"
• I
S�a: Today, after a year and a half of revolution, we note
that we have not succeeded in - at least we ha not com­
pleted - carryiDg out the materjal transformatio . Yet we
, can pride 0llI'Selves on having constructed schoo clinics,
and dams, b . roads, ina-eased our farmland, d carried
out reforestation. We can Do take pride in having provided .
housing for the people. But this is not enough. Mucli more
remains to be done.
The most important thing for us, however, is not wh t is Ia
ing. Most important is the effort we have made to transfo m
, people's attitudes. With this transformati n each one of us
now fee that wielding power is his business, that the des- .
tiny of Bur' Paso is the business not just certain people
but of all Burkinabe. Everyone has something to say. Each
one of us deman an accounting from the other. ever
again will � be done as before. No longer will the wealth
of our country belong to a minority. his wealth belongs to
the majority, a majority that speaks its mind
o 0
Though our men have already reached the edges of this great
garden that is the revolution, our women are still confined
within the sha of anonymity. Among themselves, in
voices loud or soft, the talk of the hope that have embraced
Burkina - hopes that are, for them, still merely fine words .
. The revolution's promise is already a reality for men. But for
women, it is still merely a rumor. And yet the authenticity
and the futute of our revohrti n depend on women .
... inequality can only be done away with by establishing a ne
society, where men and women will enjoy equal righ . result­
ing from an upheaval in the .. means of production and in all
social relations. Thus, the status of women will impro nly
with the elimination of the system that expl its them.
Emancipati n, like freedon, is Dot granted but conquered. It
. for women themselves to put forward their demands and
mobilize to win them.
0. e.���I •
... the battle against the naoachment of the desert . battle
to establish a balance between man, nature, and society ... a
battle that' above all political, one outcome is DOt
�rmined by fate." "
... our struggle to defend the trees and the forest is first and
foremost a democratic struggle that must be waged by the
peop e. The sterile and expensive exciteme of a handful of
engineers and forestry experts will accomplish nothiag! Nor
can the tender consciences of multitude qf forums and in­
stitutions - sincere and pra' worthy though they may be -
make the Sabel green again, when lack the funds to drill
wells for drinking water just a hundred meters deep, and
money abounds to drill oil weDs three meters deep!
As Karl Marx said, those who live in a palace do n think
abo the same things, not in the same y, as those who live
in a but. This struggle to defend the trees "and the forest .
above all a struggle against imperialism. Imperialism' the
pyromaniac setting fife to our forests and savannah.
ion 0 Pat