Continued……. The West has long employed neocolonial methods to maintain its control over resources. Global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank require ‘reforms’ that create dependency in exchange for loans. Multinationals exploit weak regulations. Imperialist intervention is camouflaged as ‘peacekeeping.’ France, in particular, maintains a grip on former colonies through the CFA franc, mining deals and military bases.

Burkina Faso, now under the leadership of President Ibrahim Traoré, has become a star of African resistance. Traoré follows in the footsteps of assassinated Burkinabé President Thomas Sankara (1949-87) by nationalising assets, driving out French troops and forging alliances outside of the Western bloc.

Increasing African cohesion and resource ownership is an existential threat to neocolonialism. The West has never wanted an organised, self-ruling Africa, as seen with the assassinations of figures like Democratic Republic of the Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925-61), Sankara, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011).

Nowadays, the pan-Africanism ideology is becoming more popular due to social media, AI art, local knowledge systems, and a growing refusal to accept exploitation. Images are tools of resistance and blueprints for a future where Africans determine their fate.

Burkina Faso's audacity is not just in reclaiming gold. It’s about refusing to be ruled by extraction economics. It’s about asserting a future where Africa’s resources serve African people.

Image credit: @osoriaasibor (X)

Sources

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/multinational-companies-reaping-from-africas-natural-resources-including-from-illicit-financial-flows-while-locals-benefit-only-marginally-says-columnist

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784064

https://www.cadtm.org/Africa-How-France-Continues-to-Dominate-Its-Former-Colonies-in-Africa

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business-tech/how-world-profits-from-africa-s-wealth--1366950#:~:text=The%20report%20contends%20that%20while%2043%20per,pushing%20economic%20models%20that%20fuel%20poverty%20and

https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/%28E%29%20AfricanBank%202007%20Ch4.pdf

https://sdg-action.org/from-resource-curse-to-blessing-harnessing-africas-green-minerals

https://internationalmagz.com/articles/legacy-of-revolutionary-thomas-sankara

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/04/29/747066/new-dawn-sahel-president-traore-burkina-faso-anti-imperialist-rebirth

https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00092614.html

https://www.eurasiareview.com/03032025-the-west-fears-its-losing-africa-oped

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=431249871747507

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-west-afraid-of-united-Africa

https://thehill.com/opinion/4879564-africa-sahel-geopolitics-alliance

https://www.africanews.com/2024/07/07/coup-hit-nations-of-niger-mali-and-burkina-faso-form-sahel-alliance

https://theconversation.com/how-new-media-platforms-have-become-powerful-across-africa-107294

https://www.socialistalternative.org/2024/10/17/youth-revolt-sweeps-africa/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah

PAN-AFRICANS WORLDWIDE RALLY FOR TRAORÉ

It’s become increasingly clear that the West has its sights on Ibrahim Traoré - and Africans around the world are rallying to protect him. Two recent developments have put people on heightened alert: news of another coup attempt in Burkina Faso, and slanderous remarks against its revolutionary president in the US senate - in what looks like part of a propaganda campaign to tarnish his reputation. There’s also the fact the Pentagon is in talks with Ivory Coast, Burkina’s neighbour, which Ouagadougou has long suspected as a centre of malign plots against it. Be it in the streets of Ghana, of Italy or of the UK, the pan-African spirit of resistance has been on display globally as fears of a US intervention in Burkina Faso to topple Traoré grow. The message is clear: we will not allow them to do what they did to Thomas Sankara!

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-65mz3__d8

https://mimimefoinfos.com/pan-africanist-kemi-seba-rallies-support-for-ibrahim-traore-ahead-of-major-demonstration-in-burkina-faso/amp/

https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/general_langley_opening_statements.pdf

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/04/10/meet-ibrahim-traore-burkina-fasos-retro-revolutionary

https://wacsi.org/a-resounding-ovation-what-ibrahim-traores-reception-reveals-about-the-youths-perception-of-leadership/

https://www.trt.global/afrika-english/article/03eb4ce7df6c

https://www.tiktok.com/discover/akon-hails-ibrahim-traor%C3%A9-in-new-song

Continued….. Former army members have long contended that the stop was not coincidental. Just days prior, the FBI-led Joint Anti-Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) had issued an All Points Bulletin (APB) seeking ‘a Black woman with possibly two male companions.’

Sundiata Acoli was driving, Assata Shakur sat in the front passenger seat, and Zayd Malik Shakur was in the rear. After requesting identification from Acoli and claiming inconsistencies, Harper ordered him to step out and moved to question him behind the vehicle.

What followed remains disputed. A gunfight broke out, during which Zayd Malik Shakur was k*lled instantly. Assata Shakur was shot while raising her hands and later wounded. Acoli fled the scene but was later apprehended. 

Despite Harper admitting to having shot and k*lled Zayd, police charged Assata and Acoli with the murder of Foerster. Assata was also charged with killing Zayd.

In 1979, Black Liberation Army members helped Assata escape prison. She was later granted political asylum in Cuba, where she has lived since 1984. In 2013, the Obama administration named Shakur 'Most Wanted T*rrorist,' placing a $2 million bounty on her and making our elder sister the first woman to appear on the FBI's list.

Acoli was released in May 2022 after serving nearly 50 years in prison.

We hail these Black liberation fighters.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/10/sundiata-acoli-black-panthers-released-prison

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/05/03/archives/panther-trooper-slain-in-shootout-woman-sought-in-killing-of.html

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/joanne-deborah-chesimard

https://blackagendareport.com/content/not-your-daddys-cointelpro-obama-brands-assata-shakur-most-wanted-terrorist

Continued……The outpouring of solidarity came in response to 3 April slanderous comments by the US military’s top commander in Africa, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) General Michael Langley, who alleged that Traoré is misusing Burkina Faso’s gold to protect himself at the people’s expense. Langley’s remarks fuelled fears of a US intervention in the Sahel, which has broken away from Western control since recent people-backed coups d’état in the three countries. But the people, both on the continent and in the diaspora, refused to stay silent.

The massive support for the self-determining Sahel states and Traoré, in particular, proves that the revolution to achieve a dignified and sovereign Africa increasingly resonates with people on the continent and in the diaspora. 

The message throughout the pro-Traoré rallies was NEVER AGAIN! Never again will we allow imperialists and neo-colonialists to threaten and come for our Pan-African leaders working to emancipate our motherland.

Photo credits: @burkinabooks (IG), @afrilivesmatter (X), @_AfricanSoil (X), @PeoplesDispatch (X), @BOSS__Alexander (X)

Sources

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJEyPdnN9DO/

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/18/sahel-diaspora-groups-rally-in-support-of-aes-and-to-challenge-europes-media-colonialism/

https://apnews.com/article/burkina-faso-protest-ibrahim-traore-coup-attempt-langley-9c2b167d2516c1fcbe5a3acd558bcc9f

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-65mz3__d8

https://mimimefoinfos.com/pan-africanist-kemi-seba-rallies-support-for-ibrahim-traore-ahead-of-major-demonstration-in-burkina-faso/amp/

https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/general_langley_opening_statements.pdf

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/04/10/meet-ibrahim-traore-burkina-fasos-retro-revolutionary

https://wacsi.org/a-resounding-ovation-what-ibrahim-traores-reception-reveals-about-the-youths-perception-of-leadership/

https://www.trt.global/afrika-english/article/03eb4ce7df6c

VIC MENSA: RECLAIM THE NARRATIVE

Africa has been inaccurately represented for over 500 years on maps, obscuring Africa’s wealth and size to advance white-supremacist interests, according to rapper Vic Mensa in this recent clip from a talk at Harvard University.

A Flemish geographer and cartographer named Gerardus Mercator created the now-infamous Mercator projection, a flat map in 1569. But it wasn’t just a tool of navigation—it was a weapon. By massively enlarging Europe and shrinking Africa, it created a visual lie that still shapes global consciousness today

Continued……. The Western narrative goes that Africa was on the periphery of world events, a silent bystander to Europe’s development of the modern world, the Americas and Asia. But history tells a different story. Africa was not merely watching the birth of the modern world; it was the beating heart of it. The insatiable European hunger for African gold and enslaved Africans directly drove the colonisation of the Americas. Therefore, the European Slave Trade was not a divergence but a building block of the global economy. Global capitalism was not born in London or Paris, but on the backs of Africa’s stolen people and stolen wealth.

Colonial theft didn’t end with independence ceremonies and new flags. It evolved. France extorted billions from Haiti, the world’s first Black republic, through forced reparations until 1947 for ousting enslavers in 1804. Centuries of Western interventions, occupations, extortion and coups d’état have prevented Haiti from being a sovereign country.

Foreign corporations also control most major gold mines in resource-rich Ghana. 

Fourteen French-speaking countries still use the CFA franc in West and Central Africa despite minor reforms in 2019 that only scratched the surface, unlike what Mensa mentioned.

Video credit: @vicmensa via IG

Sources

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/18/africa/real-size-of-africa/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/17/haiti-france-reparations-independence-ransom-anniversary

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/mercator-projection-distortion-map-africa/401543/

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/11/8/west-african-cfa-franc-nations-plan-to-move-reserves-from-france

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/gerardus-mercator

https://www.tresor.economie.gouv.fr/tresor-international/la-zone-franc/les-principes-et-modalites-de-fonctionnement-de-la-cooperation-monetaire

https://ambafrance.org/Monetary-cooperation-between-Africa-and-France-the-CFA-franc

https://www.mincom.gov.gh/operating-mines

PAN-AFRICANISM, GADDAFI’S DREAM, LIVES ON

Merely four days after the NATO-backed rebel overthrow of Pan-African icon and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011), The Atlantic raised questions about his quest to unify the continent.

Author G Pascal Zachary wrote in the magazine that Pan-Africanism was a ‘simple-minded political ideology that for the past 50 years or so has done more harm than good for Africa’s standing in the world.’

The central argument is that Pan-Africanism is incompatible with Africa’s diversity, making the idea of forced unity impractical and damaging. The article argues that in the pursuit of Pan-Africanism, ‘minorities and ethnic groups both within countries and across borders lost their voices, their identities, and their futures.’

Why the Atlantic maintains this position is a mystery, considering the success of the European Union despite the diversity across the subcontinent, from Spain to Romania. Why would Africa be any different?

Continued……Finally, how do Gaddafi’s achievements stack up when contrasted against present-day Libya? His administration took Libya from one of the poorest countries in Africa to the continent’s most prosperous. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy in Africa. Libyans enjoyed free healthcare and free electricity. However, by 2023, the country’s critical infrastructure was nearly collapsing due to a lack of upkeep when a tropical cyclone came through, wrecking the infrastructure further. Libya went from a bastion of solidarity for African sovereignty under Gaddafi to a fractured state hosting open-air slave markets.

Fortunately, Pan-Africanism doesn’t need The Atlantic’s blessing to advance. Nearly 14 years after the article was published, we see the ideology in action, manifested by the Alliance of Sahel States (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger). Gaddafi’s dream is alive and well.

Original headline: @theatlantic

Sources
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/10/as-qaddafi-died-so-did-his-craziest-dream-and-mistake-pan-africanism/247247

https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/eu-countries_en

https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/20/ten-years-on-since-the-death-of-gaddafi-how-stable-is-libya-today

https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/5-countries-with-the-cheapest-electricity-in-the-world-1225059

https://manaramagazine.org/2021/03/libya-a-decade-after-gaddafis-fall

https://en.topwar.ru/117638-kaddafi-zolotoy-vek-livii-i-ee-krovavoe-nastoyaschee.html

https://abuummusulaim.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/the-rise-and-fall-of-muammar-gaddafi-achievements-challenges-and-lessons

https://tradingeconomics.com/libya/access-to-electricity-percent-of-population-wb-data.html

https://ambrelia.com/en/2019/04/healthcare-in-libya

https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/rebuilding-libyas-health-care-system

GADDAFI SPOKESMAN DEFENDS TRAORE

As the West increasingly feels threatened by the revolutionary process underway in the Sahel, Africans worldwide have come out in firm defence of the motherland. 

Adding to the mix of voices in support of Burkina Faso’s revolution is the assassinated Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s (1942-2011) spokesperson, Moussa Ibrahim. If there is someone as well versed on the West’s schemes against Africa, it would be Ibrahim, as he witnessed NATO dismantle Africa’s once-most prosperous country, fracturing it and turning the North African country into an open-air slave market, far from the bastion of African progress it represented under Gaddafi. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) General Michael Langley accusing Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré of using gold his government reclaimed from foreign companies to protect his ‘junta regime’ is the same old play to manufacture consent for an invasion, Ibrahim argues. 

Continued……Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formed the Alliance of Sahel States on 6 July 2024 after successfully ousting Western-aligned leaders following people-backed coups d’état. Since then, they have cooperated on defence, economics, and foreign policy, and launched an AES passport. They are also working on creating a sovereign currency. The goal is to form a federal state encompassing their territories, with the dream of eventually uniting the African continent under one people-oriented governance.

Ibrahim listed the revolutionary leaders Africa has lost to imperial machinations, including the assassinated Democratic Republic of the Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) and ousted Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72).

Africans must unite and stand together in defence of Burkina Faso if we are to successfully repel the imperialist onslaught against Burkina Faso, no less with a Black face leading the charge, a sad parallel with US President Barack Obama’s ouster of Gaddafi.

Video credit: @_moussa_ibrahim (X)

Sources
https://iloveafrica.com/u-s-general-accuses-traore/

https://www.mironline.ca/nato-gaddafi-and-the-arab-spring/

https://www.rt.com/africa/589422-africa-burkina-faso-france/

https://historyheist.com/the-cia-directed-murder-of-patrice-lumumba-the-first-elected-prime-minister-of-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-who-sought-independence-from-belgium/

https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ctwqxx/v38y2017i9p2045-2065.html

https://www.africason.com/2015/02/kwame-nkrumah-cia-coup-and-destruction.html