹⁰² GAKUNZI (D), COp cit. p. 223.

* ¹⁰³ PERELMAN (CH), COp cit., p 119.

* ¹⁰⁴ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p 225.

* ¹⁰⁵ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 63

* ¹⁰⁶ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p 231.

* ¹⁰⁷ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p 231.

* ¹⁰⁸ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 230.

* ¹⁰⁹ PERELMAN (CH), COp cit., p. 108.

* ¹¹⁰ PERELMAN (CH), COp cit., p. 225