this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
170 points (98.3% liked)
Communism
2649 readers
19 users here now
Welcome to the communist Lemmy community! This is a community for all Marxist.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Does anyone know of any legitimate criticisms of Sankara? Or even illegitimate ones that can be disproven? My exposure to him is fairly minimal, but everything ive heard about him is just over the top positive.
I'm not trying to cut down decolonizers either, but often criticisms are reflective of the material obstacles and struggles that a leader or movement faced. I'm sure there are some good histories out there and I would take any recommendations people have. But just given my own nature, ive found I can get into a particular history better by starting with the negative.
Had he survived, he would have had to struggle against counter-revolutionaries, resulting in similar allegations of authoritarianism that other AES leaders that do survive go through.
He (and his government) were accused of arresting political opponents, putting political opponents through show trials, requiring people to prove their innocence when on trial, not allowing defendants to be represented by counsel, and of issuing summary punishments to some groups of protestors.
In a brief search, I could confirm arresting political opponents (not speaking to whether there was cause), and denying defendants a lawyer (not illegal in Burkina Faso, just "against international standards").
Religious intolerance?
Religion relies on hierarchies, he opposed hierarchies.
He was big into Ubuntu (the philosophy, not the distro) wasn't he? My limited understanding is that it goes hand in hand with liberation theology.