“The Color of African Unity”: The Pan-Africanist Rhetoric and Praxis of Thomas Sankara in the Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983–87
Public Deposited- Creator
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Muiruri, Kimathi
- Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Other Affiliation: Columbia University
- Abstract
- In 1983, Captain Thomas Sankara was hoisted to the position of chairman of Upper Volta’s Conseil National de la Révolution on the back of a military coup, and at once became the president of the small West African state. He assumed office by pronouncing bold promises that his regime would be different than those of the nation’s past, including a commitment to a transformational development scheme that would make the country economically self-sufficient. Sankara, as a self-described African revolutionary, contended with not only the behemoth selfimposed task of national development, but also with another challenge: the expectation that he live up to the legacies of Africa’s past post-colonial revolutionaries—many of whom were out of power by the time of his ascension. During his short reign, from 1983 to 1987, he would not only re-name the nation to Burkina Faso and launch massive programs to ameliorate the underdevelopment that plagued rural areas, but also made concerted efforts to build upon the ideals of Pan-Africanism on a continent where political agency was uneven and uncertain. This article analyzes how, from the mantle of a poor, aid-dependent country, Sankara approached the project of discursively and materially advancing Pan-Africanism. This article concludes that Sankara’s rhetoric, endogenous development, and international policy promoted a specific brand of Pan-Africanism that privileged solidarity with working-class Africans at the expense of intergovernmental harmony. Simultaneously, the material reality of Burkina Faso’s capacity limited his substantive efforts to those that affected continental Pan-African influence, rather than international connections with the diaspora.
- Date of publication
- 2022
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Article
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Journal title
- Global Africana Review
- Journal volume
- 6
- Journal issue
- 1
- Page start
- 3
- Page end
- 14
- Language
- English
Relations
- Parents:
- In Collection:
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