“I speak on behalf of the mothers of our poor countries who see their children dying of malaria and diarrhoea, unaware that to save them there are simple methods available but which the science of the multinationals does not offer to them, preferring to invest in cosmetics laboratories and engage in cosmetic surgery to satisfy the whims and caprices of a few men and women who feel they have become too fat because of too many calories in the rich food they consume with regularity. That must make even members of this Assembly dizzy–not to mention the peoples of the Sahel. We have decided to adopt and popularize the methods that have been advocated by WHO and UNICEF.

I speak on behalf of the child, the child of the poor man, who is hungry and who furtively eyes the wealth piled up in the rich man’s shop, a shop that is protected by a thick window, a window which is defended by an impassable grille, the grille guarded by a policeman in a helmet with gloves and a bludgeon, the policeman placed there by the father of another child, who comes there to serve himself or rather to be served because these are the guarantees of capitalistic representativeness and norms of the system.

I speak on behalf of the artists–poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors and so on–people of good will who see their art being prostituted by the show-business magicians.

I cry out on behalf of the journalists who have been reduced to silence or else to lies simply to avoid the hardships of unemployment.

I protest on behalf of the athletes of the entire world whose muscles are being exploited by political systems or by those who deal in the modern slavery of the stadium.

My country is the essence of all the miseries of peoples, a tragic synthesis of all the suffering of mankind but also, and above all, the synthesis of the hopes of our struggles. That is why I speak out on behalf of the sick who are anxiously looking to see what science can do for them–but that science has been taken over by the gun merchants. My thoughts go to all those who nave been affected by the destruction of nature, those 30 million who are dying every year, crushed by that most fearsome weapon, hunger.

As a soldier, I cannot forget that obedient soldier who does what he is told, whose finger is on the trigger and who knows that the bullet which is going to leave his gun will bring only a message of death.”

– Thomas Sankara