butchflirt:Happy birthday, Thomas Sankara! (December 21, 1949)President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to
butchflirt:Happy birthday, Thomas Sankara! (December 21, 1949)President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987, Thomas Sankara came to power in a popular revolution which rid the country of its colonial name and established a socialist republic. A Pan-Africanist, Sankara opposed colonialism and the continuing efforts of Europe to exert dominance in Africa. Sankara engaged in a number of ambitious and wide-ranging policies, including vaccinating millions of children, nationalizing key resources, and promoting and enshrining the rights of women. Beloved by the people, Sankara made an enemy of imperialist interests and the traditional ruling class, and was assassinated in a coup d’etat by rightist forces.“Our revolution is not a public-speaking tournament. Our revolution is not a battle of fine phrases. Our revolution is not simply for spouting slogans that are no more than signals used by manipulators trying to use them as catchwords, as codewords, as a foil for their own display. Our revolution is, and should continue to be, the collective effort of revolutionaries to transform reality, to improve the concrete situation of the masses of our country.” -- source link