Allah Snackbar

Thomas Sankara became President of Upper Volta in Africa 1983, after a coup d’état was organized by his fellow comrade Blaise Compaoré. He immediately renamed the country to Burkina Faso, the name it still holds today, which means ‘Land of Upright Men’.

Sankara was a successful soldier and musician, but what made him a revolutionary was his reading of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. These readings greatly influenced him, and for the remainder of his life it would shape and guide him.

Sankara strived not only for himself, but also for his fellow people, to become upright men. His desire was to build a nation that was completely self-reliant, a nation to which it’s former African dignity could be restored. It’s dignity had been stolen by the French colonialists, and though they had now lost their rule, they still held strong power through diplomacy and aid.

In the 4 brief years of his Presidency, Sankara make remarkable changes to his country. His changes involving women were particularly visionary. Here is the outline of this man from wiki (with a few additions of my own):

He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks.
He initiated a nation-wide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987.
He planted over 10 million trees to prevent desertification
He built roads and a railway to tie the nation together, without foreign aid
He appointed females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education.
He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy in support of Women’s rights
He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.
He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.
He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants. Wheat production rose in three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient.
He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.”
He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against continued neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance.
He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting
In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).
He forced civil servants to pay one month’s salary to public projects.
He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes.
As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer.
A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.
He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen. (The reason being to rely upon local industry and identity rather than foreign industry and identity)
When asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”
An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself

Of course, such radical changes have their consequences. The people did not have enough time to adapt to these changes and unrest grew over time. Sankara responded by becoming more authoritarian fearing a threat to the Revolution. He outlawed opposition parties, and encouraged the people to single out dissenters. Notably though this singling out was not violent. The punishment would often be shame, or to be outcast. Sankara was eventually betrayed by his loyal comrade Blaise Compaoré, who was supported by foreign interests. Compaoré, who ironically had put Sankara into power, assassinated him 4 years later in 1987. His body was dismembered and hastily buried in an unmarked grave. Compaoré, who would later call it an ‘accident’, has been in charge of Burkina Faso ever since.

“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”
- Thomas Sankara, a week prior to his death