TRAORÉ CHAMPIONS TRADITIONAL FABRICS

Burkina Faso’s revolution is not restricted to politics. The country is shedding colonial symbols in favour of genuine African culture - including when it comes to dress and grooming.

Judges and lawyers are now required to wear gowns made using locally produced fabrics. Similarly, school children are being encouraged to wear locally made uniforms.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Burkina Faso imported $35 million in used clothes and textile articles in 2023. It’s hoped that switching to local fabrics will support businesses and create jobs. Another aim is to instil national pride and a sense of shared identity.

The initiative harks back to when Burkina's late leader, Thomas Sankara (1949-1987), popularised the local Faso Dan Fani fabric as a revolutionary symbol.

Continued…….. With so many vibrant outfits all over Africa, we should heed Burkina Faso’s inspiring example and proudly wear our traditional attire.

Video credit: WODE MAYA

Sources

https://www.aib.media/regions/2023/04/29/burkina-adoption-dun-decret-pour-valoriser-les-tissus-traditionnels/

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2025/04/wait-it-is-not-about-wigs-the-story-of-faso-dan-fani-court-robes-in-burkina-faso/#:~:text=The%20New%20Look%20for%20Justice,made%20from%20Faso%20Dan%20Fani.

https://www.aib.media/boulkiemde-education-les-eleves-de-lecole-primaire-de-soula-sensibilises-au-port-du-faso-dan-fani/

https://ethicalfashioninitiative.org/stories/faso-danfani

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAFMk1O6Ycs

https://www.si.edu/object/faso-dan-fani-marka-textiles-burkina-faso-genevieve-hill-thomas%3Asiris_sil_1083857#:~:text=Summary,into%20sets%20of%20striped%20cloth.

https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/used-clothes-and-textile-articles/reporter/bfa

The US has just welcomed a first batch of White South African ‘refugees.’ Donald Trump invited them over to escape an alleged gen*cide against the community back home. There are many ways to debunk this nonsense from the US president. Our image is a simple compare-and-contrast exercise. At the bottom, you can see the new arrivals to the US. Above that is a picture of real victims of gen*cide in eastern Congo.

The ongoing resource war in the DRC has persisted for three decades, involving over 120 armed groups, many backed by foreign powers, with the largest of them all backed by Rwanda. The human toll has been catastrophic. Between 1998 and 2010, approximately six million Congolese lives were lost.

Continued……. More than seven million people have been displaced, and countless women and girls have been subjected to acts of sexual violence. According to Congolese activists, the conflict in Congo is the deadliest since World War II. In January 2025, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group launched a fresh offensive. Over 7,000 individuals have reportedly been killed this year alone.

Let’s compare that to the experience of White South Africans. Farmers in particular are said to be persecuted. In the past decade, there have been about 50 farm murders a year in South Africa. Police data reveals that, in 2024, there were 44 murders recorded on farms and smaller agricultural plots, with eight of the victims being farmers. White South Africans make up 7% of the country’s population, yet they own over 70% of its commercial farmland, largely acquired during the apartheid era. This disparity exemplifies privilege.

Trump's offer of asylum came after South Africa introduced a new expropriation law. This allows for land seizures in certain, very limited circumstances as part of efforts to address historical injustices faced by Black South Africans. When will Trump invite Congolese refugees stateside?

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crljn5046epo

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/21/a-guide-to-the-decades-long-conflict-in-dr-congo

https://x.com/trtworld/status/1891713201529585939?t=fzTl_dqH4ZpCPa3HtAkfwA&s=19

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/24/fighting-in-eastern-drc-kills-about-7000-people-since-january-pm-says

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1162991

https://archive.ph/dVv4T#selection-1985.451-1985.501

https://archive.ph/Ve1ow

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crljn5046epo

https://www.dw.com/en/white-south-africans-leave-for-us-under-trump-refugee-plan/a-72511336

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyj1198wy3o

TRAORÉ: 'STOP USING BLACK PEOPLE AGAINST BLACK PEOPLE'

Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré laid it out for US Africa Command (AFRICOM) General Michael Langley: Stop betraying Black people. 

He gave such comments during an interview with news outlet Sputnik Afrique on 12 May in Moscow in response to Langley’s comments on 3 April to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services that Traoré was using recently reclaimed gold reserves to protect a ‘junta regime.’ 

Langley’s claim enraged Africans worldwide, prompting video messages on social media platforms. Then, solidarity protests broke out on 30 April in Burkina Faso and worldwide, including in cities such as London, Paris, and Accra.

Continued…….. However, as Traoré pointed out in this clip, Langley is not the first Black person to work in service of imperialism, as US President Barack Obama destabilised Libya with a 2011 US-led NATO invasion.

Have you noticed Black people working as agents of Western imperialism? What other examples can you think of?

Video credit: @sputnik_afrique (X)

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlGYXGxrIHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxXZneKick

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BKBRuoYF2/

https://www.voice-online.co.uk/opinion/comment/2025/05/01/ibrahim-traore/

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/30/hands-off-aes-solidarity-protests-sweep-west-africa-in-defense-of-burkina-faso-and-captain-traore/

https://web.facebook.com/100082035526164/posts/-paris-place-de-la-république-ce-3002025-les-africains-ont-manifesté-leur-soutie/662563723154806/?_rdc=1&_rdr#

https://burkina24.com/2025/04/30/journee-mondiale-de-soutien-au-capitaine-ibrahim-traore-forte-mobilisation-au-burkina-faso/

https://www.cato.org/commentary/obama-administration-wrecked-libya-generation
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BLACK PEOPLE SILENT AT ANTI-ISRAEL PROTEST IN ATLANTA

Imagine the audacity of Black people asking other oppressed people to be respectful as they dissent.

Such was the case at a recent town hall meeting hosted by Raphael Warnock, the first Black senator elected to represent the southern US state of Georgia. 

The predominantly Black audience in Atlanta, the so-called ‘Black Mecca,' remained silent as pro-Palestine protesters intervened to point out Warnock’s hypocrisy in voting on 3 April for an additional $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel, which has bombed Gaza and blocked aid deliveries since 7 October 2023.

The majority of our people are concentrated in the southern US, which has historically been at the forefront of the Black liberation struggle and anti-war activism. 

Many refer to Atlanta as a ‘Black Mecca’ because so many of our people have found financial success there.

Continued……. However, the city’s Black petty-bourgeoisie of professionals, business owners and others who hold positions of power have joined the ruling class in oppressing the Black working class. The latest example involved Atlanta's city council in 2021 approving the construction of the $90 million Cop City, a military-grade police training facility.

As Black Agenda Report co-founder Glen Ford (1949-2021) wrote in 2017, Black consciousness drastically shifted to the right with the 2008 election of US President Barack Obama. Even former civil rights activist John Lewis (1940-2020), who helped organise the 1963 March on Washington, supported continuing to fund the 2011 US-led NATO invasion of Libya, as did 23 other members of the US House of Representatives Congressional Black Caucus.

Warnock’s vote came in the wake of Israel yet again breaking the 19 January ceasefire on the night of 17-18 March, k*lling over 130 children, the war’s largest single-day child death toll, according to UNICEF. The Lancet medical journal estimated in early July 2024 that Israel had k*lled as many as 186,000 people.

Video credit: @misanharriman (IG)

Sources

https://www.yahoo.com/news/protesters-disrupt-warnock-town-hall-142211004.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPp6Unt57h4

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/4/headlines/15_senators_vote_against_88_billion_arms_sale_to_israel

https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/05/05/protesters-disrupt-warnock-town-hall-over-israel-arms-vote/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/2/us-gives-bunker-buster-bombs-to-israel-for-war-on-gaza-report

https://www.state.gov/military-assistance-to-israel/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvne94v1rdo

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rj00ztjiakx

https://media.un.org/unifeed/en/asset/d335/d3352125

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469654751/the-legend-of-the-black-mecca

https://buildblackwealth.info/poverty-income-and-black-wealth-in-atlanta

https://citycouncil.atlantaga.gov

https://stopcop.city

https://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_legacy_deformed_black_minds

TRAORÉ BREAKS DOWN BURKINA FASO'S RAPID TRANSFORMATION

Burkina Faso has taken great leaps towards being an industrialised, self-sufficient state since President Ibrahim Traoré (@capitaineib226 on X) came to power following a people-backed coup d’état in 2022. In a recent interview with RT, he discussed changes in the 'land of the upright.'

The country has increased agricultural production for both local consumption and export, launched industrialisation of goods production, and enacted mining sector reforms that have put the country's wealth back into the people's hands.

To revolutionise agriculture, the government of Burkina Faso distributed 500 tractors to farmers in May 2024 at a 50 per cent subsidised rate. Alongside the machinery, the government distributed imported agricultural equipment worth $132 million. Over 1,400 tractors have been made available to farmers since the programme began under the new government.

Continued…….. In 2024, Burkina Faso also nationalised two gold mines, Boungou and Wahgnion, formerly owned by UK-based Endeavour Mining.

Essentially, Burkina Faso is striving to control what grows on its soil and what is valuable under its ground; critically, side-stepping foreign mining companies and international food conglomerates! Burkina Faso plans to handle its production going forward, ridding itself of the remnants of Western neo-colonialism.

Video credit: @RTenfrancais (X)

Sources

https://africa24tv.com/burkina-faso-le-gouvernement-fournit-500-tracteurs-pour-renforcer-les-capacites-des-producteurs-agricoles

https://fr.africanews.com/2024/08/28/le-burkina-nationalise-2-mines-dor-pour-resoudre-un-conflit-juridique

'KAREN' LANDLADY HARASSES TENANT

A shocking incident caught on camera has sparked outrage and deepened calls to confront systemic racism in the US housing and legal systems.

In the footage, a white landlord, Lisa Anderson (also known as Elizaveta Andersen), drops to the floor, falsely claiming that her Black tenant, Vontese Wines, assaulted her. The disturbing video shows that Wines never touched her.

Wines told CBS News that the white landlord had been harassing her monthly to coerce her to pay rent a few days early. On 1 March, Anderson appeared with someone trying to change the locks, accusing Wines of not paying rent. An attorney told CBS News that Colorado law stipulates a landlord can only charge a late fee once seven days have passed. 

The phenomenon of the so-called ‘Karens,’ white women weaponising false accusations against Black people in the US, has been recorded over the years with the rise of smartphone usage.

Continued……… In 2020, in Central Park, New York City, a white woman, later dubbed the ‘Central Park Karen,’ called the police on a Black man when he asked her to leash her dog, a New York City requirement. She pretended to be in danger and under attack. Still, luckily, he caught the whole incident on camera, showing the full incident and how she was fabricating danger to try to get him arrested or worse.

False accusations against Black individuals have historically resulted in violence and death, a fact underscored by some of the darkest chapters of US history. In 1955, a white woman accused 14-year-old Emmett Till (1941-55) of accosting her, leading to his torture and murder at the hands of a white mob. Carolyn Bryant admitted decades later that she had lied.

The gravity of such false claims cannot be overstated. They tap into the long-standing narrative of Black men as dangerous, where a simple phone call, a false narrative or a single accusation could—and still can—end a life.

Wines has since been raising money on GoFundMe to cover the cost of an attorney and other expenses related to her move to a new home.

Video credit: Vontese Wines

Sources

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-landlord-karen-throws-most-170100082.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjfKZQMHDE0

https://www.gofundme.com/f/our-story-of-dealing-with-a-traumatic-eviction

Today, 15 May, marks 55 years since police k*lled two unarmed students by unleashing more than 400 rounds of ammunition at a group of protesters at Jackson State College (now University) in Mississippi, USA. 

The victims were 21-year-old Phillip Lafayette Gibbs (top left), a junior pre-law student at the college, and 17-year-old James Earl Green (top right), a senior and track-team member at nearby Jim Hill High School. Twelve other students were wounded.

Police alleged a sniper had shot at officers from upper dormitory floors, but an FBI investigation found no evidence of sniper fire. 

Racial tensions had persisted between the historically Black college's students and White supremacists driving through Lynch Street, which cut through the campus. Tensions allegedly rose over a rumour (later proven false) that civil-rights politician Charles Evers had been assassinated. Police showed up after a student had allegedly set a dump truck on fire.

Continued…….. The 1970 k*llings reportedly occurred shortly after midnight at a protest against the US invasion of Cambodia during the US war on Vietnam.

Authorities charged no one for the Jackson State k*llings, which came 11 days after the more widely covered Kent State University shootings of four unarmed students during an anti-war protest.

Fifty-five years later, students on campuses all over the US, particularly non-White immigrant visa holders, are facing expulsions and deportations. Their crime: exercising their right to protest against the Trump administration's support for Israel's bombardment of Gaza. One example is Momodou Taal, a Cornell University student and a dual citizen of the UK and The Gambia. He had his student visa revoked over his participation in pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations. He has since left the US voluntarily. Many other students and academics are facing a crackdown by immigration authorities over their right to protest the crimes of imperialism.

Sources

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jackson-state-killings/

https://www.jsums.edu/margaretwalkercenter/gibbs-green-50th-commemoration-exhibit/the-gibbs-green-tragedy/

https://www2.kenyon.edu/Khistory/60s/massacre.htm

https://www.kent.edu/may4visitorscenter/JacksonStateTragedy

https://archive.ph/l6hD4

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/31/us/cornell-student-activist-deportation/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/us-universities-students-israel-palestine-protests

Continued……..
Sources

https://iol.co.za/capeargus/news/2025-05-05-political-tensions-rise-as-da-contests-race-quotas-in-employment-equity-amendment/

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-seeks-reform-faltering-black-empowerment-system-2024-09-23/

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/racial-divide-south-africas-economy-2024-09-23/

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/01/29/na012820six-charts-on-south-africas-persistent-and-multi-faceted-inequality

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.13173

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09538259.2024.2318962

https://www.freiheit.org/liberal-workshop-south-africa/bold-move-or-end-da-anc-and-value-added-tax-vat-strains-government

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9w4n6gp5o

https://iol.co.za/capetimes/news/2025-05-06-da-court-challenge-a-step-backward-in-the-fight-for-equality-fairness-says-minister/

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-south-africa/

THE WAYINYAN: BURKINA FASO’S NIGHTWATCH

Some people in Burkina Faso hardly sleep. Despite holding down day jobs, they spend their nights watching - for threats to the revolution. In this video, Ghanaian content creator Wode Maya (@mrghanababy on IG) meets the Wayinyan. The word means ‘Come Out’ in Mooré (one of the country’s official languages).

The Wayinyan are a determined, organised group of people who keep watch during the night, seated at strategic roundabouts in the capital Ouagadougou and key locations in other cities. They want to protect President Ibrahim Traoré, whose government recently foiled another coup attempt. The Wayinyan support the country’s security forces.

Their presence suggests a deep-rooted patriotism and commitment to national sovereignty. It reflects public support for Traoré’s anti-imperialist vision for Burkina Faso.

Continued……. Traoré’s government has faced seven destabilisation attempts since coming to power in 2022. He has accused France of supporting terrorists based in Benin, and has also pointed the finger at Ivory Coast - alleging it provides cover for malign actors targeting Burkina Faso.

Have a watch and please tell us what you think.

Video credit: @mrghanababy (IG)

Sources
https://monitortribune.com/?p=6693

https://trtafrika.com/africa/france-destabilising-burkina-faso-traore-18182858

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-blames-ivory-coast-in-foiled-coup-plot-against-junta-leader-traore/53z699w?op=1

https://x.com/african_stream/status/1920833045860397451