Burkina Faso: Revolution, authoritarianism & the crisis of African emancipation politics
From Mail & Guardian
Today, a new face of revolution is emerging in Burkina Faso under the youthful and charismatic Captain Ibrahim Traoré. His image is cast in the mould of Thomas Sankara, evoking the anti-imperialist spirit of the 1980s... What are we to make of yet another seizure of power by men in uniform, claiming to act on behalf of the people? If history is to be our teacher, then we must ask... Are we merely witnessing the replay of a tragic cycle in which the people are always betrayed?... In answering this, anarchist theory offers a sobering and necessary critique, particularly the principle of “prefiguration”. Loosely this means what we want our society to become in the future is literally shaped by what we do today