Thomas Sankara et la condition féminine: un discours révolutionnaire?

1.2.2 Ideological arguments.

The class struggle is inseparable from the question of the woman. The thought sankarist has as a base dialectic materialism. The exploitation of the woman is integrated in an operating system generalized which depends on the economic structure of the company. The passage of the shape of company with another, justifies the institutionalization of the inequality of statute between the man and the woman. Two periods characterize this evolution : the time going from paleolithic at the age of bronze knew a positive complementarity in the relations between the sexes.

The historical time with the technological developments sees the appearance of the private property which involves the control of the woman. Sankara submits an explicit relationship between the female condition and the class struggle : « In fact, through the ages and everywhere where the patriarchate triumphed, there was a narrow parallelism between the exploitation of the classes and the domination of the women (...) »^125(*). The combat for the emancipation of the woman is inseparable from the class struggle. « One could not throw enough sharp light on the misery of the women, to show with enough force which it is interdependent of that of the proletarians »^126(*). For Engels, there is a close link between the oppression of the women and that of the dominated classes. It has like base the private property, born from the division of the labor in the social production. To release the dominated women and classes is a fight which passes by the abolition of the economic structures founded on the private property^127(*). Sankara thus invites the women to cooperate with the marginalized ones of the capitalist system: workmen, peasants. The imperialism is blamed in the misery of the women : the multinationals, immoral, encourage the culture of death^128(*). The President of CNR invites the Union of the Women of Burkina (UFB) to carry out an anti-impérialiste fight. It must « to take part fully in the class struggle at the sides of the popular masses »^129(*) Only a frank determination can allow « the liquidation of the races of the exploiteurs, the economic domination, the imperialism »^130(*). This same fight can put an end to the feudal design founded on « the relation of appropriation which wants that each woman is the property of a man. »^131(*)

1.2.3 Political arguments

Thomas Sankara clearly designates the enemies of the women and the revolution on the political level: they are the old colonial powers and their « local servants. » It notes: « euphoria of independence to forget the woman in the bed of the châtrés hopes. Ségréguée in the deliberations, absent from the decisions, vulnerable thus victim of choice, it continued to undergo the family and the company. The capital and the bureaucracy were part to maintain the woman subjugated. »^132(*) Ancien Régime is responsible for the alarming situation of the woman. For the colonial period, the woman underwent the forced labor, it was subjected to the obligation of the cultures of revenue. The neo-colonial modes, according to Sankara, developed a primary education feminism which benefitted only one minority from women. Their eyes, the woman is presented in the form of an object of decoration. « The women on our premises, with Ancien Régime, were organized in folk groups. They bent uniforms, sang, danced, but really did not know where to go. »^133(*) That corresponds to the thought of Kant who defines the woman like leaning or inclination, incompetent of a direction of the duty: « the philosophy of the woman is not to reason but feel. (...) To have and forced are foreign for him (...) It is unable to obey principles. »^134(*)

The neo-colonial authorities created a ministry for the female condition. This ministry-alibi, according to Sankara did not have any effect on the evolution of the situation of the women. This policy contributed to build a false emancipation of the woman: « woman-jewel, woman-alibi with the government, woman-siren with the elections. »

The revolution is thus given for mission of educating the women because the defects which are in the women come from education. This framing facilitates the mobilization of the women by the base.

The situation of all oppressed, including the woman, constitutes a major concern of the revolutionary authorities. The RDP is committed founding a new social order. It fights with last energy the obscurantism, the neocolonialism and the imperialism. It works inlassablement, with the transformation of mentalities and the behaviors. The objective is to make the women responsible, able to make decisions which can give rise to a company free and prosperous in which the women and the men would be equal. All in all, « to allow the voltaic woman to be entirely carried out fully and »^135(*) That passes by the awakening of the conscience of the women which involves a true release. « (...) only the finally free woman will be able to say what she wants », John Stuart Mill affirms. The women are the natural partners of a revolution, which will work to carry those in the middle of family rise and with the center of national solidarity. The RDP defines and affirms more the role and the place of the woman in the company. Within the UFB, the women are responsabilisées always more and more and a positive image in their favor is essential gradually. The revolution intends to put on foot an action plan which will answer waitings of the women in all the fields. This program aims at implying the women in the revolutionary combat : it gives the same chance to the boy and to the girl on the school level. All Burkinabé should not be entitled to the same formation and the same functions ? The revolutionists seek to make coincide the interests of the nation with the freedom of the woman, reflection of a company right, like had preached it the women progressists of the French revolution.^136(*)

To increase the rate of elimination of illiteracy in favor of the women remains the permanent concern for Sankara. To release truly the woman, of the cribs, the popular nurseries and the canteens will be built. The UFB (Union of the Women of Burkina) is a school where solidarity, the unit and the organization are required. It must assume a political role intended to found a social democracy.

All in all, Sankara can impress its audience thanks to an argumentative step intelligently elaborate.

* ¹²⁵ Ibid, p. 225

* ¹²⁶ Ibid, p. 226

* ¹²⁷ POIRIER (J), COp cit., p. 286

* ¹²⁸ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 103

* ¹²⁹ Ibid, p. 241

* ¹³⁰ Ibid, p. 241

* ¹³¹ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 232

* ¹³² GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 232.

* ¹³³ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 115.

* ¹³⁴ HERNMSEN (J), COp cit., p. 305.

* ¹³⁵ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 64-65.

* ¹³⁶ KRIEF (H), «  The Condition of the woman in the female romantic literature during the French revolution  », in the women and the French revolution. T 2. Toulouse, university Presses of Mirail, 1990 (acts of the international conference, April 12, - 13-14 1989. University of Toulouse Mirail), p. 270.