Thomas Sankara et la condition féminine: un discours révolutionnaire?

FOREWORD

Historian of training and transfer in formation, we want, in a modest way to take part in the work of memory which each country must engage on its own culture and its history, even most recent. The reserves, the silences observed with regard to the period of the revolution sankarist, the lack of files and journalistic documents on this historical section made more difficult our research.

Our starting ambition was to analyze the speech sankarist on the peasants and the women, groups underprivileged of the former modes. But during the its realization and research task, we realized hugeness of the task that that required. It is what led us to center our problems on the feminist speech of Thomas Sankara.

Our work concerned one multi-field field, history, literature, policy and information ; what can constitute a methodological reference for the professionals of information in situation of political analysis of speech.

We are conscious of the limits of our work. These limits are inherent in time, documentation, the average materials and to intellectuals who were ours. Non-specialist of the analysis of speech, we do not claim to have controlled all contours of them.

We hope however that our humble contribution will be used to the journalists, to the academics and for all those which are interested in the political speech. Only objectivity, sincerity and the rigor will have been used to us as weapons in our step.

INTRODUCTION

To pose problems on the female condition in Africa finds its raison d'être in the current resurgence of the debates on the condition of the woman : fight against the excision, fights for the political emancipation, economic independence and the increase in the rate of instruction of the women, all in all for a positive discrimination with regard to the women, condition of an equality between the sexes. We chose to analyze from this point of view the speeches for Thomas Sankara, president of Burkina Faso of 1983 to 1987, burkinabé central character of the revolution. Few studies were devoted to its speeches. Indeed, only of the biographies^1(*) were written highlighting its political role in the history of Burkina Faso. In addition, none the analyzes relating to the revolution burkinabé approached in-depth the topic of the female condition.

Taking into account the hierarchical organization of the National Council of Revolution (CNR), supreme authority of the Democratic and Popular Revolution (RDP) with at its head only one chief, the captain Sankara, it appears legitimate to take the speeches made by this leader like ideological keystone of this revolutionary mode.

The sankarism is presented in the form of a movement of thought Marxist - Leninist, preaching a revolution proletarian, country, young and feminist. The democratic and popular Revolution is the mode founded by the National Council of the Revolution under the direction of Thomas Sankara of August 4, 1983 to October 15, 1987.

The RDP is posted like nationalist and anti-impérialiste. This political attitude is expressed clearly in the currency of the movement : « the fatherland or death, we will overcome ! ». The young captains who direct Burkina Faso give four principles : « the defense of the fatherland (territory), the defense of the interests of class, the defense of the popular capacity, the defense of proletarian internationalism^2(*) ». The goal is to give the capacity to the underprivileged social groups : farming community, proletariat, women, youth.

The RDP proposes the construction of a new social order : « The democratic character of this revolution imposes a decentralization and a devolution of the administrative capacity to us in order to bring the administration closer to the people, in order to make public thing a business which interests all one each one »^3(*), Thomas Sankara affirms. Thus a decentralized political structure is installation : the Committees of Defense of the Revolution (CDR) represent the capacity in the villages. « The weapons of the People, the capacity of the people, the richnesses of the People it will be the people which will manage them and CDR are there for that »^4(*).

The C.N.R. seeks to found a revolutionary company, which is synonymous, for its members, of a company based on the democracy, freedom and independence. In the revolutionary speeches little by little a vision manichéenne company forges burkinabé : on a side the enemies of the revolution are, middle-class men, feudal retrograde who oppress the people, other side the forces connoted positively made up of the working class, lower middle class, farming community and « Lumpenproletariat »^5(*). The RDP places as regards people resolutely and seeks to create a revolutionary identity. The revolutionist must be a partisan of the radical change in all the fields. Echo of the idealized image of the Jacobin of 1793 in France, the revolutionist sankarist wants to be a man right and just. This character falls under a representation of the company Marxist, austere and modest whose virtue even is in this austerity. He must be close to the masses oppressed and exploited and puts itself at their service since he is presented in the form of a their defender. The revolutionary ideology even invites to develop a hatred for the injustice, oppression, the exploitation and to have the will to create a new order, a free company and without class^6(*). Thomas Sankara precise : « the image of the revolutionist whom the C.N.R. intends to print in the conscience of all, it is that of the militant who forms a unit with the masses, which has faith in them and which respects them  »^7(*). Its only concern is to work, night and day, with the triumph of dialectic materialism and the Marxism.

The Marxism-Leninism is defined as an ideology which fights all the forms of injustices and exploitation : feudality, imperialism, capitalism. It is based on the materialism historical and dialectical and attacks the exploitation of the man by the man. He aims at the introduction of a new classless society and without State. The reign of Communism is the result of the proletarian fight, stage which should be carried out only with the union of all the proletarians of the whole world. The Leninist ideology Marxist was born at the XIXe century with the ideas of the German philosopher Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels. Two works melt the historical materialism : The Holy Family (1845), the German Ideology (1845-1846) and the famous Proclamation of the Communist Party (London 1848) which exposes the essential principles of the design marxienne of the history and the class struggle. Their ideas are enriched by Lénine at the beginning of the XXe century. Revolutionists like Mao Zedong in popular China, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso will take as a starting point these ideas giving rise to the Maoism, to the Castroism and the sankarism.

Thomas Sankara guided the destiny of Burkina Faso of 1983 to 1987. Key character in Africa, it  « appears before just like a revolutionist mû by a deep moral imagination in front of the innumerable injustices generated by the imperialism »^8(*). According to Ludo Martens, Sankara, particularly sensitive to the misery of the African people, is presented in the form of a visionary, a heir to all the revolutions : American, French and Soviet. It leaves the image of a political leader « who, always with sincerity, often with frankness, sometimes by taking his desires for realities, had believed that the direct democracy was possible »^9(*). Ludo Martens, in the work which it devotes to the revolution burkinabé, clarifies this political character admired by disinherited : « By its youth, its simplicity, its revolutionary ardor, Sankara had conquered the heart of the burkinabé people »^10(*). All its acts of government translate a dynamic and combative voluntarism : « Soldier, it resembled, by passion and the conviction that it put in its conversations, with the student gauchist of May 68. Even its adversaries recognized its intelligence, the promptness of its spirit, its force of conviction »^11(*). Sankara is the first president, in the history of its country, to have posted a savage will to protect and defend the interests of the women. Concrete measures were taken by him of their favor, against the excision, the prostitution, and for the vital wages.

Sankara is presented in the form of a lawyer defender of the women considered as « proletarians » of the RDP. According to him, the women set up a social group fragile, which marginalized, exploited by the administration, feudality and the men in general. They are victims of a social and economic injustice. They do not profit from the assets of science and economic progress. They suffer as well from a material misery as intellectual (more than 90% of illiterates). The analyzes of Sankara in this field i.e. in the identification of the underprivileged condition of the woman burkinabé always appear of topicality, since the UNICEF in 1994 in a report/ratio on the situation of the women and the children in Burkina Faso draws up of it an assessment still alarming.  « Used as object, means of tying alliances or like tool of cohesion of social fabric, the woman finds her finality in the marriage and procreation. Eternal foreign as well in the family of origin, where it will not remain, as in the family of the husband whom it can leave in the event of dissension, it is isolated division of the goods of production such as the ground and any succession to the cheffery (traditional capacity) »^12(*). The same institution recognizes that this situation constitutes a limit with the emancipation of the women : « Regarded as eternal minor, sometimes dominated by the father, sometimes by the husband, the woman is always relegated to the second rank. The social and economic status of the woman remains a handicap for the promotion of the women »^13(*). Can one speak about Sankara like feminist ideologist ?. If one defines feminism as « doctrines, attitude favorable to the defense of the interests of the women and their rights »^14(*) , Sankara appears well to be a key character in the feminist fights of Burkina Faso. Our research is to a certain extent justified on the plan of the contents by the many interventions of Sankara in this field, as well in its speeches as in the project of company formulated and the operational startup of measurements in favor of the women.

To support an analysis of the speeches of Sankara proceeds of the appreciation that this leader did itself of the verb with respect to the action. « All that leaves the imagination of the man is realizable by the man »^15(*). To conceptualize then to pronounce words, to make them live constitute a stage necessary of the revolutionary action. Banégas, in popular Insubordinations and revolution in Burkina Faso, clarifies well this specific feature of Sankarisme : « The speech determines the action, the idea generates reality »^16(*). Our corpus includes/understands the whole of the speeches of bearing Sankara on the female condition. Although it often improvised its speeches, of the efforts were made to gather them in only one collection. Thomas Sankara, « To dare to invent the future ». The word of SANKARA (1983-1987) presented by David Gakunzi, Pafthinder, in 1991, contains 29 speeches and interviews of Sankara. In this unit, five speeches approach the topic of the female condition :

The Political Speech of Orientation, October 2, 1983.

Freedom this conquers, October 4, 1984.

Even enemy, even combat, March 17, 1985.

The Abuse of power must foreign in CDR, April 4, 1986.

Women's Liberation : a requirement of the future, March 8, 1987.

The unit makes 87 pages of written texts. But all the speeches do not tackle the problem of the woman from beginning to end. Except for the last devoted exclusively to the women, the others do it partially. Our analysis consists in highlighting the feminist thought of Thomas Sankara in all his dimension. Exit of a revolutionary vision of the company, which are specificities ? The defense of certain values generally implies to engage a polemic. This shutter estil- represented in the speech of Sankara ? To analyze and comment on a political speech consist in going beyond the simple reproduction, of the initial messages of other terms. Our study will try to determine them « process of selection and transformation of the significances or the social symbolic systems which are carried out indeed during the activity of stating »^17(*). This will enable us, in particular, to approach the techniques of propaganda used by president Sankara. This level, the lexical inheritance of Sankara comes to support the demonstration. We will detect there the vision of the woman whom it builds, the morals which it proposes, and its setting in scene of the policy.

We will take account however of a perceptible evolution in the expression of the feminist theses of Sankara. Indeed, during the first moments of the revolution, the matter is very volunteer supported by an absolute determination to fight all that is opposed to the revolutionary dash. But since 1985, the argumentation is softened, after Sankara noted the resistances met in the application of the general and revolutionary principles.

Our work arises as an analysis in three shutters. It appeared necessary to us to establish the general conditions of production of the speeches of Sankara on the women. How to appreciate a political projection, if the real conditions of the woman in the company are not emphasized burkinabé ?. From this report in a second shutter, we sought to work on the argumentation of Sankara, holding account of what was with the sources of the thought of this leader. This analysis within the framework of a work of control, could only be effleurée, but it is justified insofar as the thought of Sankara is not single, it does not appear sudden in the history of the ideas, without any connection with other feminist thoughts. In a third shutter, we wanted to stress the characteristic propagandist of the speech sankarist and his methods polemical.

FIRST PART

* ¹ G. TARRAB, R. BANEGAS proposed an analysis of the burkinabé speech of the revolution on the one hand, on the other hand B. JAFFRÉ, L. MARTENS, S. ANDRIAMIRADO AND V. SOMME produced biographies or works relating partly to the life of Thomas Sankara.

* ² ENGLEBERT (P), the Revolution burkinabé, Brussels, ULB, 1985, p 94.

* ³ GAKUNZI (D), Thomas SANKARA,  «  To dare to invent the future  ». Word of SANKARA (1983-1987), New York and Paris Pachfinder and Harmattan, 1991, p. 58.

* ⁴ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 58.

* ⁵ «  Lumpenproletariat  », according to Marxists', the whole of désoeuvrés, all those gathers which do not have work. The Lumpenproletariat seems a mass with conscientiser and to integrate in the revolutionary process.

* ⁶ BAMOUNI (B P),  «  Ideology  : the revolutionist  », in African Crossroads N 854  ? from October 24, 1984, p. 11.

* ⁷ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 61.

* ⁸ MARTENS (L), Sankara, Compaoré and the revolution burkinabé, Antwerp, Editions E P O, 1989, p. 249.

* ⁹ MARTENS (L), COp cit., p. 5.

* ¹⁰ MARTENS (L), COp cit., p. 5.

* ¹¹ MARTENS (L), COp cit., p. 5.

* ¹² UNICEF, Analyzes situation of the women and children in Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou,  UNICEF, 1994 pp. 41-42.

* ¹³ UNICEF, COp cit., p. 44.

* ¹⁴ The Dictionary of Our time, Paris Hatchet, 1990, p. 586.

* ¹⁵ GAKUNZI (D), COp cit., p. 153.

* ¹⁶ BANEGAS (R), Insubordinations popular and revolution with Burkina Faso, Bordeaux, CEAN, 1998, p. 6.

* ¹⁷ ROBERT (A.D) and BOUILLAGUET (A), Analysis of contents, Paris, PUF, 1997, p. 8.