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

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

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. And 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 this 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, 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.

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. It wasn't until I began sort of reading more and sort of diving into the history of like socialism and pan Africanism in in Africa that I did not realize just like how many different revolutionary movements there were from like necroman gana. Like, it feels like one of the biggest tragedies almost like what happened to a lot of those movements like the assassinations and the attempts. And we've gone over this a little bit with our comrade in front of the podcast, unironically, Vijay Prashad, where he talked about the assassinations and the coups and all the attempts to overthrow the nationalist or socialist or even socialist adjacent movements

across the world. And just when you look at the history of Africa, it's overwhelming, like how much effort was put into crushing those movements. And of course, they're never completely crushed. But in the case of Thomas Sankara, I mean, he was literally killed. So I'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit about what happened to Sankara, the movement that he inspired and led, not just talking about how he was assassinated, although we should talk about that and hear that story and sort of talk about the responsible parties,

but then also like what survived and how his legacy and the foundations that he laid continue to evolve in current day, not only Burkina Faso, but in Africa and you could even say globally. Yeah, you're right. You know, there have been so many African revolutionaries that have been assassinated. You know, France alone has assassinated, I believe the number is 22, progressive presidents in Africa since 1963. So many figures that, and they were so young, never even reached their full potential, and

that were brutally assassinated. There's been an incredible amount of effort to just put a stop to the African revolution. But like you said, it's not possible, right? Whenever they kill a Sankara, another one will be born again. But just to your question about what was the outcome, you know, what happened to him. But like you said, unfortunately, we all know that Sankara was assassinated after just, you know, in 1987, right? So just four years after he had taken power. And it's funny, or it's actually not funny, but in 1987, there was an OAU meeting, right? So OAU is the Organization of African Unity,

the former name of the African Union. And Tomas Nkara gave a powerful speech during that meeting. And I think everybody should actually go read and study that speech. You can find it easily on YouTube. And during that speech, he was addressing the economic situation of Africa, particularly the question of debt repayment, right? He was encouraging African heads of states to unite to reject

debt repayment. And he said in his speech that if he continues to be the only president that is calling for this, he would not live to attend the next meeting. And he would literally be assassinated a few months later in a US and France backed coup that was carried out by Blaise Comparé, who unfortunately was a close collaborator of his, who betrayed the Burkinabe Revolution and betrayed Africa. And Blaise Comparé would take power and he would rule the country for three decades.

He was in power for 27 years, of course, undoing every single progressive policy that the Sankara government had implemented and joining a long list of staunch neo-colonial puppets that are to be found in Africa. But speaking to the point of the fact that this happened quickly, he was only in power for four years, Sankara has, a long lasting effect in Burkina Faso. I've visited Burkina Faso twice in the past three years and Sankara is everywhere, right? Like he's everywhere. He's on people's t-shirts. He's on the walls.

He's on the stickers. He is everywhere. He is like a never ending reference for the Burkinabe people. And it is because of that reference that these people were able to organize themselves once again to bring about the second phase of the revolution. What we have today is only a continuation of what Sankaha started in 1983. Yes, it was interrupted with neocolonial puppets in the middle, but the people forever inspired by Sankaha have brought the revolution back on. And like you said, Sankaha is brought the revolution back on. Right.

So, and like you said, Sankaha is truly a reference for beyond Africa, right, for socialists and for the global South, because in just short four years, you can see the tremendous impact that he had, the policies he implemented. He was such a staunch Pan-Africanist and staunch socialist. And you could just see that with the way he moved in four years, because, in Africa something that they've often made us believe is that you know change is going to take you we're just going to need like maybe like 60 years like African Union has like agenda whatever that's going to probably take a hundred years for us to get ourselves together in Africa and it's not true because we saw what Sankara was able to accomplish in just short four years.

Okay so let's kind of fast forward a little bit. I mean, so there was that period after Sankara's assassination, about 27 years of a neocolonial puppet who was in power. And I'm not sure if there's anything from that period that you sort of feel like you want to bring into the conversation. So please do. And if not, we'll just jump into Ibrahim Traore. So I think that many of the people who are listening now

have at least come across even at least some Instagram posts or something about Burkina Faso's new leader. And so he is this very striking person dressed in military uniform, a very pronounced presence. There's a lot of buzz around him. And just a couple of weeks ago, we heard about the assassination attempt on him and we already have people trying to smear him in one way or another. So there's something very important going on.

And so, yeah, tell us a little bit about Captain Ibrahim Traore, how he came to power, the movement that he's heading, and yeah, what's some of the aims and aspirations, both politically, socially, and economically, that Traore aims to enact? Yeah, so we'll go back a little bit to Blaise, right? Blaise arrives in power. He's there for 27 years. He's a staunch neocolonialist, undoing

all these progressive policies. And the revolutionary progress is put to a pause. But I think it's important to talk about the impact of Blaise on that country. Because of course, being a neocolonialist, we know that he implemented these structural adjustment programs and we know what that means. That means austerity.

That means these necessary infrastructure that the masses needed are tremendously targeted. And, you know, something that the Thomas and Kirst Center is this Pan-African Educational Center in Ouagadougou or Burkina Books on IGN. You know, they're always asking people to support their library, to send them books, and they talked about how during Blaise Comparé's rule, you know they're always asking people to support the library to send them books and they talked about how during Blaise Comparé's rule you know because of these structural adjustment

programs he implemented education was severely affected right and right now in Burkina Faso there are very few libraries and you know I've been to Wagadougou which is the capital and it's true it is not easy to find books right And it's even harder to find revolutionary literature, right? Which is why we encourage people to support these Pan-African Educational Centers because there are so few places in that country where you can access literature, right? And this is the effect of a bless compare,

whereas Thomas Sankara is trying to combat ignorance, neocolonialists thrive in ignorance, right, in a backwards population, right? So, but again, something else I want to add before we introduce Captain Ibrahim Prawer is the fact that there are so many serious grass movements in Burkina Faso, and you know, the people never stop resisting, the people never stop organizing for the liberation, and you know, ultimately it was mass uprising that booted Blaise Compareil off. There was this movement towards the 2012,

it was called Ballet Citoyen. So ballet is French for broom. So they said we ballet Blaise, we sweep them out of there. It was a mass movement of people who were organizing for years, for years, understand that Blaise absolutely had to go. He was not serving the masses. And finally, they were victorious,

and they booted him out of there. So Blaise was overthrown in 2014. But between 2014 and 2015, you can kind of see a clear power struggle happening, because Burkina Faso experienced several interim presidents in that year before finally in 2015, a new president was declared, which was Raul Cristian Cabore.

And you know, this is 2015. Raul Cabore is president during a very difficult period in Burkina Faso, right? And I'm saying this is all gonna make a lot of sense soon. Like I feel like this context is very much needed. In 2015, at that point, the country has been nearly lost to these NATO back, you know, death squads and mercenariesaries or as terrorists as people like to call them.

Burkina Faso has lost nearly 60% of its territory to these mercenaries. Right. And if you guys all listen to the recent interview of Captain Ibrahim Tawri when he was in Russia, he talks about how terrorists, right, used to live very peacefully in Burkina Faso. That was because back in the day, bless Campare, he would allow Burkina Faso to be used as a base to attack neighboring countries. So you would find terrorists being treated in Burkina Bay hospitals, intelligence and weapons, getting to them through Burkina. They were just very comfortable because Campare hoped that by

kikiing with the terrorists, it would keep them from attacking his country. And when Roque Cabore came to power, he refused to continue this deal where the terrorists were you know using their base to attack neighboring country. So of course the terrorists unleashed their attacks on Burkina Faso. And you know when I speak to comrades in Burkina Faso about Roque Cabore, they don't say that he was a bad man, but they say that he was not fit to deal with the situation. He did not have the courage, a country at war, he could not handle that.

This was a task that was above him, and that's why the country is slowly, slowly falling into the hand of these terrorists who are occupying more and more of the national territory, which is why in 2022, Roque Cabore was overthrown. But before I get into his overthrow, I have to talk about Mali, right? Because I know everyone's passionate about Ibrahim Traore.

Everybody's so passionate about Ibruka Nefes. So we love it too, we love them, absolutely. But we have to remember that it was Mali who kicked off this revolutionary dynamic we are seeing. And it's so important like before we talk about the arrival of Ibrahim Trabli we must talk about what was happening in Mali right because they really kicked us all off in 2020 right that is when Asim Goyta who is the current president of Mali led the first coup d'etat that overthrew Ibeka, so Ibrahim Boubaka Keita, who was just yet another neo-colonial

puppet at the service of imperialism in Mali. At the time, in 2020, when Asimi and his comrades had successfully overthrew Ibeka, Asimi Gortar was not made president of the country. He actually gave the presidency back to a Malian politician and he became vice president. So this is summer of 2020, the coup happened in August. But again, I must say what preceded the arrival of an Asimiguita was years and years of grassroots movement throughout Mali who were tired of the puppet president, who were not only calling for his overthrow.

If you look at the demands that were being made in Mali in 2018, 2019, they were saying, we want French military forces out. We want the United Nations mission out. There was these demands that were happening for years and years in Mali before finally the patriotic elements within the army aligned, heeded their calls and overthrew Ibeka. This is important context because again, neighboring Burkina Faso is witnessing all of this. It is 2020. They are seeing this. Mali is facing the same issue as them. At the time, Mali had lost 60% of its territory to these terrorists. They are seeing how their siblings are on the streets.

They are seeing the army align themselves with the Malian masses and booting out this puppet president. So let's get back to Mali. So first coup d'etat happens in 2020, gives the presidency to a Malian politician. Thankfully, Asimi and his comrades rapidly saw that this man was not aligned with the demands of the people, which was a radical break with imperialism. We are not kikiing with friends. There is no compromise. These people need to get out of our country.

Right. not kicking with friends, there's no compromise. These people need to get out of our country, right? So on May 2021, Asimi and his comrades planned a second coup d'etat. And this time, Asimi Goita was elected the interim president, right? So we are in 2021, Asimi has taken power. And again, the Burkinabe people are watching this. They're like, look at our neighbors, look at our siblings, look what's happening over there. But you know who else is watching this, they're like, look at our neighbors, look at our siblings, look what's happening over there. But you know who else is watching this? It's our enemies. Because Roque Abohe at that point

was increasingly unpopular. The Bukinabe masses are spending more and more time on the streets asking for him to be deposed, right? They're looking at what's happening in our neighboring Mali and they're like, we want that for ourselves too. We need a leadership that is gonna to confront these terrorists and that is going to clear them out of our territory. So then comes the January, 2022 coup, which the post rock cabaret.

And remember I said earlier that yes, the Burkinabe masters are watching Mali, but so are enemies. And they can tell that there's a revolutionary current that is about to sweep through West Africa and they wanted to get ahead of it, which is exactly what happened with the January 2022 coup when Henry Damiba, who's also a soldier came to power. Right. And this created a lot of confusion at first because we're thinking, Oh my God, we got our asimi version in Burkina Faso. Here's a patriotic soldier.

He's here to serve the masses. But thankfully, very quickly, the Bukinabeg people saw that that was a dupe. Henry Damibe had been encouraged by the West to overthrow Rokabore in an effort to prevent the real revolutionary forces within the army to take power, right? And thankfully, the Bukinabeg masses

clopped into that very quickly, got back to the street. And by September, Damibe was deposed and that is when the real patriotic and revolutionary forces led by Ibrahim Traore finally came to power in September 2022. So I know that was long but we really cannot speak about the arrival of Captain Ibrahim Traore without talking about what was happening next door in Mali the few years prior to September, 2022 when Captain Ibrahim Tari came to power? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that.

I think that's such important context. And of course, this is the first episode in what's gonna be an ongoing series on the AES and perhaps even spreading out from there to look at other African countries and movements. So we're definitely gonna spend more time, hopefully in depth, looking at Molly and Niger. But yeah, let's just go back for a second to that second part of the question. And I'd love it if we could spend a little bit more time on Ibrahim Traore and really just talking about what he's trying to achieve in Burkina Faso.

Yeah, I mean, Ibrahim Traore is, you know, he is trying to give the Burkinabe back the resources, right? He is trying to free them from ignorance, from hunger. If we can just look at the policies of Ibrahim Traore, since he's come to power, he's about to hit three years in power, right? Let's look at some of the early acts, right? The very early acts of just pan-African solidarity, because we have to remember that something that the reason why we love the AES so much is because they're not only, you know, nationalists who are free in our country from imperialism, but they also have a pan-African vision. They recognize that we need to unite the entire consent and what they are

doing, the three of them are just beginning that process, right? We'll talk about this later when we talk about what happened with Niger, but we know that when Niger was threatened, Burkina Faso along with Mali, they released the communiqués and said that if you come and you invade this neighboring country, that means you are declaring war on us, right? You touch them, you are touching us. We are standing by these people. You are not going to let you invade them, right? Something else we have to look at is the different policies that he has implemented that are, again, very similar to Sankar. These are people's policies. He is doing things for the everyday masses, the youth, the women, the farmers. you know, I really want to talk about specifically the agricultural revolution that is really led by Burkina Paso.

Like, yes, Niger has a lot of work in there too, but Burkina Paso has really led it. You know, this is a country that, like most of Africa, relies heavily on the agricultural sector to survive, right? And recognizing that his government has invested tremendously into these different agricultural association, these peasant association to not only, you know, make sure they have the correct tools. We all saw when he was distributing the tractor and I know there's a lot of speeches that people probably haven't seen yet because they're longer and they're in French and it takes a lot more time to translate them and to put caption on them. But there was this one, this is probably like the speech that moved me the most.

I think it was about a year ago when Captain Ibrahim Traore, he was meeting with children, right? He had this one-on-one with a group of children for about one hour. And the kids were asking him questions, telling them about their different grievances. And of course, one of the recurring theme was a lot of kids saying that,

we want to be able to go to school. We don't want, you know, because when our parents don't have money, we can't go to school. And he told them, he was like, I'm telling you right now that our purpose, we are working to make education entirely free in Burkina Faso. We don't want any child to say they can't go to school

or school consistently because they can't afford it. You know, he's telling these little kids like, I promise you, we are going to make education free in Burkina Faso. We are going to build modern schools in Burkina Faso. Just give us time. We are working on it. Right.

He was addressing little like 10 and 11 year old kids. We know of course that in Bobo Jalosum, they are currently building, I believe they said it's the largest hospital in West Africa is being built in the second largest city in Burkina Faso, thanks to their partnership with the Chinese government. We know of course that Burkina Faso is a country, like I said earlier, rich in gold. And we know he has nationalized these mines. He has taken back these mines that were owned by these criminal Canadian and Australian

companies and he has taken the resources and he has given it back to the people. So anybody looking at this, to us, you know, it's very common in like the French Pan-African kind of circles. People call him Sankara II, you know, like he's just the continuation of Sankara. All these policies that were undone under these new colonial governments that came after Sankara. He has kind of like picked them up and continued the process, right? So we can do nothing but just praise and support everything that is happening in Burkina Faso because here we have a leader

that loves his people and he is working hard to give them back a life of dignity, of giving the resources back to them to improve their lives. And not only is he working for the Burkina Bay masses, but alongside he is also connecting with these neighboring countries, the NAAS, the Mali and Niger, to also strengthen the entire region. There is like a collective process of industrializing the AES region that is happening. So you know, as Pan-Africanists, we can only rejoice to see such a real commitment, not only to improving this country, but to developing the region. And they're constantly saying in the AES, our hope is that the AES will grow, that other

African countries will join our dynamic and that we will be able to unite the entire continent. He says these things, he recognizes that this is the beginning of the unification of our continent. It is going to happen through this alliance. So just a couple things. I do want to still ask you about how the West is retaliating against the AES and Traore specifically, but just real quick before that, I do also want to make sure we touch a little bit more on Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and the more on Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and the Alliance of Sahel states, right? On these coups that they experienced recently. I want to actually pull a couple of quotes or paraphrases from your organization, actually

the Coalition for the Elimination of Imperialism in Africa's literature. And actually this comes from that report that we were talking about the report back from Africa's liberated zones the sort of Travelogue that was written after your visit to the AES So you guys refer to the Alliance of Sahel states as the seed for future Pan-Africa? And also as the tip of the spear in the fight against Western imperialism as the tip of the spear in the fight against Western imperialism. So those quotes stood out to me and I wanted to unpack them a little bit and just hear a little bit more about the AES and how they are standing up to neo-colonialism and imperialism in Africa.

Yeah, so, so far we've already talked about, you know, Mali, revolutionary Burkina, so we have to introduce the third member of the Alliance as it stands today, which is Niger, right? And I talked about their coup happened July, 2023, which deposed particularly heinous neo-colonial puppet, Mohammed Bazum. And like I said earlier, you know, I don't know if I've already mentioned, you know, actually I did because this is how our coalition was formed.

ECOWAS, you know, threatened a military intervention into Niger saying that we have to reinstate BASUM. And Mali and Burkina Faso, shortly after this threat, the threat came days after the coup d'état. And a couple of days later, Mali and Burkina released a joint statement saying that if you attack Niger, it's an attack on them. And finally, a little bit later, the three countries founded the Alliance of Sahel States,

which the first formation was very much heavily security based, right? It was like, we are a military alliance, touch one, touch all, we're gonna help protect each other, right? And I don't know if it really clicked into people how monumental that formation was to see African countries come into the fence of the other. We hadn't seen such pan-African solidarity

really since like the 60s and the 70s when you know Mali was lending its territory to the Algerian revolutionaries or Guinea under Ahmed Sekouche, you know being a base for the PIGC. Like this is not something like this was like a thousand birthdays for us you know pan-Africanists because the AS is proving what we have been saying forever. Africans have to unite if they want to wage a successful struggle for their liberation. Right? The S is showing us that together we are stronger and it is only in unity that we can actually confront our enemies and win. Right? Something else that's really, really important about the S is that it's showing us, you know, what Kwame

Kuma has always taught us about neocolonialism and how the overthrow of neocolonialism is really the first step for us in waging a successful struggle for our liberation. We know imperialism is a primary contradiction, but for us as Africans, our primary enemy is neocolonialism because it is how imperialism manifests itself to us. You know, we cannot achieve any positive advancement for our people without confronting neocolonialism. And in Africa, it's very common for people to talk to you about development, independence, democratic rule,

all of that. You cannot have that within a new colony though. And that's the thing that the AS has done. They overthrew the neocolonial state that was imposed upon them by the imperialists. That is the first step to building an independent and sovereign nation. And that is what the Sahel has achieved. And because they have achieved that, they are now able to genuinely confront imperialism.

And I say genuinely because we know there's a lot of neo-colonial puppets right now in Africa trying to cosplay revolutionaries, do a lot of talking, colonial puppets right now in Africa trying to cosplay revolutionaries, do a lot of talking, no actions to back it. I'm talking about like people like the Senegalese president, they pay lip service and need to remove French military from their soul. We're still waiting, you know, the AES said it and they did it, right? So all three of these countries also recognizing that we are living in the age of information warfare, they have also banned imperialist media from their own countries. But to me, the most significant confrontation with

imperialism is the taking back control of their national resources. Because let us not forget, it's African resources, both human and natural, that feed and sustain the imperialist system, right? Every single problem we face as African people today is due to the fact that our resources have been stolen from us and they're benefiting the capitalist nations at our expense. So what these three countries are doing

by nationalizing their massive resources, and it has to be said that these are countries that are very, very rich in resources that are highly coveted, because that's also some of the propaganda that was coming out like by Echo, it's like, oh, these countries won't even be able to survive they have nothing in their sore that is not true they have highly coveted resources in their soul you know like gas like

uranium like gold right and the fact that they are taking back control of these resources is a serious confrontation with imperialism you know and that's something we have been desperately waiting for in Africa right because again, and that's something we have been desperately waiting for in Africa, right? Because again, this unbelievable contradiction in Africa where we have poor people living on abundantly rich lands. The 21st century colonialists today are capitalist multinationals that have seized our resources. And one by one, these people are being booted out

of the AES region, right? And that is why the AES is under so much attack. I don't know if you guys have seen like very recently, like the Malian state is in like a conflict with this criminal Canadian mining company named Bear Gold, when they are in control of, I think they said that mine is the second largest gold mine in the world.

It exists in Mali. And Mali realized that not only, that not only have these people been like, you know, these companies are so greedy. Like it's bad enough that you're owning these mines in our country, but on top of it, the little crumbs you give us, the little tax that you're supposed to pay, Bear Gold had not been paying for years, you know?

And what did Mali do? Mali was like, y'all are gonna pay us our money or else we're gonna lock your workers down. And they did, they put them in prison until Bear Gold finally paid the nearly half a billion dollars in unpaid taxes that they owed the Malian government, right? And this is like, we have not seen such dignified leadership in Africa, like since probably Muammar Gaddafi, right?

Because here African leadership saying that enough with the looting of our resource, enough with the disrespect, long gone are the days of treating us anyhow. And this obviously terrifies the West, right? This is so unacceptable to them. Like, what do you mean you can't just exploit Africa anyhow, right?

Because of course we know their very existence relies on the super exploitation of Africa. You know, they are petrified that the Alliance will grow, that these presidents will embolden other African presidents to also take back control of their resources. Right. And that is why there is so much plotting. There is so much plotting against the AS because the AS stands as a glorious

example for other African countries to take back control of their resources. So, yeah, I mean, I think that there's been what something like 18 assassination attempts so far on Ibrahim Traore, which is just absolutely insane to think about. And I'm going to ask you about that a little bit more. And also, I'm going to ask you about Echo Oss too, because you mentioned that. So definitely putting a pin in those parts of the discussion but one thing that I do first want to get into and it's because you mentioned imperialist propaganda and so yeah just this idea of how the AES banned imperialist media which I genuinely think is fucking amazing and awesome and you know you know people talk

a lot about China's great firewall for example and how they censor the media and stuff. And, you know, it's first of all, every single Western democracy does the same thing in different ways. But also, like if I ran a country, I would also probably make sure that the forces that are hell bent on exploiting my country and oppressing my people weren't able to freely spread their lies and propaganda over my airwaves. So yeah, that's just how I feel. But I also wanted to ask you about these attempts at reeducation. And so Ibrahim Traore, he actually recently said that propaganda, like arms, is part of the Western arsenal that's used to manufacture war and justify foreign control. And another quote that I really appreciate is actually from Simone Bolivar that quote,

they dominate us more by ignorance than by force. So yeah, I'm wondering if maybe you can just tell us a little bit about the imperialist propaganda that's being combated, the attempts at reeducation and, and yeah, what's being prioritized, what needs to be unlearned and what needs to be learned? Yeah. You know, I recently, I was reading this forward of this book and it actually talks on media warfare and in Africa and in it in the forward, they talk about like BBC and how BBC Africa

spends like 600 million pounds a year specifically to advertise in Africa, right? And you know, I think the last figure I could see was in 2020, it was like 132 million Africans tuned into BBC every single week, right? And we have to ask ourselves, why would BBC spend like nearly a billion pounds to market to Africans, if not because they're trying to indoctrinate us with this propaganda? They're not giving us any type of news to liberate us, to make us think. No, it is to put us asleep and it's to make us hate ourselves and hate our struggle. Right. And a lot of these medias have been banned rightfully. So, you know, in the AES,

because of the way it talks about the AES, right. They're pushing this narrative. Of course, the most common one, you know, you see, they refer to them as like the junta, the junta. They've never called any of these men presidents or like the junta leader, you buy in cloudy, the junta leader, as me gohaure, the gentle leader, Asmi Gauta, to paint this idea that these countries are under brutal military dictatorships. They're being held hostage by these men, men in uniform. But for this to work, we have to have been primed before

to be scared of people like that. I don't know if people have noticed how badly African soldiers have been portrayed historically in movies and you know they had what's that guy that Joseph Kony character that they fed out in 2012 I believe he was like the scariest man on the planet he was like the most wanted creature like they primed us for this moment right to just be wary of African soldiers to think of them as you know cruel and brutal individuals you know you can't trust these people.

We of course know that Western media and the cinemas, all of that, all that appeared is all being used to intoxicate our minds and to make us not only hate ourselves but to make us hate our struggle. There's a lot of African people who are very hostile to the idea of African revolution, the idea of armed struggle. And now we have these three, you know,

presidents always in their uniforms, you know. So naturally they're hostile to that. And something also that's been very common in these media that were banned is the terrorism apologia that you see there. You know, Franz Van Catt actually interviewed like a supreme like, terrorist, like a staunch, like dedicated to terrorism leader.

Once like he got a full one hour special on a major national media in France that was banned in the AES, you know, and if you listen to the interview, you can see like almost like sympathize, like almost trying to like paint it as if he's like a leader of like an independence movement, you know, like, oh, like we get it like, you know, it's not like he's not painted as this villain who a leader of an independence movement. Oh, we get it. He's not painted as this villain who's going around terrorizing. No, it's like, actually, we should be sympathetic to his revolutionary, almost

independentist movement. All of that to create confusion amongst the people. Ahmed Sekou-Turri said, confusion is the enemy of the revolution. And rightfully so, these media should be banned in Africa. And something we have to understand is like a lot of presidents in Africa, like I said earlier with Blaise Comparé, particularly attacked

our educational system. It is much easier to oppress an ignorant population, right? There's a reason why our educational systems are so backwards in Africa. You know, if you look at some of the things people are studying that is completely irrelevant to their lives, it's all intentional. As long as we're backwards, as long as we're ignorant,

it is easier to dominate us. They don't even have to work so hard because we'll maintain our own oppression, right? And also in that interview that I talked about about the president with the kids, this is something he actually tackled. He talked about how we are working to change your curriculum. And he talks about himself. He talks about his experience as a student,

you know, learning things that were completely irrelevant to him. And he talks about the lies that he remembers that being taught in school. And he said, we are working to undo all of that, to change your curriculum. We know we've been lied to and we don't want you guys to keep being lied to. So we know there's an effort within the AS, there is an awareness that education, which for the most part was created by these neocolonial structures,

all these so-called development agencies, all these textbooks, all these curriculums, they're not favor African dignity, right? And they're aware of that, and they're working to change that. Yeah, thank you so much for that. And everything that you just shared, I mean, I couldn't agree more. So yeah, I really appreciate that response.

And I want to come back to ECOWAS because I think it is a really important part of the story. So ECOWAS is the economic community of West African states that Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali all withdrew from. And so, yeah, tell us a little bit about ECOWAS, the purpose and function that it played and what compelled the AES, the states of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to withdraw from it.

Yeah, so like you said, ECOWAS, you know, Economic Community of West African States. And of course, as pan-Africanists, we love the idea of this regional organization that's championing African corporation, championing African integration. But if we're also honest, if we look at just, you know, the people who make up these heads of states, we know that ECOWAS is not even capable of truly advancing the interests of the masses because of the nature of the leadership, right? Like I said earlier, the overthrow of neocolonialism presupposes development or any type of advancement for people. And if you look at the heads of states that make up nearly honestly all of these ECOWAS

countries, you're going to see some of imperialism's most committed servants, right? So can you really expect anything good from from from an organization like that that brings together so many internal enemies of Africa? Right and ECOWAS so ECOWAS we need to view ECOWAS the same way We need to view NATO in the same way We need to view African Union, which is these are institutions that are all under the control of NATO. NATO even has an office within these institutions. These are anti-African organizations. They have tremendous contempt for us. And this was made so clear when they not only sanctioned Mali and sanctioned Niger, but then also threatened to literally, militarily invade a member of

ECOWAS, which viol Which violates, of course, every single principle, every single text in ECOWAS, all in order to do the bidding of their masters in Paris and in Washington. And if we go back and we look at the sanctions that were implemented against Mali, you will see these are genocidal level type of sanctions, right? To stop medicine and food from entering a country countries at war Right. That is an attempt to assassinate a country So is it really any wonder that these three countries would withdraw from such an organization? You know

It was only when echo was threatened the military intervention in Tunisia that we discovered that echo was has something called a standby force And the people of the AS were like, where has this force been when we were being invaded by terrorists? So you have a force to come invade your, an African country, but it was non-existent when it was time to come and help us fight the terrorists.

ECOWAS is completely irrelevant to conscious Africans because in this anti-African organization, it does not speak for us, it does not represent us, and it does not even have the capacity to do so because it is made up of these neo-colonialist heads of state. The only block that matters today in Africa is the AES confederation. So let's talk a little bit more about the current retaliation from the West or from the compador classes in Burkina Faso, and if you want to extend it out to the other AES states, what have they been up against?

I know I had mentioned assassination attempts, et cetera, if you want to talk about that, but anything else in terms of what the neocolonial powers and the forces that serve them are trying to do to make sure that the AES is not successful. Yeah, so in terms of retaliation, I want us to kind of like look at a map of West Africa and see where the AES countries are and look who surrounds them, right? You know, of course, at the top of the list of the most dangerous and the most reactionary heads of states, we have Ivory Coast. Next to it, we have Togo, who despite, you know, their latest rhetoric is a NATO proxy. Please don't get fooled about their claims of wanting to join the AES, it's all a fraud.

Then we have, you know, the so-called African giant, Nigeria, you know, a giant in betrayal and neo-colonialism. We have Binet, another proxy. We have Mauritania that's serving as a base for most of these terrorists to attack the AES. You know, we got the snakes in Senegal talking a big game when they were in opposition. Now they're like compromised with the imperialists. So what you see is the AES is surrounded by enemy government, NATO proxies.

And it is through these states, right, that we are seeing these retaliations being planned and executed, right? I've already mentioned the brutal sanctions that the ECOWAS country implemented against Mali and against Niger. That is retaliation. You know, when I was in Niger last summer and I was talking to folks about, you know, what was that time like when being sanctioned? And I remember this one father telling me that when they were sanctioned, he could no longer get medicine, diabetes medicine for his daughter because pharmacies in Niger were just completely empty. And he said he had to resort to trying to find people in neighboring African countries that happened to be traveling to Niger, to get them to kind of sneak it in there

amongst their belongings. So I say this because I need to emphasize the brutality of these sanctions. It is illegal to stop essentials like medicine from entering a country. When you do things like that, you are orchestrating the assassination of millions of people. And ECOWAS knew that, of course. This is the use of sanctions. They want to make the people so miserable. They want them to suffer so much so that they turn on their leadership. And these are three landlocked countries. They have no access to the sea unless if it's through a neighboring country who closed their port to them. And let us not forget

Nigeria, who at the time Nigeria was providing most of the electricity to Niger and what did they do? They cut off the electricity. And imagine when you deprive a country of electricity that means hospitals are being deprived electricity. That means women are giving birth in the dark, people that are having surgeries, all of that. Again, you are trying to assassinate a people, right? And of course you've mentioned the attempts on our Captain Ibrahim Traoré's life.

And there was an official communique that was released from the minister of security in which they stated that most of the actors that were involved in that attempt were all based in Ivory Coast, a historically treacherous and deeply reactionary government and one that has been at the forefront of the de-civilization efforts against the AES. It's no surprise that the head of AFRICOM, General Langley, was recently in Ivory Coast. I'm happy to see that people are finally starting to recognize the Ivorian government

for what it is because this is not new. This is the historical role in Africa. And you know, back in, and this has been going on for several years, back in 2022, again, back in Mali, you know, when the struggle was not very known yet to people. And Mali was really the only one on this revolutionary path. The Mali government intercepted 49 Ivorian mercenaries. And when they looked at their belongings, they were all pretending to be like hairdressers, like their identity cards that they were like tailors, students, painters. And yet they found in their baggages heavy weapons, right? You know, and some of these people turned out were even members of the Ivorian Special Forces, you know, and the Mali government correctly identified them as being sent to destabilize this brand new dynamic that was happening in Mali because what are you doing here?

Disguised as these hairdressers and students and yet you're heavily armed and you have zero mandate to be in Mali, right? This was in 2022 and three years later, Ivory Coast is still committed to the plan to destroy the AES, right? And that's why I continue to say that neo-colonialism is the primary obstacle to our liberation because these puppets were entirely at the service of imperialism. It is them. It is through these puppets that they are gonna attack the,

these retaliations will be plant out of these countries. And we get it. We know who the employers are. We know they're working for Canada, France, United States, the colonizers, but these executors, right, there's the ones we need to confront right now. These executors, these mercenaries, they're in Abidjan, they're in Abuja, they're in Lomé, right? And we really need to talk about that because there are so many terrible things being planned against the AES and they're happening in neighboring

African states. They're being disguised in there. That is why we never cease to say we have to confront these new colonial governments. And you're making me really think about this very important point, I think, in our analysis as socialists that the primary contradiction, and I think that Traore is really great on making this so explicit. Like the primary contradiction faced by the AES is imperialism. And I'm wondering just in terms of like the broader movements that are on the ground in AES countries and maybe the ideology or the political views of some of the political leaders, etc.

What role does socialism play in what is going on right now in the anti-imperialist movements that we're seeing in the AES? Like, is it an explicit part of it? Is it more sort of like in the background? I know that your organization is very obviously explicitly socialist, but yeah, just more broadly in terms of like, what's going on on the ground with the political ideologies in terms of not just Chowry, but also just the AES in general. Yeah, I would say, having been to these three countries, these are serious anti-imperialists.

And to me, I think that's the most important is a moreist. You got to be an anti-imperialist first. The primary contradiction today is, are we going to let the United Nations and their NATO friends dominate the entire planet? That is what we are fighting up against, and they understand that. Now, am I That is what we are fighting up against. And they understand that. Now, am I gonna say people are referring to themselves

as socialists, like I'm a socialist? No, you will hear anti-imperialists, you will hear we are fighting against imperialism. That is abundantly clear throughout the AES, you know? It's incredibly clear, like we are fighting against NATO, we are fighting for our resources, we are fighting against NATO, we are fighting for our resources, we are fighting against the West. That is very clear.

And to me, I think that's what matters first, because we cannot build socialism without confronting imperialism. Sometimes I tend to think in the West, Western leftists, they're a bit too focused on, oh, we need to build socialism. We actually need to put an end to these people who want to dominate the planet. Like we actually need to put a stop to NATO countries.

Like that's what we need to do first. Right. And for us Africans, we need to destroy the neo-colonial state first. That's what comes. We are not going to build socialism with all these lackeys roaming around. So to me, I think in terms of ideology, I think the people of the Sahel are very clear on what needs to get done,

which means we need to clear the land. We need to take back control of our land and our resources first and foremost. And to me, I think that is the correct position to be in. Yeah, thank you so much for that. And I honestly, I couldn't agree more with all of that. And actually our next Patreon episode is going to be with a scholar and organizer named Gabriel Rockhill who edited of course, it echoes a lot of what you were just explaining. This idea of understanding the primary contradiction in the world today

is imperialism and that it's absolutely utopian and practical and impossible to expect that socialism is going to be enacted full cloth in any state that's under the boot of US imperialism, and that the first step in any transformation in global South countries is ending imperialism and getting out from under that boot. So yeah, thank you so much for bringing that element of it into the conversation. And we are going to explore that more actually in the context of China with Gabriel Rockhill in a couple of weeks, but Yeah, I just had a couple of more questions for you actually so, you know, like I just mentioned we are doing a series on China and We are looking at how China in part is navigating the path of socialism in a world that is really dominated by US imperialism

And neocolonialism and so in the context of the AES, how are they navigating this global contradiction, right? A world dominated by imperialist infrastructure in terms of trade and relationships with other anti-imperialist or global South countries. And we look at the BRICS countries and how they are navigating this and trying to create alternative networks,

different currencies, et cetera. I'd love it if you could talk a little bit about that context with the AES. So yeah, if you could just maybe share with us anything that you think is relevant or important in that part of the discussion. Yeah, absolutely. China and Russia are Africa's most important partners, right?

And the AES is very conscious of that. Prior to this revolutionary dynamic, we know that these three countries were being colonized by France. And although we have this crazy habit of calling our relationship with the West partnership, we know it was an abusive relationship. We wouldn't call a relationship between a slave and a slave master a partnership, right? So these three countries having clearly understood that France and other western countries cannot both be their oppressor and their savior have broken those abusive ties with the west and they're making new connections. I mentioned earlier

about the hospital, the big hospital that's being built in Bobo de Alusso that is in partnership with the Chinese. Two cotton mills that were built years ago in Mali, that was with the Chinese, right? We see, and even beyond China, and of course, everybody loves to talk about Russia because we know the A.S. has a strong military and now moving beyond the military into different domains with Russia. But we also see them getting closer to Iran that express wanting to help strengthen their fight against these Western-back. You know, in 2023 Burkina Faso reestablish diplomatic ties with North Korea. And we also see recently the grassroots in Burkina Faso and the rest of the AES traveling to Cuba, traveling to Venezuela and wanting to strengthen these people to people ties with these great

anti-impealist countries and right? And continue to encourage this connection. But something I have to say though, because a lot of people almost use this to attack the AAS, and I'm sorry, it tends to come from these so-called Western socialists, you know, when they're like, oh, but the AAS hasn't entirely closed the door to the West, and it's true, they haven't. Right?

And as much as I would love to see them do a complete, clean break with the West, right? I also need to I would love to see them do a complete clean break with the West, right? I also need to recognize that these are countries at war. I think we seem to forget that Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are quite literally at war. So they have to pick their battles correctly, right? They cannot possibly fight on all fronts. So I feel like next time you see a headline where you hear the presence of whatever Western country in their countries, you know, take a deep breath and don't just be like, Oh my God, they haven't broken up with the West and recognize, you know, that these countries are at war, they can't fight on all fronts. And you know, we need to respect

the intelligence of the masses and the choice of leadership, right? We need to have faith in them. But the A.S. is absolutely connecting with other countries, despite the fact that the A.S. is happening and growing in an incredibly hostile environment, right? But yet they are recognizing, you know, the world today is divided in two camps, right? It's very clear now there's really just two camps. It is the imperialist and the anti-imperialist. And nobody can deny that the AES is very much firmly in the anti-imperialist camp. And the AES recognizes who is in that camp

and they are trying to get close to those people and to build ties because that camp will need to unify in order to destroy the other side. That's so interesting. And I wanna ask you more about China's relationship with Burkina Faso and the AES now just because, you know, we hear a lot of myths as we do about Africa, we hear a lot of myths about China, right? And especially in the West here, the ideological warfare against China is just at a 10 out

of 10, maybe even 11 out of 10 right now. So one thing that we hear is that China is also imperialist, right? It's sort of this like inversion. The Western states want you to think that, oh, well, China is just as bad as us. They're also imperialists. They're going into Africa and they're taking advantage of, you know, African resources and exploiting Africans, et cetera, et cetera. But then when you start to dig into it, you start to see that actually the relationship that the Chinese do have with Africa is much more egalitarian.

It's not like they're not out there just doing charity. Of course, they are also doing debt relief and stuff like that. But the types of uneven trade and the types of uneven development, like if we're going to talk about underdevelop development and how, of course, hearkening to Rodney's important work of how Europe underdeveloped Africa and the ways that the West acted in Africa when it was doing development work versus the way that

the Chinese are doing work in Africa. I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts or anything that you'd like to expand on what I was just saying in terms of like the way that China carries itself as an actor in Africa and how that differs from the relationship, the exploitative relationship that the West has and traditionally has had with Africa? Yeah, you know, and I would encourage people actually to read, we were an article about, you know, and Russia, and a lot of what we said about Russia could apply to China, you know, and I want to say this so clearly to anybody listening that to be, especially Africans, to be an African in 2025, and to be sitting somewhere speaking to us about Chinese colonialism and Russian colonialism, you are firmly on the enemy side. Like we, we don't want you with us. You all do not care for Africa. You are not on our side if you are speaking like that. Right?

Because like I said, the world is divided into two camps and China and Russia belong in the same camp as the AES. Right? And to me, I think it is like, it is so profoundly, like I don't even know what word to use when I hear people compare China to the US or China or Russia to any other European. And I just wonder, do you know what these countries have done to Africa? Like you can't possibly know what they have done to Africa to dare even compare

them. It's almost like they want to sanitize the crimes of the imperialists or something, right? And you know, the only thing I can say to that is that we have to realize that Africa will not free itself in isolation. Right? I get it. We could probably get it done. You know, maybe take longer. We'll lose a lot more people. We'll for sure, a lot more lives will be lost. But we don't need to do that. Right? Because we have countries like China, we have countries like Russia that are willing to offer us support and that we will respect our sovereignty. This is geopolitics. This is not Tinder. This is not dating. We're not seeing China as like our girl. Russia is like our homeboy. No, we get it. They have interests as well that they need to defend. There are things they want in Africa. We have plenty of resources.

China is a major industrialized country. It makes sense that we would be close, right? But it is the way in which China operates, right? When China comes to Africa and says, well, you know, I kind of want this resource, we sit down at the table, we agree to the price. Okay, pack up, go. Thank you for my money. When the US or when France comes to the table, there's no questions being asked. There's no price. Africans aren't even speaking. We're being dictated. And God forbid you tried to speak up because you know what happened to you. You'll end up like a Thomas Sankara. That means six feet under. You're going to end up like a Patrice Lumumba. You're going to end up dead. You're going to end up overthrown.

So if you're an African of dignity that recognizes what these people have done to Africa, can you even name one 10 tenth comparable example when it comes to the relationship with Russia and the relationship with China? You can't, right? So all I have to say is like Africa will not develop in isolation because we don't need to. There are countries today that are willing to assist us and the AES is conscious of that and they are accepting their help and they are dealing on equal grounds, right? You come, you want something, no problem. We also want something.

This is not charity. This is not Tinder. Russia wants something. We also need something from Russia, right? This is how the world will, that's how the world should function. That's not how it functions when we have to deal with the Western camp. So before I ask you the final question, I just wanted to give you a chance to share any places or point us in the direction for our listeners. If they want to dive in a little bit deeper into the work that you're doing, if they want to support the work that you or any of your organizations are doing.

And yeah, like any action items or invitations for our listeners before we wrap up. Yes, thank you. Yeah, our coalition, we're just on Instagram for now about imperialism. I'd really encourage people to subscribe to our sub stack. Monthly, we release something on the AES, but then we also write about other parts of Africa. But if you want updates directly from the ground,

we're so lucky because we got to go and we connected with our comrades so we can get information verified very quickly. So please subscribe to our sub stack, which is also called Aba Imperialism. I'd really encourage folks to also please make a contribution to our AES Solidarity Fund. Money in our fund is distributed throughout various organizations throughout the AES. I mentioned the Thomas and Kara Center for African Liberation and Unity. It's a Pan-African educational center. The first one was in Ouagadougou. They recently opened a second one in Yamé

in Niger. And of course, the hope is to keep growing and to open one in Mali as well. So please, when you support the fund, you're supporting structures like that and other revolutionaries in the AES. And yeah, we also have, we do so many webinars on the AES. So really we are combating ignorance and we are really making sure people are staying informed. There's so much misinformation right now. That's why we are constantly, you know,

inviting folks from the AES to come and speak directly to us to correct these ideas. So we ask you to follow our Instagram page just so you can know when these webinars are happening. And you can also look at past recordings of these webinars because we cannot defend something that we don't even understand ourselves. So it's really important to stay sharp and stay informed. So, and wherever you are in your own world, please make sure you are engaged in some type of activity to defend the AES, you know So my last question for you and this is actually a question that my co-host and co-producer Della

Generally asks at the end of her interviews and because she is on maternity leave I thought it would be maybe fitting for me to throw this question in there because I know that she would probably have loved to ask it. So the show is called Upstream because of a metaphor where you see a bunch of bodies floating down the river and you can jump in and save those bodies. And of course we should be doing that. But at some point somebody has to go upstream and find the root cause of where those bodies are coming from. And it's a bit of a morbid metaphor, but it's also, I think, really an important frame to look at the challenges that we face through. And so when we look at the

root causes of the problems that are facing Africa today, and we go upstream, what do you see as those upstream root causes of those challenges? The root causes faced by, 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.

All the problems we face as African people is because of that event, the colonization of Africa. We have been occupied for 600 years. And the occupation of Africa has led to countless conflicts throughout the world. Because like I said earlier, Africa provides the resources that serve as the backbone of the capitalist system.

That means if you want to destroy that system, if you're apparently an anti-capitalist or an anti-impeerist or a 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 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. Right? That is something, you know, I think it's hard, you know, after 600 years of being, you know, oppressed, it's time to hard to see the importance of Africa, the importance of the African revolution. It's hard to see us as freedom fighters and liberators. But the reality is like every single conflict on this planet today cannot be resolved

if Africa is not free. And I think of what is happening in occupied Palestine. Where does the strength of the so-called Israeli government come from? If not from the looting of the Congo, right? You liberate the Congo. That means you deplete this thing called Israel from its strength. Right?

So we have to recognize that Africa has to be free if we are to end all the other conflicts on this planet. Right? When Ahmed Sekou Turri said, if you liberate Africa, you liberate humanity. It was not just saying it because it sounds nice. It is an actual scientific truth, right? It is only when Africa will be totally liberated and united under socialist government that we will be able to put an end to all of the conflicts and all of the suffering on

earth. So if you want to liberate humanity, if you want to address all of our collective problem, we have to fight for Africa's liberation. We have to fight for Africa's liberation. elimination of imperialism in Africa. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this, and it also allows us to provide most of our content for free so that we can continue to offer political education podcasts to the public and to build our movement. For more from us, visit upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media at Upstream Podcast.

You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, please give us a 5-star rating and review. This really helps to get Upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. Thank you. I'm going home Oh