Unleashed Voices: Damien Glez from Burkina Faso / Cartoons & Comments!
Reflections on juntas vs democracy from a global master of art in the service of freedom from the heart of Africa ... accompanied throughout by his cartoons surveilling people, places and ideas.
For 33 years, Damien Glez has lived, worked, and drawn his stunning cartoons in its capital, Ouagadougou.
Much of his work has chronicled the rise and fall of dynasties across his continent. Indeed, since the colonial era began ending in earnest across Africa in the 1950s, some 214 coups have taken place—half of them successful—and across 45 of the 54 African nations.
Seventeen of these coups have taken place in one nation—Sudan, scene this past weekend of among the most lethal and virulent. Close behind is the tiny nation of Burkina Faso on the other side of the continent where there have actually been more successful coups (eight) than in any other country.
Born and raised in Lorraine in the northeast of France, he arrived in Ouagadougou as a French teacher in the late 1980s, married a noted Burkinabè film director, actress, marrionettist, and producer. And he just stayed on. In 1991, he cofounded the satirical weekly Journal du Jeudi, developing close ties to such renowned French cartoonists as Plantu of Le Monde and became a charter member of the great Paris-based collective Cartooning for Peace—which was how I first stumbled on him. For seven years, he illustrated brilliantly each of my columns in the quarterly World Policy Journal, as well as our Democracy cover. At the same time, he has contributed regularly to publications ranging from Rolling Stone to Jeune Afrique, and garnered innumerable awards for his art in the service of public affairs.
Now with jihadists spreading across Africa, his beloved nation of Burkina Faso in the grip of the latest in a series of military juntas, and just this month two leading French journalists—Sophie Douce of Le Monde and Agnès Faivre of the Paris daily Libération—expelled and having shuttered transmission in Burkina Faso of the broadcast networks France 24 and Radio France Internationale, it seemed the moment to ask Damien to tell us about the nation he still believes has a rich tradition that the world should appreciate and at the same time help us understand why the coup d’état is so frequently the way governments change hands—with or without a ballot box—across so many nations in Africa.
What’s that? … An explosive device? … I’m warning you: me, I’m not touching that….
Ties between France and the nation of Burkina Faso—its territory smaller than the state of Arizona—date back to its first European colonization in 1886, a year after the Berlin Conference partitioned the continent among the major colonial powers of Europe, touching off the Scramble for Africa. France quickly moved into the area it called French Upper Volta.
But human activity in the region itself has been dated as far back as 14,000 BC—long before the first humans arrived in North America. Beginning in what Europe would consider the Middle Ages, a host of tribes began settling in the area, establishing several small kingdoms. By the early 16th century, slave raids had already become commonplace, especially by Songhai tribesmen from neighboring Mali. Eventually European forts along Africa's Gold Coast would tap into the slave traffic from the interior, cargos eventually finding their way to auctions in America and England.
The arrival of the French began to stabilize the region, and just before the turn of the 20th century, the modern borders of the nation were established in a French-British treaty that set up the colony of Upper Volta. French became the dominant language and locals were deeply discriminated against. Burkinabè children were not allowed to ride bicycles or pick fruit from trees—"privileges" reserved for the children of colonists. In 1958, the colony won a degree of autonomy from France, two years later full independence. There began a string of power struggles and military coups.
By 1984, the nation's modern name was adopted—Burkina Faso. Its meaning is variously land of upright (or incorruptible) men. Yet the pattern persisted of revolving civilian and military governments that arrived at gunpoint, and at times with considerable bloodshed—the most vicious in October 1987, when President Thomas Sankara, along with twelve other officials, were assassinated in a coup organized by Blaise Compaoré who would wind up serving as his nation's ruler until October 2014.
Several elections followed until another succession of coups erupted in the past three years in the face of growing terrorist attacks and persistent poverty that has led Burkina Faso to the position of being among the world's most impoverished nations.
At the same time, the competition between China and Russia for hearts, minds and especially a wealth of natural resources has only complicated the struggles of many nations, especially in the Sahel where Burkina Faso finds itself.
[“How much?”…”Ah, my brother, the price (of this dictionary) has just tripled]
Throughout this period, Damien Glez continued to work and raise his family in the capital of Ougadougou. I can think of no more perfect a voice to help us understand some of the forces sweeping across his nation and Africa today than Damien Glez.
Here is his essay, followed by our conversation…..
By Damien Glez
On the continent of Africa, jihadist pressure tirelessly grips civil society in a vice that threatens certain freedoms, including regions that are not occupied by the jihadists themselves. Traditionally cited as an example for the quality of its press and its democratic regime resulting from the popular uprising of 2014—an unprecedented replica of the Arab Spring in sub-Saharan Africa—Burkina Faso has seen the resurgence of juntas which have sought to rule through injunctions that they have described as patriotic.
Surrounded since 2015 by several Salafist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State—Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara—Burkina Faso (known as the Land of Upright Men) has suffered the aftershocks of a security crisis in Mali that itself has been crippled by Algerian and Libyan influences. An already landlocked and fragile country, regularly ranked by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) among the five least well-off countries in the world in terms of human development, Burkina Faso has proved to be an ideal social ground for the theoreticians of a movement that seems to be sweeping the Sahel region.
The democratically elected regime in Burkina Faso of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré gave way in January 2022, under the blows of a junta which in turn was itself overthrown by another putschist squad nine months later. In a khaki row were the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration (MPSR) version 1, quickly reconstituted at gunpoint as version 2. The self-styled populist, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, current president of the Burkinabè transition and at 35 years old the youngest head of state in the world, invites or obliges a buildup in his military or paramilitary forces, by enlisting local “Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland” (VDP), while forcibly sending overly-critical activists to the front.
What about journalists? In a kind of informal and tropicalized “patriot act”, the government orders commentators not to demoralize the military and not to claim too much the “duty to be objective (…) in the name of journalistic practice.” Which leaves us with two scenarios:
First, the international media can be suspended from broadcasting as has happened with Radio France Internationale (RFI) or the television channel France 24. Their correspondents are also being expelled as are those of the newspapers Libération and Le Monde.
[ One terrorist to another: "I've canceled my subscription to Netflix…The soap operas on Burkinabe TV are too cool"…."Don't forget to work anyway." ]
The result, it would appear, is to crack the republican trompe-l'oeil that the junta has created in its efforts to create an appearance of having officially restored the democratically-elected Republic which had been in place before the latest series of putsches. The head of the junta held an investiture ceremony under the auspices of the Constitutional Council, after having violated the constitution by staging the coup which brought him to power. So, the military leaders are doing their best to give the appearance of normalcy.
Burkina Faso's regulatory body, the High Council of Communication—the only organization with the power to expel journalists or remove broadcasts—has now been sent a message. At the same time, this only reinforces the ruling junta’s anti-French policy, defense agreements with the former colonial power having already been denounced, the French soldiers thanked and sent packing, the French ambassador denigrated.
Second, Burkinabé journalists, already under pressure and ground between jihadist bestiality and military authoritarianism, are being taken to task by certain social network hosts, whose formal link with a rather mute regime no one reveals or denies, especially when it comes to charges of alleged abuses by the defense forces. The link between tweeters/facebookers and the regime is indeed confusing. It is unclear whether some tweeters/facebookers are funded by the regime or not. It's possible they are, but we have no proof. We just know that the regime lets them demonstrate, while any other demonstration is prohibited.
Outrageously, twitterers and facebookers slide at will towards insults, threats or fake news. All too often this has led to self-censorship that has a similar effect of muzzling any free expression.
Even more tragically, at least 40% of all services—police, schools and public works—have already collapsed, while two million citizens have fled Burkina Faso or moved to other areas of the country less directly under control of either jihadists or the military. In the absence of any polling and the right to demonstrate eliminated (unlike the supporters of the junta who pound the pavement in the territories they control as they see fit), critical voices acknowledge that they cannot gauge the state of public opinion in the heart of Burkina Faso, while populists do not hesitate to proclaim themselves a majority. What everyone can count, on the other hand, are the days that separate the date of the handover of power announced by the transitional regime to a promise for the future—elections have been promised in July 2024.
Our conversation:
Andelman Unleashed: Take us again through a bit of the history of Burkina Faso, especially after its independence from colonial rule in 1958 as Upper Volta, and then as Burkina Faso in 1984?
Damien Glez: A French colony, Upper Volta experienced a first level of autonomy in 1958, with the proclamation of the first republic. It obtained full independence on August 5, 1960. Three republics and a few coups followed one after another, until the revolution of 1983 which led, in 1984, to the change of its name to “Burkina Faso”, (land of honest men). The revolutionary Thomas Sankara would be assassinated in 1987. His brother-in-arms, Blaise Compaoré, took power for 27 years, setting up a fourth republic. Compaoré was overthrown by a popular insurrection in 2014, which the next year led to the first accession of a civilian to the presidency elected by universal suffrage. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré had been a close friend of Compaoré. The power of Compaoré had already been weakened by an extension of the jihadist aggression that had overwhelmed Mali and which ended up occupying and controlling 40% of Burkina Faso's national territory. Yet, during Compaoré's time, there were no jihadist attacks in Burkina, because Compaoré had made agreements with the jihadists. Kaboré was overthrown in January 2022, by a soldier who was in turn overthrown in September 2022 by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the current leader—the youngest ever to have ruled Burkina Faso.
[ "The freedoms of expression and of the press must live no matter who presides over a peaceful republic……(then, “Voilaaa….” (the post-coup, expurgated version) …."Long live the president." ]
Andelman: Why has Burkina Faso seemed so prone to coups and rule by military juntas?
Glez: The country is very poor, in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI) of the UNDP. The predominantly rural population has little political culture and little access to the media. The nation's institutions are weak, civilian politicians are often corrupt, and the army is both pervasive and poorly organized.
Andelman: Why do the people of Burkina Faso submit to this?
Glez: Until 2014, with the awakening of youths connected to social and media networks and the maturity of an independent press, the people of Burkina could only submit to the putschists. For most, life in the capital Ouagadougou seemed far away and the military too intimidating.
[ Presidential election 2020: Go Vote ]
Andelman: But in the ensuing nine years, even youths awakening to the methods of the ruling military do not seem to have improved the situation. Why not, and what could force real change toward a democratic republic going forward?
Glez: First, the young people who overthrew the Compaoré regime had no alternative, much like after the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia or Egypt where the same sort of leaders seem to be returning to power. In Burkina, there has not yet been a renewal of political personnel. President Kaboré was President of the National Assembly, Prime Minister and President of the majority party under Blaise Compaoré, before becoming a dissident shortly before the popular uprising. His governance was therefore disappointing.
Then, their security background led some to consider that the military could be the most competent, in this period of crisis.
Andelman: What is the image of France, the one-time colony among the people of Burkina Faso and elsewhere in the Sahel?
Glez: While the relationship between the former colonial power and the people they ruled had been cordial for many years, anti-French political feeling has developed in 2022, largely imported from Mali and manipulated by digital campaigns, partly supported by Russia, which is trying to accumulate allies on the African continent.
Andelman: Do you feel that the French and other western democracies have abrogated their responsibilities in this country and this region?
Glez: As long as there is this feeling of mistrust vis-à-vis Westerners, they have little leverage to act, even if diplomatic relations are not broken. In terms of security, which is the priority in the Sahel, French soldiers have been asked to leave Mali and Burkina, and certain old military cooperation agreements have been cancelled. The current Mali-Burkinabè discourse is that of sovereignty and the reconquest of the territory by natives. Western democracies are not in a position to act. Conspiracy theories even claim that Westerners are accomplices of jihadists. Even UN troops like Minusma in Mali are discouraged by military rulers seeking to sustain their own power. But this is different in Niger or in coastal countries like Côte d'Ivoire.
Andelman: How afraid are you for your ability to continue functioning as a cartoonist/ member of Cartooning for Peace under this regime?
Glez: The national media have been ordered to favor patriotic discourse over statements likely to “demoralize” the troops. This is the time neither for criticism, nor for satire, even if censorship is not absolute. For my part, I write and draw mainly for international media that are rarely examined or banned. We will continue our efforts to expose methods of the regime and monitor the state of freedom in our nation.
David: Thanks for this most revealing but shocking exposé of Burkina today and yesterday, by Damien Glez. A really courageous journalist who has the guts to tell it like it is in words and art. WOW! I learned more than I want to know. The conversation wrapped it up well. This is the stuff the world should know more about. Congrats! Audrey
Depressing history of à fearsome country and brave artist