PART I
LIFE AND REVOLUTION
CHAPTER 1
Military Coup, Popular Revolution or Militarised Revolution?
Contextualising the Revolutionary
Ideological Courses of Thomas Sankara and the National Council of the Revolution
De-Valera N.Y.M. Botchway and Moussa Traore
INTRODUCTION
The view that the events in Upper Volta on 4 August 1983 marked a ârevolutionâ still provokes debate in academic and public spheres. The BurkinabĂš Revolution has been perceived as a âpseudo-revolutionâ in some circles because it lacked the features of an âorthodoxâ revolution which, according to Marx, is produced and conditioned by various stages of class struggles and social transformations with the working class at its centre. The BurkinabĂš Revolution was a military putsch (or coup) led by a group of charismatic Marxist army officers. This military putsch, however, had considerable popular support and came to power against a pro-imperialist regime.
This chapter revisits the political structure of Sankaraâs leadership and the historical episode that has come to be known as the BurkinabĂš Revolution. We look at Sankaraâs politics and philosophies (what might be called a philosophy of Sankaraism) alongside a consideration of socialism(s), including Nkrumahism and Marxism(s). We scrutinise the features of Sankaraâs ideas, like anti-imperialism, nationalism and populism, which informed the direction and policies of the revolution at the cultural and political levels through his government, called Conseil National de la Revolution (National Council of the Revolution, hereafter CNR) from 1983 to 1987. Through our analysis, we dismiss easy dualistic interpretations of the revolution as either a repetition of Marxist revolutions or as an imported phenomenon. Rather, we trace the origins of the revolution in order to re-evaluate whether 4 August indeed marked the beginning of a âpopular revolutionâ. We examine the source and orientation of the Sankara-backed revolution, given that it was informed by a militaristic engagement with BurkinabĂš politics. We give considerable attention to the role of the military in Sankaraâs blended populist-Marxist political policies in order to expose some of the complexities, paradoxes and limitations of Sankaraâs experiment in radical socialist-inspired social change.
Features of Sankaraâs ideas remain relevant for contemporary politics as they form part of a strategic base of two groups of contemporary actors: both the Sankarists who organise through registered political parties in Burkina Faso as well as the Sankarians who organise through collective and individual actions, demanding for a restructuring of Burkina Faso society and politics that draw on aspects of Sankaraism. Sankara spoke about the need for significant social change and defended it. He brought out the inner logic of that change; in rationalising it, he contributed intellectual views and acted upon them. Such philosophical endeavours and physical efforts were informed and animated by his own set of beliefs, generated from his experiences of BurkinabĂš society and culture as well as his knowledge of the political ideologies and economic philosophies of African and non-African thinkers.
Sankaraâs political philosophy as well as his praxis was informed by a plethora of revolutionary and radical ideas, including anti-imperialism, populism, Pan-Africanism, military nationalism, African Socialism and forms of Marxism. He was influenced by the concepts of pragmatism and pacifism. Sankaraâs philosophies and actions can serve as a social guide and praxis for social change, one that can perhaps be called âSankaraismâ. The terms Sankarism (Sankaraism), Sankarists and Sankarians emerged after Sankaraâs assassination. Some have congregated around the political philosophy and praxis of this leader of a government that deemed itself as the spearhead of a process of social change; this political concept and social guide has been called âSankaraismâ. Sankarism came into popular awareness in 2000 when the Union pour la Renaissance/Movement Sankariste (Union for Renaissance or Rebirth/Sankarist Movement), led by lawyer BenewendĂ© Sankara â who was no relative of Thomas Sankara â emerged. This party, which claimed to be Sankarist and averred that âSankarismâ was its ideology, remained marred with divisions and misunderstandings over trivial issues.
People who believe in the populist, easy-to-relate-to revolutionary political leadership of Sankara, and who work to animate a process of sustainable social change in Burkina Faso, might call themselves Sankarists, in reference to forms of political discipleship to Sankara. The aim of Sankarists is to take political power and continue Sankaraâs work. Conversely, those who idolise him as an icon of social change, see him as a role model in life and admire his charisma and approve his philosopher-king leadership style are Sankarians or Sankariens (Le Jah 2015). Regarding the orientation of the Sankarien or Sankarian, the BurkinabĂš artiste SamsâK Le Jah explains that:
The difference lies in the fact that one can embrace Sankaraâs ideals without getting involved in politics. For instance, women who produce numerous types of indispensable goods, the local tailor who magnifies the value of the âmade in Burkina clothâ are people who can be called Sankarians; they continue Thomas Sankaraâs mission, even though they do not belong to any political party.
(Le Jah 2015; translation by author)
SamsâK Le Jah argues that one might adhere to Sankaraâs ideals without formally getting involved in politics. People who continue Sankaraâs work outside of the umbrella of formalised political parties (such as women who work to transform produces and products and people who make and promote dresses made in Burkina Faso) are Sankarians. Nevertheless, both Sankarists and Sankarians claim inspiration from Sankara, who coached and guided a process of fundamental change through a combination of ideas and deeds. Unlike Kwame Nkrumah (who fashioned concepts like Nkrumahism and Consciencism), Muammar al Qaddafi (who created the Third Universal Theory, which his Green Book articulated), Vladimir Lenin (who was the fountain head of Leninism) or Julius Nyerere (who expounded Ujamaa as a social guide), Sankara did not consciously create an ideology or fashion a concept (or social guide) when he was alive. Our task in this chapter is to excavate the complex political philosophy of Sankara within a context of a militarised revolution.
MILITARY COUP, POPULAR REVOLUTION OR MILITARISED REVOLUTION?
We contend that the founding myth of the regime of the CNR, which remained a largely military-led government, has been that it came to power through a popular revolution. This story raises questions about the nature of the revolution: ontologically, as the CNR was produced through a coup dâetat, how much does this shape the form of the revolution? The ârevolutionaryâ nature of 4 August continues to be debated (see Chapters 3 and 5, this volume). Sankara himself later attempted to rationalise the day as marking the beginning of a revolution that was both popular and democratic in Discours dâOrientation Politique, or the Speech of Political Orientation â a kind of manifesto of the revolutionary vision of the CNR on 2 October 1983.
Averring that both soldiers and civilians, âcomrade militants of the revolutionâ, acted to bring into being a government that valued the role and power of the average citizen, Sankara emphasised the need for âthe peopleâ to achieve bigger victories for the revolution. The revolution, he stated, had to progress with confidence to more resounding victories because it had âlogically evolved from the Voltaic peopleâs struggle against long-standing enemies ⊠imperialism and its national allies; ⊠[and] backward ⊠forces. [It] is the culmination of the popular insurrection. [Therefore], simplistic ⊠analyses limited to repeating of pre-established schemas cannot change the realityâ (âThe Political Orientation Speechâ in Sankara 1988: 30â54). He argued that the revolution âcame as a solution to social contradictions that could not longer be stifled by compromiseâ (ibid.: 32) in a society with âfeudal traditionsâ that fostered or encouraged certain forms of oppression.
It is clear from Sankaraâs first broadcasted radio address that it was military action that brought the CNR into national politics. He asserted that the army and paramilitary forces had intervened to restore independence and liberty to the country (Sankara, âStruggle for a Bright Futureâ, 4 August 1983: 21â23). The fundamental change in the government was effected through a coup dâetat. At the same time, radicalised soldiers and civilians deemed the episode of the coup as a heralding event, a beginning that only represented the genesis of a process and longer course. In other words, the coup signalled the emergence of a wider continuum of social changes: a revolution. For example, ValĂšre SomĂ©, a close friend of Sankara, saw the day as the ultimate result of the popular insurrection (Le Faso.net 2015). To him, the national political events in May 1983 (including the arrest of two army officers, Sankara and Lingani) drove students and youths to stage popular anti-government protests in Ouagadougou in solidarity with the detained soldiers (prior to 4 August). When Sankara and others were arrested again shortly after their release (because the government continued to deem them a threat), some of their supporters, like SomĂ©, wanted une guerre populaire gĂ©nĂ©ralisĂ©e, a general popular war. Consequently, some soldiers decided to act to curtail the emergence of such general âuncivilâ1 popular war by overthrowing the government, with support from civilians, and ushering in a revolution, a process of change, of becoming, and making Sankara the leader of the revolutionâs CNR (ibid.).
This process of becoming was what the Sankara-led CNR came to represent in what was called the ârevolutionâ. As a form of social change, the revolution was guided and sustained by certain ideas and policies. Until Sankara was physically eliminated, the social change process had the figure, ideas and deeds of Sankara, guiding, underlying, polarising and operationalising it. Although the CNR was disbanded and the revolution process curtailed in 1987, the revolutionary interval in Burkina Faso embodied a period of high idealism and mass political activism, which, according to Paul Nugent, has seldom been seen in Africa, and has largely been airbrushed out of the official histories (Nugent 2004). Writing about the significance of the revolutionary interval, RenĂ© Otayek points out that the CNR and its key instigator, Sankara, initiated a genuine historical fracture from centuries of hierarchical and exclusionary politics and social formations in Burkina Faso. The CNR was different from previous governments. In the view of Otayek, the fracture changed what he referred to as âa multi-polar political landscapeâ (a landscape which had nurtured a clientelist and neo-patrimonial state system, producing a âstate of strainâ from 1960 to 1966 and a âdebonair stateâ from 1966 to 1980) and âinitiated the establishment of a state quite novel in the history of Burkina, a âstrong stateâ, a totalising stateâ (Otayek 1991[1989]: 15). This âstrong stateâ was structured according to the politics and philosophies of Sankara and the revolution: a political philosophy that was unwavering in its assertion of a political orientation toward the masses of BurkinabĂš society, even though it had come to power through military action.
Sankara was a self-proclaimed Marxist and, even though he attested a profound admiration for revolutions that overturned misfortunes of dominated and exploited peoples, especially leftist revolutions (principally the Cuban one, which drew ideological rationalisation and inspiration from Marxism), he did not impose doctrinaire Marxism as the ideology of the revolution. While Sankara maintained that he was Marxist, he did not classify his political views and political actions as communist (see âWho Are the Enemies of the People?â, 26 March 1983, in Sankara 1988). He declared that, âthrough discussion ⊠friendship with a few men ⊠my social experience ⊠reading, but above all to discussions with Marxists on the reality of our country, I arrived at Marxismâ (Sankara, interview with Claudio Hackin, August 1987, in Sankara, 1988: 230).
NEGOTIATING MARXISM AND MILITARISM FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
A sizeable body of scholarly work considers the relationship between the military, African states and national politics during the numerous coups throughout the 1960s. Other works have also looked at the military in politics from the 1970s to the 1990s, the timeline within which Sankaraâs politics fall.2 Peter Karsten condenses this body of scholarship as âidentif[ying] economic distress, rates of capital investment, election frequency, literacy, years of schooling, and other such measures of economic, social or political development variables [as] predictive of the violent intervention of the military into domestic politicsâ (Karsten 1998: 223).
These studies present varying interpretations of the military in politics. While some hail the military as a political tool within nation building, others deem the militaryâs role in politics to be a wrecker of political systems in Africa. The personalist (Baptope 1981: 4), corporatist (Welch 1987: 10), manifest destiny (Finer 1988: 21), Marxist and integrative theoretical models are some of the theoretical frameworks that make sense of military interventions across the continent. Sankara belonged to the category of coup-making and government changing African soldier leaders of the post-colonial period that Nugent refers to with the tongue-in-cheek expression, âPraetorian Marxistsâ (Nugent 2004). Others in this category included Captain Marien Ngouabi in Congo-Brazzaville (Rad...