Thomas Sankara et la condition féminine: un discours révolutionnaire?

CHAPTER II :

THE FEMINIST SPEECH.

When Sankara promises with those which are opposed to the female emancipation « to be crushed », its speech even takes forms of combat. As Monica Charlot determines it whether well, in political Persuasion, the confrontation of the political theses is intended to devalue the adversary and to consolidate the image or the defended thesis: « To attack and put the adversary in contradiction with itself and his; to put the propaganda of the adversary in contradiction with the facts, to ridicule the adversary; to make prevail a climate of superiority. »^137(*) Since it is a question of defending the cause of the women by attracting the sympathy of the burkinabé people to him, Sankara will build a specific image of the woman inside her speeches, a precise representation on the basis of a committed vocabulary.

2.1. THE IMAGE OF THE WOMAN IN THE SPEECH SANKARIST.

The woman is omnipresent in the speech of March 8, 1987 heading « Women's Liberation, a requirement of the future ».^138(*) Sankara punctuates its text of the word woman: it employs 309 times the word woman (S). That accounts for 10,76% of the total of the substantives used (2870). The word man (S) returns only 111 times (3,86%). To avoid an extreme redundancy in the use of the word woman (S) and at the same time to be able to refer to it, Sankara makes use of words of the same family, evoking a person of this sex. Thus words like « female », « feminism », « feminist », « marry », of « partner » return 73 times in this speech of March 8, 1987. With that the pronouns are added which replace the name « woman (S) » such as « it (S) » (51 times) and « you » (45 times).

The width of this employment and their regularity correctly translates the importance of the topic in the speech. But this word woman is not employed separately: it is built in the sentences using qualifications. It enters lexical networks of opposition and association. It is useful in our research, to base the analysis of the image of the woman created by Sankara on semantic locations.

Indeed, the word woman is accompanied by many qualifiers, it enters a paradoxical couple man-woman, it was supported by a whole of metaphors of various origins. Thus, it is possible, starting from this investigation on the level of the uses of the word in the speech sankarist, to raise of the images different from the woman from which Sankara draws argument: the image of the woman victim and that of the guilty woman. However these two constructions would be only partial, incompetents to give an account of what Sankara calls « complexity » of the woman, if the powerful orator undertook to make a positive portrait of the woman to the image of a Cultural revolution only it defends.

2.1.1. The woman victim

The woman undergoes an unjust system that seeks to show Sankara. To allow his audience to visualize this state of tender, the leader uses of many metaphors. Most characteristic remainder that of the animal intended for hardest work. In its speech of March 8, 1987, it employs this metaphor for purposes to better convince: « The weight of the secular traditions of our company dedicates the woman with the row of beast of burden »^139(*) The woman is comparable with one « beast of burden » i.e. with an animal employed to carry burdens. This figure of the resemblance which the metaphor constitutes establishes a relation of similarity and confers an unlimited range of the message. ^140(*)

By a system of networks of associations and qualifications, Thomas Sankara manages to show the heaviness of the yoke which weighs on the woman. In the speech of March 8, 1987, the women are associated or even comparable with « the workman », with « proletarians », with one « beast of burden », with « vulgar goods », with one « object of negociation »^141(*) «  with an instrument diabolicum. »

This manner of identifying the woman leads to sound « ostracism »^142(*) in the company. It becomes consequently a being second « subjugated », « discriminated », « frustrated » and « congédié » assuming « functions subordinates ». Sankara specifies that this being « taillable with the fields and corvéable with the household »^143(*) is also victim of malnutrition, mortality and illiteracy. Hyperbolic accumulations contribute to represent this situation. Thus, Sankara, affirms it in connection with the woman: « Pillar of the good family being, it is obstretician, washerwoman, sweeper, cooker, housewife, matron, cultivatrice, healer, market-gardening, pilous, saleswoman, worker. »^144(*) The succession of these terms creates an effect of accumulation, with the measurement of the extent of the tasks reserved for the woman in the social structure; and this, in contradiction with the contempt in which it is relegated. The same process is found around the metaphor of the wheel, used with talent by Sankara. « Coil fortune, coils friction, coils driving, spare wheel, large wheel. »^145(*) This anaphoric repetition contributes to forge the image of a woman essential at the company, but victim of the prejudices. The woman is dominated, exploited, oppressed and returned slave of the whole company. To express it, terms « domination », « exploitation », « oppression » and « slave » and their derivatives are systematically employed (69 times in the only speech of March 8, 1987 )

In this construction of the image of the woman victim, Sankara privileges the antithetic report/ratio of the couple man-woman. « Thus, through the ages and the types of companies, the woman knew a sad fate: that of the inequality always confirmed compared to the man. »^146(*)

In the Sankariste vision, the historical time, since the appearance of the private property at our days, is marked by the control of the woman. Concerning the feudal company, the revolutionary powerful orator, by a hyperbole translates the exploitation of the woman: « in the company basing itself on the alleged physical or psychological weakness of the women, the men confirmed them in an absolute dependence of the man. »^147(*) The adjective « absolute » indicates of a total absence of female freedom. For Sankara, the women constitute in Burkina Faso and elsewhere a silent majority, excluded from the capacity and knowledge. In front of the General meeting of the Nations Linked in 1984, it proclaims: « I speak to the society women whole, who suffer from an operating system imposed by the males. »^148(*) It should be noted that the paradoxical couple man-woman is transformed into male-woman, which implies in the speech a will to use of pejorative term to qualify the natural adversary of the woman. Sankara misses objectivity and insufflates with its representation a polemical character. It continues by indicating that « the condition of the woman is consequently the node of all the human question, here, over there, elsewhere. It is thus universal. »^149(*) The use of the present omnitemporel confers on the universality of the female condition a concept of eternity. It is to say the difficult task to which Sankara was harnessed.

* ¹³⁷ CHARLOT (M), political Persuasion, Paris, A. Colin, 1990, p 24

* ¹³⁸ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., pp. 221-245

* ¹³⁹ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 63.

* ¹⁴⁰ BACRY (P), stylistic devices, Paris, Belin, 1992, p. 38.

* ¹⁴¹ Change of the character of «  dowry  » usual, evaluated in currency and tends to becoming a simple price. Certain marriages take the form of a sale (Dictionary of African civilizations, Paris, Fernand Hazan editor, 1968, p. 151.)

* ¹⁴² GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 237.

* ¹⁴³ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 231.

* ¹⁴⁴GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 231.

* ¹⁴⁵ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 231.

* ¹⁴⁶ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 225.

* ¹⁴⁷ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 225.

* ¹⁴⁸ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p 103.

* ¹⁴⁹ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 223.