We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, February 17, 2012

Parallelisms: Sankara, the hero who defied his creditors

Click here to access article by Leonidas Oikonomakis from Reflections on a Revolution. 

For most of my adult life I have been uncovering the many lies that were taught me under capitalist education and recovering much that has happened but totally ignored by educational and media agents employed by capitalists. This article reports on an African leader's activities in the 1980s that is an example of the latter. The article also makes clear that the practice of neocolonialism by banking elites of yesterday in the 3rd world is now raising its ugly head everywhere in the world.
It happened in 1987.

The Organization of African Unity assembled in Addis Abbeba, Ethiopia, in the last days of that hot July. And there he was. With his khaki uniform and his bone-breaking humor, Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, Africa’s own Che Guevara, gave his last speech and stole the hearts of the world’s poor and exploited. Para siempre.
The 52:04m video on Sankara at the end of the article looks very interesting.