Thomas Sankara is really a fascinating figure
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Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara
He really is a fascinating figure, though I must note that "without foreign aid" is not true - while Thomas Sankara took great efforts to minimize reliance on foreign aid, and, to an even greater degree, to trumpet that Burkina Faso was not reliant on foreign aid, Burkina Faso remained heavily dependent on foreign aid throughout his administration.
Still, the man was incorruptible, a visionary ahead of his time, and a tireless and humble leader. A fascinating figure.
(My main source being Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa - fantastic book, if a bit short)
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@PugJesus As well, "...His gov also focused on building schools, health centres, water reservoirs, & infrastructure projects...Socially, his government enforced the prohibition of female circumcision, forced marriages and polygamy."
Became president at 33, with help of a coup, dead by 37.
Killed because he "...jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France & neighbouring Ivory Coast, & accused his former comrade of plotting to assassinate opponents."
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@PugJesus As well, "...His gov also focused on building schools, health centres, water reservoirs, & infrastructure projects...Socially, his government enforced the prohibition of female circumcision, forced marriages and polygamy."
Became president at 33, with help of a coup, dead by 37.
Killed because he "...jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France & neighbouring Ivory Coast, & accused his former comrade of plotting to assassinate opponents."
Honestly, his big mistake was not turning on said former comrade with more vigor. Sankara was too kind and too sentimental to be a strongman - perhaps that's part of the reason why his administration was so fantastic, but also part of the reason why it fell.
France was constantly trying to undermine him (including by supporting said former comrade against Sankara), though his own lack of diplomatic tact didn't help matters. He certainly preferred a revolutionary's language to a diplomat's.
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Honestly, his big mistake was not turning on said former comrade with more vigor. Sankara was too kind and too sentimental to be a strongman - perhaps that's part of the reason why his administration was so fantastic, but also part of the reason why it fell.
France was constantly trying to undermine him (including by supporting said former comrade against Sankara), though his own lack of diplomatic tact didn't help matters. He certainly preferred a revolutionary's language to a diplomat's.
@PugJesus Africa would've benefitted by more leaders like him.
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@PugJesus Africa would've benefitted by more leaders like him.
The world as a whole, really.
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He did it all through the power of Ubuntu.
PS: A big hearty fuck you to France for his assassination.
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Unfortunately, like all military dictators, he felt due process an unnecessary obstacle and established kangaroo courts, an alternative “justice” system controlled by him, and a militia. He was also a tankie who erased tribal customs and arrested trade unionists to secure his own power.
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The world as a whole, really.
@PugJesus Yep. Was thinking of all the damage colonial Europe did and how damaging a legacy it was.
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Unfortunately, like all military dictators, he felt due process an unnecessary obstacle and established kangaroo courts, an alternative “justice” system controlled by him, and a militia. He was also a tankie who erased tribal customs and arrested trade unionists to secure his own power.
The public trials early in his administration largely performed glorified public shaming. Things went wrong when Sankara had to delegate oversight, and found, to his frustration, that not everyone was an idealist with a one-track mind like he was.
The militia were hilariously inept, and not much more than glorified national boy scouts - not sure if one wishes to count that as a positive or a negative. The militia were meant as a counterbalance to the professional army (which would eventually end up couping Sankara, suggesting that the idea was not unsound).
"Tribal customs" are generally a euphemism for patriarchal control by local elites.
No defense for his arrests of trade unionists.
Nor any defense for, unlisted but worth mentioning, his rejection of national elections as a means of expressing democracy, his dissolution of political organizations (including his own - Sankara's lack of political instinct repeatedly came back to bite him), or his glorified corvees towards symbolic 'anti-imperialist' projects that did not improve the living standards or economy of the nation.
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Y'all ever been to Burkina Faso? None of this was true IRL, let alone after a week of Compaoré, and it's certainty phenomenonal levels of inaccurate out of context. Burkina Faso is just plain weird.
The desertification is on par with everyone else in the neighborhood, and benefits from being south of the Niger river. "Literacy" rates are measured in French, so that 60% is riding on post-colonial olds. Literacy takes years of schooling, not enough time for measurable increases during the period he was in charge.
Plus, he was subsumed by the mess that came from trying to smash the Upper/Lower Volta territories into each other and make the colonial nether region of Upper Volta into a standalone country. That he was taken out by his successor is very common in West Africa around that time. BF want some Paradise stolen by a dictator. It was a shitshow some idiot thought they could run better.
Is the wack part how much BS this is?
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He did it all through the power of Ubuntu.
PS: A big hearty fuck you to France for his assassination.
PS: A big hearty fuck you to France for his assassination.
My general rule is that most of the world problems can be blamed squarely on Western Europe, United States, or Canada; also capitalism.
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PS: A big hearty fuck you to France for his assassination.
My general rule is that most of the world problems can be blamed squarely on Western Europe, United States, or Canada; also capitalism.
@ShaggySnacks @ShinkanTrain eh, same difference, where do you think capitalism came from 8-)
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@ShaggySnacks @ShinkanTrain eh, same difference, where do you think capitalism came from 8-)
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PS: A big hearty fuck you to France for his assassination.
My general rule is that most of the world problems can be blamed squarely on Western Europe, United States, or Canada; also capitalism.
-
Y'all ever been to Burkina Faso? None of this was true IRL, let alone after a week of Compaoré, and it's certainty phenomenonal levels of inaccurate out of context. Burkina Faso is just plain weird.
The desertification is on par with everyone else in the neighborhood, and benefits from being south of the Niger river. "Literacy" rates are measured in French, so that 60% is riding on post-colonial olds. Literacy takes years of schooling, not enough time for measurable increases during the period he was in charge.
Plus, he was subsumed by the mess that came from trying to smash the Upper/Lower Volta territories into each other and make the colonial nether region of Upper Volta into a standalone country. That he was taken out by his successor is very common in West Africa around that time. BF want some Paradise stolen by a dictator. It was a shitshow some idiot thought they could run better.
Is the wack part how much BS this is?
-
The public trials early in his administration largely performed glorified public shaming. Things went wrong when Sankara had to delegate oversight, and found, to his frustration, that not everyone was an idealist with a one-track mind like he was.
The militia were hilariously inept, and not much more than glorified national boy scouts - not sure if one wishes to count that as a positive or a negative. The militia were meant as a counterbalance to the professional army (which would eventually end up couping Sankara, suggesting that the idea was not unsound).
"Tribal customs" are generally a euphemism for patriarchal control by local elites.
No defense for his arrests of trade unionists.
Nor any defense for, unlisted but worth mentioning, his rejection of national elections as a means of expressing democracy, his dissolution of political organizations (including his own - Sankara's lack of political instinct repeatedly came back to bite him), or his glorified corvees towards symbolic 'anti-imperialist' projects that did not improve the living standards or economy of the nation.
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@PugJesus Yep. Was thinking of all the damage colonial Europe did and how damaging a legacy it was.
-
Unfortunately, like all military dictators, he felt due process an unnecessary obstacle and established kangaroo courts, an alternative “justice” system controlled by him, and a militia. He was also a tankie who erased tribal customs and arrested trade unionists to secure his own power.
-
He did it all through the power of Ubuntu.
PS: A big hearty fuck you to France for his assassination.
-
The world as a whole, really.
