Thomas Sankara – Hold Fast to Your Crown

I’ve said this before, and I’m going to repeat it here again: Whoever you are, you are far more royal than all the royals the earth has ever borne. Why? Because you are not a descendant of an earthly king. You are a descendant of a heavenly king, the King of kings. All you need to convince yourself is to dig into what the Bible proclaims over you: “The Lord will hold you in his hand for all to see — a splendid crown in the hand of God.”

Did you hear that? You’re a splendid crown! That means there is royal blood running through your veins. In fact from the moment you were born, from the moment the Creator of the universe has breathed life into you, the angels of heaven fell down upon their knees to show you respect and honor. That’s exactly what the Holy Quran says about you: “Your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am creating man from clay. When I have fashioned him and breathed of My spirit into him, kneel down and prostrate yourselves before him.’ The angels all prostrated themselves except Satan, who was too proud, for he was an unbeliever.”

That is great news for all of us, but remember this: Just because you have royal blood in you doesn’t mean everything in this life will go your way. Just because you have been crowned doesn’t mean everyone will be cheering on you. Throughout your life, there will always be times when your circumstances (fear, insecurity, mistakes, disappointments, failure, shame, illness, loss, etc.) will shake you to the core and cause you to doubt your self-worth. Along life’s journey, you will encounter countless people working overtime in an attempt to cause you to have less faith in yourself.

Yes, there will always be people who will convince you to go back again and again into your yesterdays, not so that you could find any inspiration in your past victories, but so that you could drown yourself in the painful memories of past defeats and failures. In those times of negative voices and opposition, more than ever, you need to keep reminding yourself of two things.

First, remember that you are “a splendid crown” before whom all the angels of heaven have “knelt down and prostrated themselves.” Second, understand that you must take full responsibility for your life by stopping any negative people or circumstances from causing you to doubt your self-worth and your ability to achieve your life mission.

That’s what we learn from the messengers of God. When God chose Muhammad as the last Prophet of Islam and gave him the universal mission of guiding mankind toward salvation and perfection, He also gave him a powerful warning: “Beware what epithets they bestow upon you!” Years before him, Jesus Christ gave the same warning in his message to the Philadelphian era of God’s Church: “Hold fast to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”

These powerful, solemn divine warnings are not just a reminder that the Creator of the universe has crowned us with honor, but they also put us on guard about all the thieves and predators out there trying to take that crown of honor away from us. Let’s just face the truth here:

Every time you allow your fears and insecurities to push you down, you are giving them the chance to have your crown. Every time someone puts a negative label on you or talks about you with the intention to make you look bad, they’re trying to take your crown. Every time someone tries to talk you out of your dreams or brings up your past failures to remind you of what you can’t do, they are trying to get your crown.

To be sure, every time someone refers to you as a “shithole country” or refers to your kind as a people who “has never really entered history,” they are greedily eyeing up your crown. The question is, will you allow them to take away your crown? Will you allow the detractors to take away your sense of value? Or will you hold fast to it as your most prized possession?

Understand that it all depends on you and you alone. It’s all up to you because Eleanor Roosevelt is right: “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” It’s completely up to you because Mahatma Gandhi is right: “They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.”

What all these great minds are telling us is this: The principle of cause and effect which controls each and every one of us and determines how much respect we receive from others is our own conduct in any given set of circumstances. In other words, the mental picture that we have of ourselves will shape the way we conduct ourselves, and the way we conduct ourselves will dictate how other people deal with us.

Therefore, once you go on bended knees and start kowtowing to others, you are allowing them to compromise your autonomy and your ability to carve your own destiny. This is true because what Gandhi said is right: “Those who behave like worms should expect to be trampled on.”

It is true because what President Paul Kagame said is right: “Once you behave like a cow, you are allowing people to lead you around like a cow.” And it is true because what I’m telling you is absolutely right: When you behave like an egg, people will peel you — effortlessly; when you behave like an onion, people may still peel you, but they’ll have to cry first!

In the face of opposition, whether you opt to be a worm, a cow, an egg or an onion, is not for me to decide. It is absolutely a personal choice. The only thing I can assure you is this: As a leader who was determined to serve his country and defend the victims of exploitation and imperialism in Africa and beyond, Thomas Sankara had no illusion about the kind of world he was living in. He knew he was living in a dangerous world, a world of adversity and predators. He had said it time and time again:

“The environment in which we are evolving, the forces that surround us, are not conducive to an independent development like the one we are aiming for in Burkina Faso. On the contrary, all the traps will be set for us so that we are forced to prostitute ourselves in order to have a semblance of development. Relying on our own strength must therefore cease to be a mere slogan. We need to make it a habit to rely on ourselves.”

It is a fact well known to everyone that every time an African leader has tried to take his country forward by dedicating his life to the service of his people, he has been given derogatory epithets not just by the Western world, but also by Africans themselves.

Nelson Mandela devoted his entire life to fighting against apartheid with the burning desire to contribute to the building of “a democratic and free society in which all persons [regardless of race and skin color] will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.” But Mandela had to face the fact that he was branded a communist and terrorist by the Reagan administration and the enemies of equality and human rights.

Modibo Keita, the Father of Malian independence, was a fervent anti-colonialist without ever being anti-French. When he became the first president of the Republic of Mali in 1960, nothing was greater in his mind and heart than to have an Africa that is united and strong. And he believed that there is no other way for Africans to achieve that unity than to have an “unwavering will to assert ourselves as Africans, to observe and judge the men and institutions of Africa only through the eyes and brains of Africans.” But Modibo Keita had to face the fact that he was labeled by the French government at the time as “an upper-class plotter, a communist and anti-French upon whom there is a need to keep a close eye.”

When Jomo Kenyatta took office as the first president of Kenya, he embodied a greater vision: to stop the African populations from being exploited and abused by western imperialist powers, to fight for the freedom of all Africans and the creation of a united Africa that would play a greater role in the advancement of humanity. He was described by the colonial British government not only as being “stained with the mark of the beast,” but also as a leader “unto darkness and death” whose political leadership would be synonymous with “bestiality, degradation and criminal activity.”

Kwame Nkrumah did not just devote his life to the defense of black identity; he also advocated the search for national autonomy and exhorted the new ex-colonial states on the balkanized continent to subordinate their independence to a wider ideal of Pan-African unity, which he believed was the only way out of the poverty caused by colonial fragmentation. We all know how the father of African nationalism ended. The British government didn’t just accuse him of being a communist agitator, but they did everything to stop him from implementing his vision.

As a patriot who led an austere lifestyle and gave his life for his people; as a leader who—despite the reluctance of his peers—constantly called for a united Africa to stand against what he considered to be the “neo-colonialism” of international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Thomas Sankara wanted nothing but a non-reliant but self-sufficient and prosperous Africa. The charismatic Pan-Africanist was assassinated on October 15, 1987 after he had been labeled as a communist, a troublemaker, and a radical by those who built and continue to build their wealth on Africa’s exploitation.

And the list could go on ad infinitum…

Needless to say, Thomas Sankara knew all these great facts. He knew he would have more than his share of derogatory epithets. He knew that he and his comrades wouldn’t have to wait too long for the fast-moving predators to show out their tentacles and razor-sharp teeth.

As a matter of fact, as soon as Thomas Sankara and his young progressive comrades stepped up to lead their country, people and obstacles came against them. Many Western countries started labeling them as communists and treating them as such, thus confirming what James Baldwin once said: “When you stand up and look the world in the face like you had a right to be here, you have attacked the entire power structure of the western world.”

The United States of America was among the first to corroborate James Baldwin’s truthful statement. Shortly after Sankara came to power, President Ronald Reagan pulled out of retirement the calm, friendly, and experienced officer Leonardo Neher and appointed him as the United States Ambassador to Burkina Faso. This nomination, which came shortly after Burkina Faso had boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in the summer of 1984 because a British team participating had made a tour of South Africa, was accompanied by a clear and stern commandment from Reagan himself:

“When you go out there, make sure you use your fatherly manner to help put those young Turks on the right track […]. We are not going to allow another Cuba in Africa! Go out there and do something about this very radical, very troublesome country in West Africa. Straighten out these young military officers who have a Marxist vocabulary, who not only are good friends of Qadhafi’s, but are also up on the stage everyplace in the world denouncing the U.S. and imperialism and siding with Cuba, the Soviets and with Nicaragua!”

Ambassador Neher himself had been very clear about his new assignment: “My goals were almost all political. In other words, how to get Burkina Faso off that extreme leftist dialogue…We had very little economic interest in this country. We just wanted to try to wean them away from certain radical ideas and to moderate the regime. In my instructions there was nothing about democracy.”