Thomas Sankara, political leader of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, was born on December 21, 1949 in Yako, a northern town in the Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso) of French West Africa. He was the son of a Mossi mother and a Peul father, and personified the diversity of the Burkinabè people of the area. In his adolescence, Sankara witnessed the country’s independence from France in 1960 and the repressive and volatile nature of the regimes that ruled throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
From 1970 to 1973, Sankara attended the military academy of Antsirabe in Madagascar where he trained to be an army officer. In 1974, as a young lieutenant in the Upper Volta army, he fought in a border war with Mali and returned home a hero. Sankara then studied in France and later in Morocco, where he met Blaise Compaoré and other civilian students from Upper Volta who later organized leftist organizations in the country. While commanding the Commando Training Center in the city of Pô in 1976, Thomas Sankara grew in popularity by urging his soldiers to help civilians with their work tasks. He additionally played guitar at community gatherings with a local band, Pô Missiles.
Throughout the 1970s, Sankara increasingly adopted leftist politics. He organized the Communist Officers Group in the army and attended meetings of various leftist parties, unions, and student groups, usually in civilian clothes.
In 1981, Sankara briefly served as the Secretary of State for Information under the newly formed Military Committee for Reform and Military Progress (CMRPN). This was a group of officers who had recently seized power. In April 1982, he resigned his post and denounced the CMRPM. When another military coup placed the Council for the People’s Safety in power, Sankara was subsequently appointed prime minister in 1983 but was quickly dismissed and placed under house arrest, causing a popular uprising.
On August 4, 1983, Blaise Compaoré orchestrated the “August Revolution,” or a coup d’état against the Council for the People’s Safety. The new regime which called itself the National Council for the Revolution (CNR) made 34-year-old Thomas Sankara president. As president, Sankara sought to end corruption, promote reforestation, avert famine, support women’s rights, develop rural areas, and prioritize education and healthcare. He renamed the country ‘Burkina Faso,’ meaning, “the republic of honorable people.”
On October 15, 1987, Thomas Sankara was killed with twelve other officials in a coup d’état instigated by Blaise Compaoré, his former political ally. He was 37 at the time of his death.
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I've had this same conversation with a lib I know three times now.
It starts with them saying that they don't understand why leftists* and also Muslims are threatening to withhold their vote to Biden over the Palestinian genocide. Israel is their own country, they say, and Biden isn't president there. Biden is doing everything he can. He's giving humanitarian aid to the Palestinians!
The only thing Joe Biden has said he's done to stop the genocide is asking his good friend Bibi to please stop. And as far as the aid goes, I'm curious how much of that Israel is actually allowing to reach the Palestinians.
They reaffirm that Biden is doing everything he can.
Being ludicrously generous and ignoring for the moment that Israel is a client state of the US that if abandoned by the US would likely quickly cease to exist - but let's pretend for the moment that Israel truly is an independent state - Biden could then still wield the enormous powers vested in him as the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of the world to force Israel to stop if asking sternly isn't getting it done. He could stop selling them weapons. Stop sending them aid. Stop supporting them at the UN. He could level trade embargoes or deny visas. He could do as has been done to Russia and Iran, with a regime of sanctions. He could declare a police action, if he wanted to.
They switch tack. Biden won't do those things because Israel is our ally.
You can't have it both ways. Biden is either doing everything in his power to stop a genocide, or he is an active participant in that genocide.
They say well, so what, do these people want Trump to win? He won't do anyone any good. Plus, if Trump wins, democracy is over.
At this point the argument usually peters out, because what good is Biden doing anyone? He claims he is forced to build the border wall because of norms and procedures. Forced to take a hardline stance on immigration to appease Republicans and pass the budget or whatever. Forced to watch and sell weapons to Israel as they do a genocide. Biden can't even fire the guy who is actively trying to privatize the Post Office, one of the only good American institutions. And also, what democracy?
Sometimes they'll rejoinder with "Well the job reports have been good" or "the Dow is up" or "Biden hasn't actively called for the slaughter of striking workers" as some sort of proof that Biden's actually a great President, as if the Dow wasn't bullshit and the job numbers are also largely bullshit and Biden saying a few pro-union things has just been a way to score some points while also working against unions behind the scenes, without getting into a long digression about the removedd state of unions/the corporate-captured business unions that Biden is talking about when he says he supports unions.
*To this particular person leftist seems to mean anyone in the country to the left of Joe Manchin, so I'm never sure who exactly they're talking about when they reference leftists