Offering a counterweight to negative images of an aid- and handout-addicted Africa, Mukoma Wa Ngugi discusses and commends the work of the local organisations around the continent. Often operating with minimal funding or media support, these organisations deserve to be the focal point in new approaches of genuinely helping those who help themselves, writes Wa Ngugi.

First, not quite, but we have to start somewhere,
There were the Arawaks, the Caribs and the Amerindians
Then their land became known as Hispaniola,
As Saint Domingue, as the economic jewel
Of French overseas possessions
Thanks to Africans kidnapped, chained, shipped
Processed, codified, stamped as property
While always knowing they belonged
To no one but humanity
And through fidelity to humanity
Turned Saint Domingue into Haiti
Fraternity, equality and liberty
Their only motto
Defeating the obscurantist
Philosophers of the Enlightenment
For thirteen years, 1791–1804
Without support
From humanitarian abolitionists
Defeating the most powerful armies of the day
Spain, England, France
Fidelity to humanity
Their only prescription

Plan B was out of the question
Humanity had to prevail
But its sworn enemy had a plan B:
With lethal vengeance
Napoleon reinstated slavery
Take no prisoners, his motto
Severe, if necessary, capital punishment
Against the trespassers of
Nascent capital yet to be named
Capitalism the crusher of humanity

With exemplary brutality
Long before the birth of Gaza-upon-Mediterranean
Haiti was turned into the poorest nation
– Gaza-upon-Atlantic –
For having dared simply
To challenge and obsoletify
The Black Code of Louis XIV
Rules of engagement against/for
Slaves balancing terror, torture, fear, death
Ensuring the endurance of slavery
Beyond the monarchy
Thanks to a self-proclaimed emperor
Napoleon Bonaparte the impostor

Plan B prospered so well beyond
Napoleon’s dreams of restoring slavery
We may all ask, maybe naively
Had he known his treatment of Africans
Would later inspire Hitler’s
Holocausting of the Jews
Would he have seen Africans
As humanity and not as property?

Not every French was/is a fan of slavery’s restorer:
Taubira Law of 2001 declares
Slavery a Crime Against Humanity
Could it be that France might
Be restoring Fidelity to Humanity?

But could it be too late when
Humanity or those who pretentiously
Speak for it refuse to know
The distinction between
Might and right
Right and wrong
Charity and solidarity

Could it be too late when
Survivors and/or their descendants
Of an unthinkable crime think
The best way to stand up for humanity
Is to slaughter/bomb humanity as deliberately
And brutally smart as possible?

Could it be too late when
Slaughtering humanity
Can be done with impunity
Thanks to a genocided past
As if anything can be traded, erased,
Commodified, genetically modified
To fit a globalised paradise
Where no one will know
The difference between
Gaza-upon-Atlantic
Haiti-upon-Mediterranean
Except for those who vowed
Fidelity to humanity

Can’t we see the obvious consequences of
Relentlessly violating humanity
Now Palestinians, then Africans centuries ago
Today displaced, refugees, best fodder
For humanitarian missions
The modernized version of abolitionists
On a mission which has not changed:
Violate humanity,
Eradicate it if too vocal
But Sabra, Shatila can still be heard

Palestinians are full members of humanity
Homelessed in their homeland, denied existence
By all means, constantly searching
For the ultimate way
Of getting rid of them
Their annihilation will not be called
A Crime Against Humanity because,
By definition, it has been repeated forever,
It only happens at Auschwitz, and other
Concentration camps in a World War

Palestinians are like Native Americans
Whose land was taken, whose genocide
Refuses to be called a genocide
Palestinians, Africans interchangeable destinies
Torn from their land, thrown into ships,
Refugeed in strips of land
Enslaved, imprisoned, less than property
Therefore not fit to come under
A Crime Against Humanity

Palestinians, Africans, in the same boat
When the unending story of negating humanity started
Like Africans they are being processed and branded
Fit to be fodder for humanitarian crisis because what is being done
Must not be called
A Crime Against Humanity

For fear of trespassing which taboo?

No one dares to call the slaughter of civilians
In Gaza by its proper name
A Crime Against Humanity

For fear of trespassing which taboo?

From the times of the Arawaks
Violating, torturing, liquidating
Humanity with impunity
Has led to greater and greater
Crimes against humanity
Franchised differently
Preparing the biggest holocaust
Humanity has ever known and,
When that unfolds, as before,
We shall hear the usual
Shameful lame lie
‘We did not know’.

* Jacques Depelchin is a CAPES fellow at the Universidade Federal da Bahia.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Considering the ultimate limitations of instructing Kenya’s children in ‘civilised’ acts like eating a banana with a knife and fork at the expense of an education true to the nation’s history, Wangui Kimari wonders whether the current educational system simply upholds students’ self-effacement.

With Ghana witnessing elections broadly heralded as free and fair, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem considers the country’s enduring two-party political system. Arguing that John Kufuor’s outgoing administration simply owed its electoral success to a fortuitous set of circumstances, the author delves into the country’s post-colonial history and considers the persistence of the Danquah-Busia/Nkrumahist divide in contemporary politics.

The African Union (AU) is hoping to set up a communal fund to pay for education, science and technology programmes on the continent. The fund would be held by the African Development Bank (ADB), and be open to contributions from international donors as well as from African governments.

Though applauding the success of this year’s record-breaking Stand Up action on global poverty, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wonders whether revitalising the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will simply amount to lining the pockets of a few individual African recipients in positions of power. Taking up the example of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda, the author situates such latent misappropriation of resources within a broader problem of one-time liberation leaders lingering in power. Once a genuine force for changing the system, Yoweri Museveni’s NRM, Abdul-Raheem argues, have now become the system.

In this week’s postcard Tajudeen takes issue with what he calls ‘noisy western diplomats’ and their tendency to speak out injudiciously against the misdeeds of African governments. In the same vein, he deplores African envoys for their silence in the face of misrule and injustice on the part of host governments. He calls on African diplomats to stand true to the shared values on human rights, protection of the weak and vulnerable respect for the dignity of Africans, and not to abdicate this role to western diplomats

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor reflects on the just concluded US presidential election and Barrack Obama’s victory. He ponders the historical significance of an African-American being elected to the White House. Through the lens of his forebears’ experiences as African-Americans and their views of the changing political landscape in the country, he underlines the fact that Obama’s election cannot escape the enduring effects of racial discrimination and segregation on the psyche of the American people.

It is wrong to execute an innocent man. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will now consider whether it is constitutional. Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murder, is asking the courts to hear evidence that key government witnesses have repudiated their testimony against him. But so far the courts have decided that, while he may be innocent, procedural rules prevent them from taking a second look.

Reflecting on the media attention given to Barack Obama’s illegally resident auntie Zeituni in the run-up to his election victory, Steve Sharra explores what Obama’s presidential campaign has revealed about American politics. Identifying a noticeable shift in the way the now president-elect approached the issue of ‘Africa’ from his first and second autobiographies, the author argues that while a marked change may have occurred in civil rights in the US, much of the country retains established assumptions about the African continent. While Obama may personally understand the importance of changing the image of Africa and Africans in the eyes of Americans, change in this regard will prove a slow and deliberate process if it is not to antagonise sectors of US society thoroughly resistant to the idea of person of African ancestry leading their nation.

Organizations representing Caribbean civil society organizations and social movements have written to G8 finance ministers, the World Bank, and the IMF, to demand an immediate and unconditional cancellation of Haiti's external debt.

Following Barack Obama’s historic electoral victory, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reviews the new president-elect’s global appeal and comments on prospects for the future. Cautioning against any notion that Obama’s presidency will automatically reverse the fortunes of the poor and downtrodden, the author nevertheless celebrates the historic ascendancy of an individual whose own path will serve as a potent example for others around the world.

Since 2003, photographer Abdi Roble and writer Doug Rutledge have been documenting the lives of Somali immigrants in the United States and of the people forced into the vast refugee camps that were set up in Kenya in the wake of the 1991 civil war in Somalia. In The Somali Diaspora, Roble, who immigrated to the United States from Somalia in 1989, and Rutledge trace the journey of a family from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, home to more than 150,000 Somalis, to new lives in the United States.

In a response to Issa Shivji’s featured in Pambazuka’s 400th issue English-language edition, Kwesi Kwaa Prah asks what can be achieved with pan-Africanism as a ‘category of intellectual thought’. Problematising the extent to which pan-Africanism could ever represent a politically neutral philosophy, the author suggests that its proponents can be located across the political spectrum and argues that while colour may have provided a useful racially-based organising tool, it should never override the essential inclusivity of the African identity.

In regards to , I have several problems with this method of thought not the least of which is the author's serious legitimization of the bankrupt ideals of Julius Nyerere. Indeed, one could argue that for the weakness and arrogance of Nyerere at the founding of the OAU, Africa could have acheived a much stronger Union. We tend to forget that the Union of African States was the correct model to follow. But, the Union of African States gave way to the OAU in order to keep the likes of Nyerere in the overall African fold. Nyerere's regionalism was really nothing more than a sabotage of Nkrumah's program of a strong African Union.

It is true that regionalism, even Nyerere's sub-continenlaism was a failure if for no other reason than that it was meant to not succeed towards African Unity. Tanzania was a feable attempt to unite two little East African states. Such a structure did not even rise to the level of regionalism much less sub-continentalism becasue it did not include East Africa: Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Mozambique or Ethiopia. Recall that Ethiopia was a member of the Casablanca Group and as such, Ethiopia was very friendly towards Nkrumah's project for Continental Unity.

Stop apologizing for Nyerere. He lived a long life. And, he was head of ststae for many years. He had plenty of time to correct his mistakes. But, he never did. I think he failed to do so becasue Pan-Africanism was never a part of his commitment nor internal ideological make up. Indeed, I know of nothing prior to the OAU that indicates any commitment on the part of Nyerere to Pan-Africanism. Of course he sang the Pan-Africanist song just as he sang the socialist song. But, Nyerere's idea of Pan-Africanism was not Pan-Africanism which was defined by Nkrumah as the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. And, Nyerere's socialism may have include some socialist policies, but it was NOT scientific socialism. In fact, Nyerere went so far as to emphasize this point by calling his socialism "African socialism".

Unfortunately, the author does not even rise to this occasion. Instead he mentions something that none of us has ever heard of before now; namely some kind of weird liberal democracy. I mean, really! In these times in which even the most right wing free market capitalists, such as George W. Bush and Gordon Brown, have been forced to use scientific socialist methods to try and rescue world capitalism, we in Africa are still too cowardly to acknowledge that anything short of scientific socialism, such as what we see in China, will NOT lead to African Unity and NOT solve African problems.

This article, , begins with an extremely inaccurate premise. Assuming that the author really has no background in any African liberation movement, nor in he politics of black liberation or class struggle, it makes me wonder what kind of analysis Pambazuka offers to the black community.

By “black” I mean those Africans involved in the class struggle as well as the movement for international African unity, because for those of us in the Western Hemisphere that is the context out of which the term black originally evolved. Not only is the premise of the article crooked, but the whole text degenerates into an attack on the African liberation movement in Southern Africa, and elsewhere.

One must ask if this article was written by a disillusioned Afrikaner with a monkey on his back. While Melber tries to come across as somebody trying to spark “a broad political debate”, that cannot honestly happen based on Melber’s half-baked assumptions, misrepresentations of current events, and a hidden agenda.

The military mindset in Africa did not arrive with the black liberation movements, which came late to the scene. Kwame Nkrumah documented the long list of coups d’etat up from 1957 up thru 1970 or so. In the states where coups occurred, not only were military regimes installed, the rulers also were staunchly pro-imperialist. Those who couped Nkrumah, Azikiwe, Lumumba, Obote and others were in the West’s pocket, in every instance.

While your author tries to introduce Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre into the discussion, he is inept at presenting an argument which justifies the article’s title.

First, the hard fought victories won by FRELIMO, ZANU and MPLA to defeat colonialism cannot be compared to any other wars in modern history. Melber dismisses all this with a sweep of his word processor. However, for those of us who appreciate that period of struggle, we know the hawks of Imperialism have sworn eternal vengeance. They declared, thru out the US media on the eve of the Lancaster House Accords in 1980, that Africans were too stupid to build the stone buildings at Old Zimbabwe and had no business naming the country after ruins that either Arabs or Europeans had left.

Second, that these countries struggled to build democratic societies while facing extreme odds because of military attacks from South Africa, assisted by Israel and the US, it is miraculous that military regimes do not administer power in any of those countries. The grip some forces exercise on power reflects the history of repression which not only demanded their rise, but demanded emergency measures. The Southern Africa security question was never adequately addressed by the world bodies, and it emerged out of imperialist racism. So Melber is not only wrong on this point, but completely haphazard. He neglects to state how the SADF created an extensive ecological disaster thru out Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Angola. The warfare against peasants in Mozambique, carried out thru war criminals enlisted in Renamo, was a precursor to the violence demonstrated against the Tutsi by interhamwe machete murderers in Central Africa. Zimbabwe helped settle the security question during that period.

The security issues of Southern Africa have never been definitively articulated the way the US, by comparison, has defined its security issues. Minorities in Southern Africa have never been violently subdued and enslaved or gradually given rights, as a form of long-term policy. Political parties in Africa do not recognize any traditional path of development for African people. In terms of security issues, Renamo in Mozambique is a counterinsurgency party which the US would smash as a domestic terror organization. Same as for UNITA in Angola.

Finally, the fact that democracy is a stunted child in Africa does not mean it has to be paraded thru out the Southern African states as their particular embarrassment. No mention is made of supposedly democratic Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, elsewhere.

Melber’s article should have been more accurately named something along the lines of something like An ad hominem attack on Black liberation, and subtitled, “Niggers don’t deserve independence”.

In light of the current global economic downturn and bailout plan for the rich, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem examines the hypocrisy and profound limitations of a neoliberal market orthodoxy ostensibly hostile to state intervention yet increasingly reliant on its restorative role. Berating the continued failure of Western institutions to provide adequate conditions and support for African development, the author urges African governments to turn their backs on foreign ‘aid’ and instead concentrate on their own course of action.

Reflecting on his time spent in The Marcus Garvey Library in the London borough of Tottenham, Ronald Elly Wanda salutes the legacy of the library’s namesake and his seminal contribution to the pan-African movement. Following his discussion with a local librarian, the author suggests The Marcus Garvey Library to represent a redefinition of the library for the modern age.

Blaise Compaoré and Françafrique killed Thomas Sankara in the belief that they could extinguish the example he set for African youth and progressive forces across the continent. They could not have been more wrong. One week before his assassination, in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Thomas Sankara declared: ‘Ideas cannot be killed, ideas never die.’ Indeed, the history of humanity is replete with martyrs and heroes whose ideas and actions have survived the passage time to inspire future generations.

Their ideas, courage and sacrifice for the freedom and dignity of their people have made these martyrs larger than life. Thomas Isidore Sankara is one in a long lineage of African sons and daughters whose ideas and actions have left an indelible mark on the history of their continent. That is why 21 years after his death, Sankara continues to guide those who are struggling to end the domination of their continent and the enslavement of its peoples.

Sankara’s great popularity is in part a reflection of Africans’ disillusionment with corrupt leaders who are incapable of meeting the basic needs of their peoples and who take their marching orders from Western capital and institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. Sankara’s popularity is also rooted in the profound sincerity of his commitment to serving his people, his devotion to the cause of the emancipation of the Burkinabés and all African peoples. His charisma, honesty and integrity made him a hero for the ‘wretched of the Earth,’ to coin a phrase from Frantz Fanon, who was greatly admired by Sankara.

A GREAT VISIONARY

Above all, however, Sankara’s ongoing popularity is due to the ideas and values he embodied during his brief time on the African and international stage. Indeed, if Sankara arouses as much fervour today as he did 21 years ago, it is because he embodied and defended causes that still resonate today among the thousands of oppressed in Africa and around the world. Sankara was a genuine revolutionary and a great visionary who had the courage to take on the most difficult challenges and who held great ambitions for his country and Africa.

Most of the ideas or causes he defended two decades ago are still at the heart of the struggle for the economic, social and political emancipation of peoples around the world. He was an environmentalist ahead of his time in a so-called ‘poor’ country that was supposed to have other more pressing priorities than the environment.

Sankara was one of the first heads of State, perhaps the only one in his time, to condemn female excision, a position that reflected his unwavering commitment to the emancipation of women and the struggle against all forms of discrimination against women.

He was a relentless advocate of gender equality and the recognition of the role of women in all spheres of economic and social life. In his famous speech of 2 October 1983, he stated: ‘We cannot transform society while maintaining domination and discrimination against women who constitute over half of the population.’

His unrelenting struggle against corruption, long before the World Bank and the IMF picked up on this issue, made Sankara an enemy of all corrupt presidents on the continent and of the international capitalist mafia for whom corruption is a tool for conquering markets and pillaging the resources of the global South.

Sankara rejected the inevitability of ‘poverty,’ and was one of the first proponents of food security. He achieved the spectacular feat of making his country food self-sufficient within four years, through sensible agricultural policy and, above all, the mobilisation of the Burkinabé peasantry. He understood that a country that could not feed itself ran the risk of losing its independence and sovereignty.

In July 1987, Sankara, close on the heels of Fidel Castro two years earlier, called on African countries to form a powerful front against their continent’s illegitimate and immoral debt and to collectively refuse to pay it.

Once again, he understood before others that the debt was a form of modern enslavement for Africa; a major cause of poverty and deep suffering for African populations. Sankara famously stated: ‘If we do not pay the debt, our lenders will not die. However, if we do pay it, we will die…’

On the international stage, Sankara was the first African head of State, indeed the first in the world, to denounce the UN Security Council’s right of veto and to condemn the lack of democracy within the United Nations system as well as the hypocrisy that characterised international relations. Today, all of these ideas have become self-evident truths and are at the heart of popular resistance movements, including the World Social Forum that has become one of the most powerful major rallying points.

SUPPORTING POPULAR STRUGGLES AGAINST OPPRESSION

Among the great causes passionately championed by Thomas Sankara was his unwavering support for all popular revolutionary struggles and resistance movements against imperialist domination and colonial oppression. In his memorable speech before the UN General Assembly, on October 4 1984, Sankara stated: ‘Our revolution in Burkina Faso is open to the suffering of all peoples. It also draws its inspiration from the experiences of peoples since the dawn of humanity. We wish to be the heirs of all of the revolutions of the world, of all of the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World.’

These revolutions and struggles inspired Sankara in his vision and desire to profoundly transform the economic and social structures in his country as well as the mentalities forged over centuries of foreign domination and oppression by dominant and exploitative classes internally and externally. This was the wellspring of his profound solidarity with the struggles of all oppressed peoples against the forces of domination.

Sankara’s commitment to solidarity was exercised with determination in every international body, from the UN, to the former Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the Non-Aligned Movement. Sankara was one of the first heads of State to support the struggle of the Sahrawi people against Morocco’s expansionist ambitions. He expressed the solidarity of the Burkinabés with the struggle of the Kanak people against French colonialism. During a trip to New York, he went to Harlem to express his support for the struggle of African-Americans against racism and discrimination.

Above all, the Burkinabé Revolution under Sankara showed its unwavering support and solidarity for all peoples resisting US policies of imperialist aggression. Before the UN General Assembly—in the very belly of the beast—Sankara forcefully condemned the United States’ illegal blockade and permanent aggression against the Cuban people. In this same forum, he condemned their unconditional support for the Zionist Israel’s state policies of territorial annexation and extermination of the Palestinian people.

THE SUCCESSES OF THE BURKINABÉ REVOLUTION

While Sankara came to power in a military coup d’état, his revolution was nonetheless a profoundly popular one. For Sankara, taking political power was a tool for liberating his country from foreign domination, and above all liberating his people from the multiple forms of economic, social, political and cultural domination.

In his historic speech of 2 October 1983, he explained that these goals would be achieved through the destruction of the neo-colonial state and the transformation of all socio-economic structures and institutions inherited from colonialism, including the army. And these transformations should lead to the transfer of power to the people for, as he stated: ‘the goal of this revolution is to exercise power by the people.’ This fundamental objective could only be accomplished by placing trust in the people and mobilising them to become conscious of the issues and sacrifices required.

Sankara believed it was futile to speak on behalf of the people if they could not be mobilised to become an integral part of the struggle and develop an identity forged in the fire of action. For Sankara: ‘I think the most important thing is to bring the people to a point where they have self-confidence, and understand that they can, at last…be the authors of their own well-being… And at the same time, have a sense of the price to be paid for that well-being.’ To a great extent, the Burkinabé Revolution was an original experiment in profound social, economic, political and ideological transformation. It was a bold attempt at endogenous development through popular mobilisation.

The pursuit of this objective required extraordinary efforts to emancipate mentalities, raise consciousness and mobilise the masses in the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR) and other revolutionary structures. Despite some of the excesses of the CDR and the other revolutionary structures, there is no doubt that one of the major objectives of the revolution under Sankara was to create the possibility for the people to speak and express themselves freely and in so doing build their self-confidence. In this, the revolution was profoundly democratic and popular. Sankara once stated: ‘Misfortune will befall those who silence their people.’ This warning reflected the importance he placed on freedom of expression, an indispensable condition for encouraging Burkinabés at all levels of society to speak their mind.

THE WEAKNESSES AND MISTAKES OF THE REVOLUTION

As in all human endeavours, the Burkinabé revolution had its ups and downs. Despite its incontestable achievements, the revolution also had its weaknesses, weaknesses that ultimately undermined the cohesion of the leadership and even stoked opposition among certain segments of the population that initially supported it, such as the intellectual petty bourgeoisie.

One of the weaknesses of the revolution was related to the fact that the social forces that had a stake in its success—peasants and workers (both manual and intellectual)—may not have had the ideological tools that would have enabled them to better understand and support the pace of revolutionary change.

Another weakness lay in the difficulty of building a solid and durable coalition between Sankara and his comrades on the one hand, and the political parties representing the intellectual petty bourgeoisie on the other. This undoubtedly explains some of the mistakes made by the revolution’s leadership that contributed to alienating portions of the population and exacerbating the contradictions within the leadership when difficulties started to accumulate.

Perhaps, to some extent, activism took the place of the more patient work that was required to educate the masses so that the social and ideological obstacles to popular mobilisation could be overcome. Lastly, sabotage by enemies working in the shadows and the country’s relative isolation in the sub-region, in a similar vein to what occurred in Ghana and Guinea, put the final nail in the coffin.

LESSONS OF THE BURKINABÉ REVOLUTION

The Burkinabé revolution was the last major effort toward the popular and democratic emancipation on the African continent. Neither the end of apartheid in South Africa, nor SWAPO’s victory in Namibia brought the same kind of profound and significant economic and social transformation. The Burkinabé Revolution was an unprecedented experiment in profound economic, social and political change.

The revolution was a bold experiment in endogenous development with the construction of infrastructure (dams, railways, schools, roads, etc.) through the intense mobilisation of the masses powered by the principle of self-reliance.

Indeed, the principle of self-reliance was the basis of Sankara’s denunciation of so-called foreign ‘aid’ which he argued ‘produced nothing more than disorganization and enslavement…’ He refused to listen to the ‘charlatans trying to sell development models that have all failed.’ Of course, he was alluding to the so-called experts from the World Bank and the IMF who took control of economic policy in many African countries to disastrous effect.

Sankara’s position was in stark contrast to that of several African leaders who literally became beggars who no longer dared raise their voices against the injunctions and interference of their ‘development partners.’ Sankara showed that ‘poverty’ did not have to translate into a loss of dignity and an abdication of sovereignty.

The Burkinabé Revolution can also teach us some negative lessons that merit reflection. One of the lessons is the difficulty of building a sustainable and victorious relationship between the army and progressive intellectuals. Another lesson relates to the destiny of military coups: can a coup d’état truly serve as the basis for sustainable revolutionary change or is it condemned to be a flash in the pan? This question surely begs others. The point is that African revolutionary forces must study the lessons that can be learned form this experience in order to better pursue current and future struggles.

The ideas and principles that guided the Burkinabé revolution did not vanish with Sankara’s assassination. They will continue to guide African popular struggles and resistance movements until foreign domination has been vanquished and Africans have recovered their sovereignty. The best way to honour the memory of Thomas Sankara is to continue his fight and promote the values he embodied.

In truth, African revolutionaries have a duty not only to remember the Burkinabé revolution, but all the African revolutions that inspired it. We forget that Sankara was an ardent pan-Africanist who did not hide his ideological and political debt to Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Amílcar Cabral, among others. It is our duty to study the thinking and works of Sankara and other African revolutionary leaders and thinkers in order to be able to teach the younger generations. By preserving and developing the fundamental values and ideas of the Sankarist revolution and other African revolutions, we will forge the ideological and political tools we need to deconstruct the values and concepts of the dominant system and build anew from our own concepts based on our vision of the world and our realities.

Just as Che’s blood has fed the sacred ground of the Americas where worthy successors of the legendary Argentinean revolutionary are now taking root and pursuing the dreams of Simón Bolívar and other South American heroes, the sacrifice of Sankara and his illustrious predecessors will produce other Sankaras who will one day realise the dreams of Nkrumah and the other heroes and martyrs of the African revolution: to build an independent, united and prosperous Africa that is the master of its own destiny.

* Demba Moussa Dembele is the Director of the African Forum on Alternatives based in Dakar.

* This article, which first appeared in the French Pambazuka last year to remember Sankara's assassination, is translated by Gwendolyn Schulman, a writer and broadcaster for Amandla, an alternative views and news show on Africa, on CKUT 90.3 FM.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Lamenting the persistence of widespread social and economic inequalities, Ochieng M. Khairallah asks whether the continued experiences of marginalisation and disenfranchisement suffered by the global poor belie a world without conscience. In light of sustained human rights abuses and marked power imbalances both nationally and internationally, the author highlights a resulting culture of impunity in which politics and representation become a mere question of protecting one’s interests.