Poutine cites Sankara in Moscow: anti-colonialism in campaign clothes

According to Courrier international, which reports on the African press, Vladimir Poutine appropriated on Wednesday 28 October, at the Russia-Africa summit in Moscow, the memory and words of Thomas Sankara. The Russian president used them to denounce Western financial "neocolonialism". Still according to Courrier international, this appropriation aims to consolidate Moscow's influence on the continent, and African commentators promptly pointed out its diplomatic ulterior motives and paradoxes. The dossier says nothing more: we do not know the exact passages quoted or the reaction of the delegations present. What follows is therefore our reading, not a statement of fact.

Let us begin with what is right. The underlying diagnosis is hardly exotic. Poor countries are not "behind": their economies were shaped to supply raw materials, cheap labour and outlets to the centre, and debt servicing along with conditional loans lock that place in position. Sankara said so with a clarity that still stings, even when it is quoted out of context. That Washington, Paris or the IMF are poorly placed to take offence is beyond doubt.

But here is the paradox, and it is a big one: one does not become Sankara's heir by pronouncing his name from a palace. Amílcar Cabral laid down a simple criterion. A struggle that does not aim to free national productive forces may well oppose imperialism, but it is not fighting for national liberation (our translation, "L'arme de la théorie"). The test is not rhetoric, it is the transformation of the economic structure. Yet a partner that offers another outlet for the same raw materials does not necessarily change the continent's place in the international division of labour. It changes the buyer, not the relationship.

Cabral also warned against "pseudo-indigenous bourgeoisies" maintained by imperialist aid, dependent on international capital. The remark applies to every power in search of allies: a local elite that trades one tutelage for another keeps the same apparatus and merely changes flag on the contracts. Fanon added that national liberation opens onto universal values; it does not amount to choosing one's master.

It would nonetheless be lazy to dismiss the summit with a wave of the hand. African states are not extras: multiplying partners is also a rational way of loosening the vice, and distrust of Moscow must not serve as an alibi for those who, in Paris or elsewhere, have kept their privileges. But the question posed by the African commentators cited by Courrier international is the right one: what remains of Sankara once you strip out food sovereignty, the refusal of debt and the break with the elites? A quotation, and a communiqué.

Sankara called for refusing to repay a debt deemed illegitimate. We will wait and see which partner, in Moscow or elsewhere, dares to draw the consequences for its own loans.