Across Africa, a new kind of leadership is taking shape: defiant, grounded, and unshaken by imperial pressure. At its heart stands Captain Ibrahim Traoré, interim president of Burkina Faso, who has become a symbol of African resistance and revolutionary renewal. Traoré is not just pushing back against Western hegemony. He’s reviving the radical legacy of African socialism, calling for sovereignty, class struggle, and liberation from neocolonial domination.
In an era dominated by foreign military bases, structural adjustment, and propaganda dressed up as aid, Traoré is tearing off the mask and saying what many have long known but few dared to voice: Africa is not free. But it can be.
While most leaders play by the West’s rules, Traoré is changing the script. During Russia’s 2025 Victory Day, he made headlines not just for his presence, but for his words:
“What we are experiencing is not terrorism. It is imperialism.”
This wasn’t just a rhetorical flourish. It was a direct challenge to the global narrative. Western powers have long labeled resistance in the Sahel as terrorism, justifying drone strikes, foreign troop deployments, and resource extraction under the guise of security. But Traoré names the system for what it is: exploitation, imposed from abroad, enforced through violence, and disguised in humanitarian language.
The empire is not amused. It is afraid.
General Michael Langley, the head of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), has publicly stated that African leaders spreading “disinformation” are becoming a major problem. But let’s be honest. What they call disinformation is often just truth told from an African perspective. It’s not misinformation they fear. It’s mass awakening.
And the media has joined the offensive. BBC, CNN, and France24 push a narrative where any African country that rejects Western control is “falling under Russian influence.” It’s the same playbook used on Cuba, Venezuela, and now, Burkina Faso.
The real fear is that Africans might begin to think, organize, and act for themselves.
Nowhere is this panic more visible than in France. In early 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out, complaining that African nations no longer appreciate France’s “help,” and claimed that without French intervention, Sahelian countries would have lost their sovereignty.
The backlash was immediate.
Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Chad all responded with defiance. Captain Traoré called Macron’s words an insult, while Senegal’s Ousmane Sonko reminded him that African soldiers had died for France in World War II. Chad’s foreign minister labeled Macron’s comments contemptuous.
The message was clear. Africa is no longer France’s backyard.
Traoré’s rise is not a fluke. It’s the return of a political tradition rooted in the continent’s revolutionary past. He draws directly from the playbook of Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s martyred icon who pushed for self-sufficiency, land reform, women’s liberation, and anti-imperialist solidarity before being assassinated in a CIA-linked coup.
Like Sankara, Traoré is asking hard questions:
“Sixty years of foreign aid, and our people are still starving. Where did the money go?”
His answer is simple. Into the pockets of comprador elites and Western banks.
By rejecting IMF loans and foreign military presence, Traoré is asserting that real liberation means breaking with systems designed to keep Africa poor, divided, and dependent.
This message echoes far beyond Burkina Faso. It speaks to the global Black struggle a connection that Malcolm X articulated decades ago. In his historic speeches, Malcolm warned that the fight for civil rights in the U.S. was inseparable from the broader fight against colonialism and imperialism abroad.
“You can’t have capitalism without racism,” Malcolm said. “And you can’t have freedom if your homeland is controlled by foreign powers.”
lilSatoshi13
Rukungiri
