BURKINA FASO

 

Area:  105,869 square miles

Population:  13,902,972 (2006 estimate)

Capital:  Ouagadougou (pop. 962,100 - 2003 estimate)

Ethnic Groups:  Mossi (over 40%), Gurunsi, Senufo, Lobi, Bobo, Mande, Fulani  

Languages:  Mooré and a variety of Mande languages, French (official)

Religions:  Islam ((50%), indigenous beliefs (40%), Christian (mainly Roman Catholic, 15%)

Literacy:  27% (2003 estimate)

Industry:  Food processing, textiles, chemicals

Export Crops:  Cotton, shea nuts, livestock, vegetables

Food Crops:  Sorghum, millet, corn, beans, rice, peanuts

 

Historically, the country now known as Burkina Faso flourished as the Mossi States, a confederation of seven states that was a powerful empire in West Africa from the 11th to the 19th centuries. The most powerful Mossi kingdom, Ouagadougou, was founded in the late 15th century. In the 16th century, the Mossi expanded northward into the Sahel, but the armies of Sunni Ali, emperor of the Songhai empire, repelled them. Neither Sunni Ali nor his successor, Askia Muhammad, however, was able to convince the Ouagadougou king, the mogho naaba, to convert to Islam. Although many Mossi traders eventually did convert, the Volta region has remained less Islamized than the rest of the Sahel.   

 

During the European “Scramble for Africa” in the late 19th century, France conquered the regions to the east, west, and north of the Mossi kingdoms, and in 1896 they defeated Ouagadougou’s Mossi army and burned down most of the city. In 1898 Upper Volta - named by the French after its three major rivers - the Black Volta, the White Volta, and the Red Volta - became part of the French West African Federation. Although the French officially ended slavery in 1901, they forced tens of thousands of Voltaics to labor in cotton fields and construction sites and conscripted others into the military. These policies and a harsh system of taxation provoked revolts throughout the colony, ranging from a 2000-person anti-tax march in Ouagadougou in 1908 to a series of village revolts west of Bobo-Dioulasso in 1915-1916.

 

Upper Volta achieved independence from France in 1960.  The first president was Maurice Yaméogo, whose political party, the Union Démocratique Voltaique (UDV), quickly banned organized opposition.  In 1966 the military overthrew the Yaméogo regime, and a new government was formed under the presidency of Colonel Sangoulé Lamizana. The country experienced a devastating drought from 1969 to 1974, which brought widespread famine and hardship to the rural population. On November 25, 1980, Colonel Sayé Zerbo led a bloodless coup that toppled Lamizana. In turn, Major Jean-Baptist Ouèdraogo ousted Zerbo in 1982.

 

In 1983 Captain Thomas Sankara, at age 33 the youngest and most revolutionary of Upper Volta’s military rulers, staged a coup and seized power. In 1984 he changed the country's name to Burkina Faso, meaning "the land of upright people" in the Mooré language. He cut the wages of top civil servants (including his own) and donated all the government’s luxury cars to the national lottery, using the proceeds for public spending. An outspoken proponent of women’s liberation, Sankara appointed five women to ministerial posts, launched a campaign against female circumcision, and initiated changes in family law. He imbued people with a spirit of activism and national pride. Between 1983 and 1986, over 350 communities built schools with their own labor, and the education of school-age children increased by one-third to 22%.  Furthermore, the GNP rose from an average of 3.1% per annum to 4.6% per annum, making Burkina Faso one of the few countries in Africa to enjoy per capita GNP growth during the 1980s.

 

Although Sankara’s investments in schools, clinics, and food production brought improvements in the living standards of most Burkinabè, he alienated traditional Mossi leaders by pledging to eliminate feudalism and patriarchy. His alignment with the left-wing governments of Cuba, Libya, and North Korea, his rejection of World Bank loan conditions, and his promise to “fight against the forces of neo-colonialism and imperialist domination” led to many businesses leaving the country and a decline of foreign investment. Eventually labor unions turned against Sankara because of his harsh treatment of striking workers. In late 1987, a group of junior officers seized power and shot Sankara outside Ouagadougou. The new junta, headed by Sankara’s close friend and ally, Captain Blaise Compaoré, son-in-law of the late Houphouët-Boigny, long-time president of Côte d'Ivoire, immediately began reversing Sankara's socialist policies and programs. A new constitution paved the way for elections in 1991, which Compaoré won easily, although opposition parties boycotted the elections and less than a quarter of the population voted. Compaoré was reelected president in 1998. A coup against him failed in 2003. In 2005 he was reelected president for the third time.

 

Burkina Faso is a land-locked country of the Sahel bordered by Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d'lvoire. The country’s main rivers, formerly known as the Black Volta, the White Volta, and the Red Volta, are the Mouhoun, Nakambe, and Nazinon. All of them flow into the world's largest artificial lake - Lake Volta in Ghana. Unfortunately, these rivers attract black flies which transmit river blindness disease (onchocerciasis). As a result until recently, the country had the world's highest incidence of this disease. The World Health Organization's 18-year-old black fly spraying program has succeeded beyond expectations as new incidences of the disease have virtually disappeared. There has also been a major breakthrough in the treatment of the disease with the introduction of a new drug called mectizan.

 

Despite being one the world's 25 poorest countries according to United Nations income statistics, Burkina Faso has played a remarkable role in the development of African cinema. Since 1969 Burkina Faso has hosted the Festival Pan-Africain du Cinéma à Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the premiere showcase of African cinema held in the capital city every other year. The idea for the African film festival came out of a 1968 meeting of 15 friends in Ouagadougou. The group, which included celebrated Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, met to discuss their frustrations over the quantity and social quality of African movies. According to one of the founding members, the goal of FESPACO was to “decolonize African cinema.” The success of the festival can be attributed to the political and cultural commitment of Burkina Faso. In the 1960s, the Burkinabè government nationalized all movie theatres, giving the state more control over showing African films, a courageous political decision since it challenged France’s cultural and economic grip over its former colony at a time when movie theatres were still owned by French companies. Two organizations, the Société National Voltaique de Cinéma (SONAVOCI) and the Centre National du Cinéma (CNC), were established in 1970 and 1977, respectively, to promote national cinema in Burkina Faso. In the 1980s President Sankara was the only African leader who was wholeheartedly committed to the development of African cinema. He had a strong vision for Africa and its culture and for black African films "as a bridge between nations and peoples." Burkinabè filmmakers such as Idrissa Quédraogo, Gaston Kaboré, Dani Kouyaté, Fanta Régina Nacro, Apolline Traoré, and others are well known throughout the world for their outstanding films.

 

SOURCES:

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. “Burkina Faso,” Microsoft Encarta Africana: Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture. CD Set. Microsoft Corporation, 1999.

“Burkina Faso,” Culturgram ’99, David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, Brigham Young University, 1998.

“Burkina Faso,” Lycos Worldwide:  www.infoplease.lycos.com/ipa/A0107369.html, 2007.

Diawara, Manthia.  African Cinema: Politics and Culture.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.

Newton, Alex, and David Else.  West Africa.  Berkeley: Lonely Planet Publications, 1995.

Oliver, Roland, and Michael Crowder.  The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Sawadogo, Gérémie, and Alisha Jacobsen, “African Festival Promotes Native Work, The Christian Science Monitor, March 3, 1995.

Ukadike, Nwachukwu Frank.  Black African Cinema.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

 

Compiled by Mary Holmström and updated in 2007.

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