Thomas Sankara et la condition féminine: un discours révolutionnaire?

THE STATUTE OF THE WOMAN WITH BURKINA FASO

COMPANY PRECOLONIALE WITH REVOLUTION SANKARISTE.

CHAPTER I.

THE FEMALE STATUTE IN THE HISTORY OF UPPER VOLTA.

Like the whole of the African women, the voltaic woman knows living conditions which are dependant on the evolution histories.

1.1 BURKINABÉ WOMAN AND COMPANY PRÉCOLONIALE

The areas of Upper Volta before colonization, practiced primarily agriculture.

The latter was a domestic production devoted to cereals in the zones of savanna and to the tubers in the wetter areas. The woman was presented only in the form of a one element of the family :she did not have an existence apart from this one. The ground generally exploited by the women and the young people concerned the inheritance of the family, in the broad sense of the term. The family had a statutory and economic value. Manufacturing unit, it reached a remarkable stage of autonomy and self-subsistence. This is why the family was to produce itself the agents of production. This need explained polygamy. It was justified by the role with double dimension which the woman was to play : agent of production itself and agent of reproduction of labor^.

The woman précoloniale, like all the members of the company, owed a strict respect with the rules. The religion lived like a need for order, peace and of safety recommended the respect of the law of the ancestors and the social hierarchy. The subjects, the juniors, the children and the women were scrupulously to subject themselves and obey, respectively, with the king, elder, the parents and the husbands. In this system arranged hierarchically, the woman did not have any political role. Aristote did not abound it in the same direction when it analyzed the operation of the family ? «This association (the family) implies a natural hierarchy : Nature trained the man, who has more intelligence to order, the woman, the child, the slave to obey ». The woman occupied a marginal place in Moogo. She did not enjoy any right. Given in marriage by her parents, it became an element of the inheritance of her husband. She intervened nevertheless in the rites in religious matter. Indeed, the first woman (Pug-keema) kept in her box the family fetishes of the husband^18(*).

In the company moaaga, the old women could deliver their opinions. The first woman of the chief (Pug-keema) played the part of discrete adviser. She was member of the jury of the legal system. It is with it that returned the presidency of the royal harem thanks to its row of adviser in the usual and religious businesses. The habit held a fundamental place with the elder girl of king (Napoko). She ensured it inter - reign died of her father^19(*).

In fact, the situation of the woman moaaga was not that of a slave. The wife represented a common pillar of all the family and all the members owed him respect. However, it was in return to conform to virtues in particular the absolute obedience, tender and fidelity^20(*). This relative autonomy was not seen by the visitor of the country moaaga. Thus the Binger explorer drew, in 1887, of what prince Boukary Koutou gave him three girls in marriage in place of gift of welcome, the idea that the woman was regarded as an object of transaction, consumer goods. Once between the hands of the men of Binger, these poor women gave up their freedom and showed an exemplary docility. The explorer interpreted their attitude thus : « Decently vêtues and nourished relatively well, they did not ask any more. They understood very well that our men would not treat them, like, that took place by here, like beasts of burden, the rough ones or animals of production »^21(*).

The woman contributed enormously to the economy of the household by the culture of the collective field, the work of her personal small holding, the tasks domestic (household, spinning of cotton) and the trade of soumbala (traditional flavor), of the shea butter, cereals and the artisanal products^22(*) (pottery, basket making).

All in all, the woman moaaga knew a condition of very marked inferiority. Its only luxury, tolerated by her husband, was limited to carry rings or bracelets of which it appears the legs and the arms. She owed a scrupulous respect with any man. « The woman greets and does not speak with anyone without prosterner and to be held the cheeks with the palms with the outwards turned hands, the elbows touching ground »^23(*).

However some women were worthy to control before the colonial period in certain traditional companies, the such princess Guimbé Ouattara who was a remarkable woman, Née about 1836 in Sore-Dioulasso, it had a great influence on the local level. Refusing to yield with the dictatorship of her husband, in spite of an early marriage at fifteen years^24(*), it undergoes corporal punishments of which it preserved the marks quite visible with the face and close to the nose. It held slaves and men-at-arms which it lent in warlike forwardings, which got substantial incomes to him^25(*). Guimbé Ouattara also illustrated like protective explorers, such as Binger, Crozat and Monteil. Grateful, the colonial administration thought of entrusting to him the direction of certain cantons of Sore-Dioulasso. However, his/her cousin Dafogo Ouattara opposed it under the pretext that « a woman, according to him, could not order in their country ». It is to say the limit given to the political power of the women in the company précoloniale.

* ¹⁸ KABORE (V-F), Condition and place of the woman in the traditional company moaga of Ouagadougou. Ruptures and permanences with the advent of Islam, Master's paper, INSHUS-U.O, Department of History and Archeology, 1989, p. 34.

* ¹⁹ KABORE (V-F), COp cit., p. 32.

* ²⁰ KABORE (V-F), COp cit., p. 31.

* ²¹ BINGER (L G), Of Niger to the Gulf of Guinea by the country of Kong and Mossi. Paris, Hatchet, 1892, p. 473.

* ²² BINGER (L G), COp cit., pp. 39-40.

* ²³ BINGER (L G), COp cit., p. 495.

* ²⁴ «  History of Burkina since the end of the XIXe century  », EUREKA N 19, December 1996, p 28

* ²⁵ «  History of Burkina since the end of the XIXe century  », EUREKA N 19, December 1996, p 28