PEACE, RENAISSANCE AND AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT CAN NOT BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT WOMEN

This Human being, this vast and complex combination of joy and pain; solitary and forsaken, yet creator of all humanity; suffering, frustrated, and humiliated, and yet endless source of happiness for each one of us; this source of affection beyond compare, inspiring the most unexpected courage; this being called weak, but possessing untold ability to inspire us to take the road of honor; this being of flesh and blood and of spiritual conviction -- This being, women, is you. You are our mothers and life companions in struggle, and because of this fact you should by rights assert yourselves as equal partners in Africa's Renaissance and Development. It is in this light that all of us, men and women, must define and affirm the role and place of women in society. Therefore, we must restore to man his true image by making the reign of freedom prevail over differentiations imposed by nature and by eliminating all kinds of hypocrisy that sustain the shameless exploitation of women. Inequality was produced by our own minds and intelligence in order to develop a concrete form of domination and exploitation.

Todays, women childbearing functions and the social trend or obligation to conform to models of elegance determined by men prevent or handicap many women who might to from achieving their life objectives in comparison to their counterparts men. Throughout ages and throughout different types of society, women suffered a sorry fate, in a continually reinforced position of inferiority to men. Thought her inequality was expressed in many and varied guises, she remained unequal.

Inequality can be done away with only by establishing a new society, where men and women will enjoy equal rights, resulting from an upheaval in the means of production and in all social relations. Thus the status of women will improve only with the elimination of the system that exploits them: the patriarchy/andrarchy

Could our society be any less perverse than this when it systematically burdens women down, keeps them away from anything that is supposed to be serious and of consequence, and excludes them from anything other than the most petty and minor activities?!

Could our society be any less perverse than this when it is innocent women who should pay by their blood the anti-social behavior of men continuous fight for leaderships or power, making the whole Africa wars zones?!

Parts extracted and adapted by INAEDAD-RIEASDA from Thomas Sankara Speaks. The revolution cannot triumph without the emancipation of women, march 1987 as published in a pamphlet in Ouagadougou in 1987.The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-1987..