essential tasks of the revolution. The same is true of the transformation to be made in men’s attitudes toward women.
Until now, women have been excluded from the realm of decision making. The revolution, by entrusting women with responsibilities, is creating the conditions for unleashing women’s fighting initiative. As part of its revolutionary policy, the CNR will work to mobilise, organise, and unite all the dynamic forces of the nation, and women will not be left behind. They will be involved in all the battles we will have to wage against the various shackles of neo-colonial society in order to build a new society. They will be involved at all levels in conceiving projects, making decisions, and implementing them – in organising the life of the nation as a whole. The final goal of this great undertaking is to build a free and prosperous society in which women will be equal to men in all spheres.
However, we must have a correct understanding of the question of women’s emancipation. It is not a mechanical equality between men and women, acquiring habits recognised as male – drinking, smoking, and wearing pants. That’s not the emancipation of women. Nor will acquiring diplomas make women equal to men or more emancipated. A diploma is not a free pass to emancipation.
The genuine emancipation of women is one that entrusts responsibilities to women, that involves them in productive activity and in the different fights the people face. The genuine emancipation of women is one that compels men to give their respect and consideration. Emancipation, like freedom, is not granted, it is conquered. It is for women themselves to put forward their demands and mobilise to win them.
For that, the democratic and popular revolution will create the necessary conditions to allow Voltaic women to achieve total and complete fulfilment. For could it be possible to eliminate the system of exploitation while maintaining the exploitation of women, who make up more than half our society?
(3) The national economy: independent, self-sufficient, and planned at the service of a democratic and popular society
The process of revolutionary transformations undertaken since 4 August places major democratic and popular reforms on the agenda. The National Council of the Revolution is therefore aware that the construction of an independent, self-sufficient, and planned national economy requires the radical transformation of present society, a transformation that itself requires the following major reforms:
•Agrarian reform.
•Administrative reform.
•Educational reform.
•Reform of the structures of production and distribution in the modern sector.
•The agrarian reform will aim to:
Increase labour productivity through better organisation of the peasants and the introduction of modern agricultural techniques in the countryside.
•Develop a diversified agriculture, together with regional specialisation.
•Abolish all the fetters that are part of the traditional socioeconomic structures that oppress the peasants.
•Finally, make agriculture the basis for the development of industry.
All this is possible by giving real meaning to the slogan of food self-sufficiency, a slogan that now seems dated for having been proclaimed so often without conviction. First, this will be a bitter struggle against nature, which, by the way, is no more thankless for us than for other peoples who have conquered it magnificently on the agricultural level. The CNR will harbour no illusions in gigantic, sophisticated projects. To the contrary, numerous small accomplishments in the agricultural system will allow us to transform our territory into one vast field, an endless series of farms.
Second, this will be a struggle against those who starve the people, the agricultural speculators and capitalists of all types. Finally, it will mean protecting our agriculture against domination by imperialism – with regard to its orientation, the plunder of our resources, and unfair competition from imports against our local products, imports whose only advantage is their packaging aimed at bourgeois afflicted with snobbishness. As for the peasants, sufficiently high prices and industrial food-processing facilities will guarantee them markets for their produce in any season.
The administrative reform aims to make operational the administration inherited from colonialism. To do that, it must be rid of all the evils that characterise it – namely, the unwieldy and nit-picking bureaucracy and its consequences – and a complete revamping of the civil service statutes must be undertaken. The reform should result in a less costly, more effective, and more flexible administration.
The educational reform aims to promote a new orientation for education and culture. It should result in transforming the schools into instruments at the service of the revolution. Graduates of the system should not serve their own interests and the exploiting classes, but rather the popular masses. The revolutionary education that will be taught in the new schools must imbue everyone with a Voltaic ideology, a Voltaic personality that rids the individual of blind mimicry. One of the jobs of education in a democratic and popular society will be to teach students to assimilate the ideas and experiences of other peoples in a critical and positive manner.
To end illiteracy and obscurantism, emphasis will have to be placed on mobilising all energies, with the idea of organising the masses, to increase their awareness and induce in them a thirst for knowledge by showing them the drawbacks of ignorance. Any policy of fighting illiteracy without the participation of those most concerned is doomed to failure.
Culture in a democratic and popular society, should have a three-fold character: national, revolutionary, and popular. Everything that is anti-national, anti-revolutionary, and anti-popular must be banished. To the contrary, our culture extols dignity, courage, nationalism, and the great human virtues.
The democratic and popular revolution will create favourable conditions for the blossoming of a new culture. Our artists will have a free hand to go boldly forward. They should seize the opportunity before them to raise our culture to a world level. Let writers put their pens at the service of the revolution. Let musicians sing not only of our people’s glorious past, but also of their radiant and promising future.
The revolution expects our artists to be able to describe reality, portray it in living images, and express them in melodious tunes while showing our people the true way forward to a better future. It expects them to place their creative genius at the service of a national, revolutionary, and popular Voltaic culture.
We must be able to draw on what is positive from the past – that is, from our traditions, and what is positive in foreign cultures – in order to give a new dimension to our culture. The inexhaustible source for the masses’ creative inspiration lies within the popular masses. Knowing how to live with the masses, becoming involved in the popular movement, sharing the joys and sufferings of the people, and working and struggling with them – all these should be the major concerns of our artists. Before producing, they should ask themselves: for whom is our creation intended? If we are convinced that we are creating for the people, then we must understand clearly who the people are, what their different components are, and what their deepest aspirations are.
The reform of our economy’s structures of production and distribution seek to increasingly establish effective control by the Voltaic people over the channels of production and distribution. For without genuine control over these channels, it is practically impossible to build an independent economy at the service of the people.
People of Upper Volta;
Comrade militants of the revolution:
The needs of our people are immense. Satisfaction of these needs requires that revolutionary transformations be undertaken in all fields.
In the field of health care and social assistance for the popular masses, the goals to be achieved can be summed up as follows:
•Making health care available to everyone.
•Setting up maternal and infant assistance and care.
•A policy of immunisation against communicable diseases by increasing the number of vaccination campaigns.
•Raising