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Kompass

Thinkers and political figures

Photograph of Thomas Sankara in a beret, Harlem, 1984.

Portrait: Photograph, 1984, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Thomas Sankara

Country
Burkina Faso
Era
1949–1987
Tradition
Revolutionary socialism, Pan-Africanism

Army captain who took power at thirty-three, renamed Upper Volta "Burkina Faso", banned female genital mutilation and forced marriage, vaccinated 2.5 million children in a week, and was assassinated four years later.

01

Documented positions

Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.

  • Banned female genital mutilation, forced marriage and polygamy, and appointed women to senior government posts
  • Vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a single week
  • Sold the government fleet of Mercedes and made the cheapest available car the official ministerial vehicle, and cut his own salary
  • Redistributed land from traditional chiefs to peasant farmers and achieved wheat self-sufficiency within three years
  • Called on African states to repudiate their foreign debt collectively, arguing it was a continuation of colonialism
  • Planted over ten million trees to arrest desertification, and made ecology an explicit state priority
  • Banned trade unions and the free press, and used revolutionary tribunals against political opponents
02

Where it sits on each dimension

Wealth and inequality

6

Evidence: Well documented

The state in the economy

12

Evidence: Well documented

Personal liberty

22

Evidence: Well documented

Tradition and change

92

Evidence: Well documented

Nation and the world

66

Evidence: Well documented

Power and its limits

18

Evidence: Well documented

Environment and growth

84

Evidence: Well documented

Crime and punishment

35

Evidence: Documented

Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Religion and the state

Sources

  • Thomas Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983–87 · 1988
  • Ernest Harsch, Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary · Ohio University Press · 2014

Last verified: