Straight forward question. Been trying to gauge the man’s politics and I think he leans more toward being an anti-colonial nationalist rather than an outright socialist. Still based and deserving of critical support, but maybe not the next Thomas Sankara; not that he needs to be, but it’d be cooler if he was.
Traore is definitely a socialist, but he’s also a nationalist, which you know…good 👍
Among the things Traore has spoken about when it comes to his people’s culture is that the French imposed their own culture on Burkina Faso (the fact of which should be evident in them speaking French); he mentioned that women in BF dress in black when mourning because that’s what the French wear, but traditionally they used to wear blue. Traore’s nationalism is about bringing his people’s culture back from the foreign thing it’s become.
There are many cases of colonized peoples losing their cultural identity and becoming a copy of their colonizers, a copy the colonizer doesn’t even consider as an equal or a desirable people. Traore wants to bring pride back to his people, he wants them to be proud of who they are and where they’re from rather than be unwelcomed French cardboard cutouts.
Yes, but being a nationalist in this way is on par with socialist principles. People’s nationalism instead of symbolic nationalism that domesticates the masses towards a bourgeois goal.
You kinda need nationalism in colonized countries due to the reasons you mentioned.