Upstream - [TEASER] The Alliance of Sahel States Pt. 1: Burkina Faso – An Anti-imperialist Introduction w/ Prudence Iticka

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

This is a free preview of the episode "The Alliance of Sahel States Pt. 1: Burkina Faso – An Anti-imperialist Introduction w/ Prudence Iticka." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Imperialism is the primary contradiction facing the globe—and the split of the world into two poles, the imperialists and the anti-imperialists, is going to continue to shape our revolutionary struggles moving forward. This anti-imperialist struggle is occurring all over the Global South, and perhaps nowhere quite as prominently as in Africa's Sahel region, where the countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have been waging a struggle against neocolonialism and building a movement towards pan-Africanism through the Alliance of Sahel States—an alliance that has received the praise of anti-imperialists across the globe, and which has also raised the ire of imperialists who are not happy to see Africans fight to take back control of their resources and their labor.  In this episode, we've brought on Prudence Iticka, a Camaroonian pan-Africanist and member of United African Diaspora and The Coalition for the Elimination of Imperialism in Africa, to tell us more about the AES and the struggle it's currently undertaking.  We begin with a brief history of Burkina Faso during the colonial period, and explore the rise of Thomas Sankara and the anti-imperialist movement he lead, his assassination and the neocolonial puppet that replaced him for three decades, and the recent rise of the revolutionary leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré. We talk about the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—and how they are the seeds for a pan-African future and the leading spear in the fight against imperialism and neocolonialism. We explore imperialism as the primary contradiction in the world, how imperialist propaganda infiltrates Africa and what the AES are doing to combat it, and much, much more. Further resources: United African Diaspora The Coalitioin for the Elimination of Imperialism in Africa (Instagram) The Coalition for the Elimination of Imperialism (Substack) Comité de Kinshasa Defending the AES, report back from Africa’s liberated zones Alliance of Sahel States (AES) Solidarity Fund A United Front Against Debt, speech by Thomas Sankara The Thomas Sankara Library Related episodes: Western Marxism w/ Gabriel Rockhill Listen to our ongoing series on China The Fight for The Congo w/ Vijay Prashad Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Just a quick note before we jump into this Patreon episode, thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible. We genuinely could not do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this and to provide most of our content for free so that we can continue to offer political education media to the public and to build our movement. So thank you comrades, and we hope that you enjoy this conversation. The root causes of all the problems that we face as African people today is the colonization

of our continent, right? And when we speak of colonization, we mean loss of resources, and that means loss of our power base. That's it. We have been occupied for 600 years and the occupation of Africa has led to countless conflicts throughout the world Africa provides the resources that serve as the backbone of the capitalist system, right? That means if you want to destroy that system, right if you're apparently an anti-capitalist or an anti-impeerist or socialist You have to recognize that Africa has to be free and sovereign.

Africa has to take control of its resources. So it behooves us to support and defend a struggle like the AES because they are engaged in an anti-colonial struggle. They are taking back the land and they are taking back the resources, which means they are depleting the imperialists of their strength. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. Imperialism is the primary contradiction facing the planet. And the split of the world into two poles, the imperialists and the anti-imperialists, is going to continue to shape our revolutionary struggles moving forward in the 21st century. This anti-imperialist struggle is occurring all over the global south, and perhaps nowhere quite as prominently as in Africa's Sahel region,

where the countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have been waging a struggle against neocolonialism and imperialism and building a movement towards pan-Africanism through the Alliance of Sahel States, or the AES, which is an alliance that has received the praise of anti-imperialists across the globe, as well as the ire of imperialists who are not happy to see Africans fight to take back control of their resources and their labor. In this episode, we've brought on Prudence Itika, a Cameroonian Pan-Africanist and member of the United African Diaspora,

and the Coalition for the Elimination of Imperialism in Africa to tell us more about the AES and the struggle it's currently undertaking. We begin with a brief history of Burkina Faso during the colonial period, and explore the rise of Thomas Sankara and the anti-imperialist movement that he led. We explore his assassination and the neo-colonial puppet that replaced him for three decades, and the recent rise of the revolutionary leader leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré. We talk about the alliance of Sahel states for the AES, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger,

and how they are the seeds for a pan-African future and the leading spear in the fight against imperialism and neocolonialism. We explore imperialism as the primary contradiction in the world, how imperialist propaganda infiltrates Africa and what the AES are doing to combat it, and much, much more. And just before we get started, I'd like to make a quick announcement. Della is a brand new mom, And so as she is immersed in the exciting and exhausting endeavor of being a brand new mother, she's gonna be taking a little bit of time off from the show. And so I'll be filling in for anything

that we did not have a chance to pre-record. So congratulations to Della. And for the rest of you, you are stuck with me presenting my own interviews for a little while. And so on that note, here is my conversation with Prudence Ittika. Prudence, it is great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much for coming on. And so just to start before we dive into everything, I'd love it if you could introduce yourself for our listeners and maybe just talk a little bit about the work that you do. Okay, thank you. So my name is Prudence Idika. I am from Cameroon. I was born in Cameroon, but I currently reside in Canada. I am a member of two organizations, one locally,

which is United African Diaspora. And then I'm also a member of an international coalition called the Coalition for the Elimination of Neuroimpearlism in Africa. I am a pin Africanist. Awesome. Thank you so much. And actually, I'd love it if maybe you could talk a little bit more about the coalition for the elimination of imperialism in Africa and just the work that you do with them. So our coalition formed shortly after the people of Niger took back control of their destiny on July 26th, 2023, when a coup d'etat was led by Abdouamantiani and the CNSP. And as you know, shortly after,

or maybe you don't notice, but shortly after that coup in Niger echoed us, under the orders of their masters in Washington and in Paris, threatened the military intervention into Niger, right, to reinstate the post president. And comrades in Niger were actually first to sound the alarm on the need for us Pan-Africanists to have a united response to this threat against Niger, that we could not let another, you know, African country being invaded

by these imperialists and their regional lackeys. So folks started contacting other folks and different people. And that's how the coalition was born. And although our coalition was born out of this immediate need to defend Niger sovereignty, our objectives are broader, right? We are anti-imperialist, we are socialist in defense of all African people's struggle for liberation and self-determination. And really we have two primary objectives, which is to provide an anti-impeerless perspective to developments in Africa for the international public and to develop solidarity networks and campaigns for anti-impeerless organizations based in Africa. And of course, in accordance with

our objectives, our coalition focuses a lot on creating revolutionary propaganda for the African Revolution. You know, we need to keep our people informed and provide them with an anti-impeelist analysis of our struggle. That's why we created our SUPstack, which right now primarily does focus on the AES, but we do also share analysis of the struggles throughout Africa. We host quarterly webinars with organizers from Africa and the diaspora, again, in a continuous effort to educate our people and to counter our enemies propaganda and keep everyone informed because as you know with our

proper political education we cannot sustain our movement. Last year our coalition actually hosted a delegation to the AES, to the three countries of the AES because it was very important for us to go to these countries to witness the revolutionary process, connect with organizers and pan-African is there so that we can improve our work and also better support the revolution. And we had the opportunity to meet, you know, incredibly militant organizations and we're so honored to still be connected to them today. And following that delegation is when we actually launched the AES Solidarity Fund in order to mobilize resources to distribute to these various organizations

throughout the AES. And last year, our coalition also launched a Kwame Nkrumah Fellowship for African Organizers, which is a $5,000 fellowship awarded to a serious Pan-Africanist organizer in Africa in order to help them advance their movement. And our first recipient was actually a Congolese organizer, and he is also a member of our coalition

and whose organization Comite de Kinshasa. They're working really hard to build a people's movement in Congo. I know I said a lot, but if you remember nothing else of our coalition, our core objective really is to support revolutionaries on the front lines, whether it's ideologically or materially. No. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. That's really, really interesting. And actually had a chance to go through a couple of the blog posts

and look at the sort of travel log and some of the photos from that delegation visit to the AES countries. So that was very cool. And I'll link to that in the show notes as well in case anybody wants to check that out. And also we'll, of course, link to everything that you just mentioned here in the show notes so that people can easily access them.

One thing I wanted to just really briefly just talk to you about before we dive into sort of the history of Burkina Faso and some of the AES countries. You mentioned Pan-Africanism, and I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with Pan-Africanism and what it means, but just in case they're not, and also just to sort of get it from your perspective,

can you talk a little bit about what you mean when you talk about Pan-Africanism? Pan-Africanism is an objective, right? A lot of people think Pan-Africanism is an objective, right? A lot of people think Pan-Africanism is an ideology or a way of being or it is an objective, right? And that objective is one unified and socialist Africa, right? So when we will have achieved that, when we will have liberated Africa and united ourselves politically into one federal state under a socialist government, we can now say we have achieved Pan-Africanism. That is the correct definition defined to us by Kwame Nkrumah.

Okay, so let's dive into the history a little bit here before we bring ourselves into the present and talk a little bit more about what's currently going on, what's been going on for the past couple years or so with the AES countries. So as many of our listeners are well aware, the continent of Africa has of course been long subjected to Western imperialism and Burkina Faso is of course no exception to this. I'm wondering if you could situate Burkina Faso for people who may not know anything about the country and tell us a little bit about the history, particularly like during the colonial period, like what did imperialism and colonialism look like in Burkina Faso?

Yeah, so Burkina Faso, which you know, its colonial name was before it was called named Burkina Faso by Thomas Sankara was Upper Volta, right? That's what it was known during colonization. It's a little land lost country in, you know, one of the many French colonies in Western Africa, right? And of course, as we know, the purpose of the colony is to serve as a zone of extraction for the Metropole, which in this case would be France, right? These were French colonies. You know, Burkina Faso, again, it's the great contradiction of Africa, a country that is rich in gold, but has a

tremendously poor population, right? Meanwhile, we have France that does not have a single gold mine in its territory. It has the fourth largest gold reserve in the world, right? And during the colonial period, like many of its neighboring country in West Africa, you know, Burkina Faso was just super exploited for its resources, for the benefit of the metropole,

for the benefit of the West, right? And like all of its colonies, you know, despite the so-called independence of the 60s, France had, you know, maintained significant, significant control over this country, whether it's politically and economically. I'm sure most people, the reality probably had not heard of this country prior to 1983, when they had the revolution that was led by Thomas Sankara, who would seize power.

Most people had not really heard. It's a fairly small country. So in its colonial period, we'll look similar to what the colonial period would look like for most of other Western African countries where the resources are being extracted to go towards the West until finally in 1983, Thomas Sankara overthrew a neo-colonial puppet

of the so-called independence days and would begin one of the greatest revolutionary process of the global South. Yeah, tell us more about Thomas Sankara because he's a very huge figure in Burkina Faso and also way beyond that. He's a towering figure in terms of Pan-Africanism, in terms of anti-imperialism, and there's a lot of connections to the movement that he sort of led to what's going on now in the AES countries. So maybe a good place to start would just be with him. And I would love at some point to do an entire episode on Thomas Sankara because I do feel like he's that important. But just for what we have now, maybe you could give us just a sense of who he was and

what he was trying to accomplish and the movement that he sort of led. Yes, the Sankaha was, you know, a young military officer. He seized power in 1983 with his comrades. And Tomas Sankaha was a Pan-Africanist and he was a socialist. And you can see that very clearly in the policies that he implemented as soon as he took power. But you know I want to kind of contextualize the climate in which we got Atama Sankara, right? He arrived in power in a very hostile period. You know this is the 80s, neoliberalism is on the roll, we've got Reagan who's president, Thatcher in the UK and you know at this point in Africa nearly all

of our revolutionaries had been assassinated or overthrown, right? Secretary had dies in 1983. Samoa Michelle would be assassinated in 1986. We have the newly Zimbabwe that's newly independent, but it's fighting to build itself up, you know, in this very hostile environment. And really, aside from Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Africa does not really have a strong revolutionary state. So I'm saying all this to kind of add context about the climate in which Sankara was operating and how extraordinary it was that he still displayed

so much courage and determination to forge a sovereign path of Burkina Faso and for Africa. And if we look at some of the policies that he immediately implemented when he came to power, policies that centered the needs of the Burkinabe masses, the women, the youth, the peasants, you know, not the elites. We know about the great literacy campaign that raised the rate from 13% to 73%.

We know he vaccinated millions of Burkinabe children from various diseases. We know during his time, over 10 million trees were planted through our Burkinafaso children from various diseases. We know during his time, over 10 million trees were planted through our Burkina Faso to combat the certification. And everybody talks about Sankara as this man who really advocated for women's liberation. And it wasn't just with speeches, right?

That with concrete actions, he appointed women to high positions in government. He encouraged them to enter the workforce, to join the military, to be totally active in their revolutionary process, right? It wasn't just lip service. And something that I think, you know, that I personally love so much about Sankara and that distinguishes him, you know, from a leadership that loves and works for their people and, you know, these other monsters who govern a lot of African states is that Sankara never stopped explaining things

to his people, right? This is how imperialism works. This is why we need to stop accepting aid. We need to be proud to be Africans, proud of our culture. We need to love and build our country. Sankara said that revolutionaries should never get tired of explaining things to the people because when the people understand,

they cannot help but follow us. And again this isn't within a context of an Africa that is nearly entirely captured by these capitalist nations and the neoliberal policies. We have neo-colonial puppets all over Africa that are lying to the masses telling them that you know Africa is poor because our women have too many babies or we're just so lazy. We need aid. We need the United Nations, you know, all this nonsense to alienate our people and keep them ignorant and backwards. And in a mix of that, you have this song, I was like telling Africans like we're not paying that. Like, what do you mean debt to the West? You have stolen trillions

from us, send us some bags of rice. And then suddenly you think we owe you a debt. Like, no, you owe us. Right. And like you said, we could say so much about the time, you know, he had just short four years in power, right? And yet those four years were magnificent, they were monumental. And like you said, that is why today Sankara is still a reference, you know, for everybody struggling for justice in the global South. And we're lucky because we can actually learn directly from Sankara. And I really encourage people to actually read Sankara. Like I know there's so many films about him, which is great.

But we also have access to his speeches and his words. So we really need to study Sankara very seriously. And it's all accessible. This was a clip from our Patreon episode with Prudence Itika. You can listen to the full episode by becoming a Patreon subscriber. As a Patreon subscriber, you will have access to bi-weekly episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give

you access to our entire back catalogue of Patreon episodes, along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this whole project going. Find out more at patreon.com forward slash Upstream Podcast.