youth, revolution and two coups

RFI : Thomas Sankara is a legend. What was for you the urgency, but also your legitimacy to make a documentary on this African icon ?

Yohan Malka : It’s a legend, but an unrecognized legend. It’s a paradox: he is very well known, especially in French-speaking Africa and generally in Africa, but I’m not convinced that he is really known to all French youth. Our ambition was to tell her story for all those who did not know her. And as we progressed with the investigation and from the film’s broadcast phase, we realized that people did not know Thomas Sankara.

Me, I came to Sankara through his writings, but also through rap. Many rappers talk about Thomas Sankara. Even on social networks, his name came up often. There was this kind of “fame” around him. Our urgency was that his name be engraved [dans la mémoire collective] and that we can tell Sankara to all generations and especially to the youngest.

What is the original aspect of your documentary ?

For me, the new side is when I talk about the heritage. There are all these characters between 20 and 25 years old who express themselves in the documentary: a rapper, street artists, students, political activists, the young generation… These are people who did not know Sankara alive and we realize to what extent they have inhabited the figure of Thomas Sankara. One of the French rappers, Yali Sankara, he took the name Sankara outright. When he decided to embark on his career, the name Sankara seemed to him the most logical. It was a kind of call.

Or in Ouagadougou, all these collectives of graffiti artists who continue until today to paint the head of Thomas Sankara on the walls of Ouaga… What seemed surprising and unprecedented to me were not necessarily the archives. I knew the archives, there are millions of views on YouTube of his great speeches. We compiled, edited, sorted, especially with the people from RTB (Radiodiffusion-television du Burkina) who helped us a lot. But for me, the new side is what Thomas Sankara represents in 2022 and 2023.

During your meeting with the youth, what struck you the most? ?

This is the power of his message. The way Thomas Sankara’s message impacted and still impacts young people. It’s one theory among others, but perhaps it’s because we lack exemplary political figures, in Africa, in Burkina Faso, but also in France. Sankara, in his time, he had this revolutionary role, but above all he represented a political ideal for a whole generation. Perhaps there is a form of romanticism that has settled around Thomas Sankara, but when you are 20 today and you wear “Thomas Sankara” t-shirts, as you could wear t-shirts “Che Guevara” t-shirts, it’s because we’re short of political figures. We need to relate to this historical figure, whether we come from the African diaspora like me, or not. There is a very universal message in Sankara. It is for everyone.

The archive images show a population enthusiastic about the ideas of Sankara, a people who unite behind their president. After the assassination of Thomas Sankara in October 1987, how do you explain that the Burkinabè took 27 years to get rid of the alleged assassin, Blaise Compaoré? [condamné en avril 2022 par contumace à la prison à perpétuité pour sa participation à l’assassinat de Sankara]the former friend of Sankara and president of Burkina Faso from 1987 until the popular uprising in 2014 ?

Historians say that, once Thomas Sankara was dead and buried, everything was done to erase his memory. People did not come out into the streets to demand justice. It took decades for his figure to be imposed again: with the Thomas Sankara memorial, the 2014 revolution… His memory was erased by Blaise Compaoré and the Burkinabè power of the time for more than two decades. Hence my surprise also to see that this film today is part of a rehabilitation process, like the trial and conviction of Blaise Compaoré. And this work of rehabilitation of Sankara, it is just being completed.

Sankara was an avant-garde in many fields: anti-imperialism, feminism, ecology, the sharing of wealth… And you underline in your documentary the effectiveness of his speeches, his “pop” side and the use of real punchlines. Today, his words and his portrait can be found everywhere. Do you see a risk that the Sankara legacy will turn into political marketing ?

There is necessarily a marketing, a recovery of the figure of Tomas Sankara. I don’t know if he himself would be happy today with what is being done with his image. That’s the marketing part, but the political and revolutionary part of his message is maintained by movements like “The Citizen Broom” in Burkina, “I’m fed up” in Senegal… And it is to the figure of Sankara that political movements try to relate. The Sankarist movement still exists, it is real, it is legitimate. In Africa, we still need political example and all that Sankara was able to do, especially at the beginning of his mandate, ecology, anti-corruption, feminism, this inspires the younger generations and perhaps also generations of young militants who, perhaps, tomorrow, will want to get involved in politics.

We are talking about his heirs. Sibilla Ouedraogo, a young activist in Burkina, is a feminist, intervenes in universities, claims to be Sankarist. She has read everything, seen everything, and yet she is only 24 years old. There is this transmission, this heritage, and that is what is interesting to tell.

The documentary stops before the two coups that took place in 2022. After making this documentary on the legacy of Sankara, for you, are these two coups part of the legacy of Thomas Sankara ?

For me, there is a historical legacy, because it is the umpteenth coup in Burkina Faso and I think there is a weariness in the population that is settling in, because the soldiers are regaining power. We see that there are current political figures who even want to dress up in Sankara, with the red beret, the military uniform, but it is not Sankara who wants… Today, Burkina Faso is in a real political situation dramatic, with attacks, with insecurity and a political void that would do Thomas Sankara a lot of harm. So today it is difficult to find an heir of Thomas Sankara.

The archive images show a very proud Thomas Sankara concerned about the independence of Burkina Faso, strongly decided to free himself from the imperialists and colonialists. Today, Ibrahim Traoré, the current president of the Burkinabè transition, has just asked for the withdrawal of French troops from Burkina Faso. Do you see in this decision a legacy of Sankara ?

I think that the Sankara heritage is this distrust of France and of Françafrique. Some will tell you that Françafrique is over, others will tell you that it continues. In this process of expulsion from the French army, there is a part of Thomas Sankara’s heritage and message. The people of Burkina Faso want to regain their independence and autonomy at all levels: commercial, cultural, but also military. Indeed, there is a historical parallel that can be found. But beware, a lot has happened in the meantime. I will not play the game of comparing the beginning of the 1980s, the four years of Sankara’s presidential mandate, with the situation and the political chaos which has now taken place in his country. The situations are still very different and very complex.

It’s a French film, directed by a Frenchman, which questions, among other things, young black French people. Who is your film for? ?

The starting point of the documentary is the trip we made to Ouagadougou. We went to meet some of the militant, artistic youth of Burkina Faso. Then, we made the link with this French youth, often from immigration, often from the African diaspora. And we wanted to link these two youths. When they evoke the legacy of Thomas Sankara, they meet, they exchange – sometimes through laughter, sometimes through more complicated things.

As for this French youth from immigration… I too am from immigration, Moroccan immigration, and I know, sometimes, that not having historical figures to relate to can create a void identity. And with Thomas Sankara, we have an African historical figure, about whom we were told little or not at all at French school. And there are those young or old who try to reclaim this figure: by reading books, listening to music, watching speeches on YouTube. It’s important to know where you come from, to know that it existed. It was not only Martin Luther King or Malcolm X in the United States, there were also great political representatives in Africa. And it’s good to tell them.

After the popular uprising of 2014, Fespaco presented in 2015 the documentary Captain Thomas Sankaradirected by Swiss filmmaker Christophe Cupelin, and a remarkable short film by Franco-Burkinabè Cédric Ido, Twaaga, evoking a Burkinabè Spiderman who plunges us into the era of Sankara’s anti-imperialist regime. Later, other French directors made documentaries on this African icon : Sankara is not deadin 2020, by Lucie Viver, and Sankara’s Orphansby Géraldine Berger, also in 2020. In your opinion, why, until today, there is no great Burkinabe documentary on this national hero of Burkina Faso ?

There is clearly a resource problem. We must give the means of production to Burkinabe directors so that they can tell this story. Afterwards, what I was told in Burkina Faso, while discussing with the fixer, the journalists, the film crew, the people I met in particular in Ouaga, it is perhaps simpler for this film to be made by someone outside of this issue. We are French, we arrive, we try to discuss with people and tell this story. We have perhaps a more innocent look at the story of Thomas Sankara, there, where in Burkina Faso, it remains a legend, very heavy to bear… Does a director in Burkina Faso want to do this documentary? I’m not sure of it.