A Bit of Political History

Burkina Faso has a pretty interesting history. Unlike its neighbors, Burkina has not experienced an internal conflict in its modern history unless you count five coup d’états since independence. Burkina Faso is most known for its revolution in 1983 where young Marxist leadership, Thomas Sankara, took power. The previous regime had made Sankara prime minister fearing the backlash of the young militants. Because of disagreements between the young and old leadership’s clashing ideals, Sankara and his friend were jailed in mid-1983, but Sankara’s best friend and political ally, Blaise Campaoré, fled returning months later to free his friends from prison and on August 4, 1983, Thomas Sankara became president at the age of 34 in a coup d’état. Campaore was his prime minister. From 1983-1987, Sankara gave a huge amount of power to peasants, farmers and the working class kicking out Europeans and foreign imperial investment, like any good Marxist would do. He is still thought of as a kind of savior for Burkina Faso, fighting corruption and driving himself around in a beat up Peugeot. He increased literacy to 60%, provided vaccinations and improved women’s rights. Sankara changed the country’s name from Upper-Volta, its colonial name, to Burkina Faso, which is a combination of Moore and Dioula meaning land of the honest or uncorrupt.

Of course many people weren’t happy, especially the bourgeoisie and the United States, and in 1987 Blaise Campaoré, his best friend, took power killing Sankara. And guess who is still president today… Blaise Campaoré. There is not much political expression or opposition to Campaoré out of fear but he is not a horrible president by African standards and Burkina Faso has been stable despite its painfully slow growth. 2010 is an election year but its hard to imagine Blaise not winning. I don’t think he will ever step down and he is still young, 57. It scares me to think about the future of Burkina Faso and how they will or will not get rid of him. Either this means a violent revolution or twenty more years of corruption and little to no growth neither of, which a country as poor as Burkina can afford.