BY MARY-ALICE WATERS
Thank you for the opportunity to be with you here, this afternoon, not only to present Pathfinder's new booklet containing Thomas Sankara's 1987 speech on Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, but to join in the celebration of Tricontinental's new book on women in Mozambique.

In October 1983, almost twenty years ago, Thomas Sankara, then leader of Burkina Faso's popular revolutionary government, in outlining the goals of the new revolutionary power said,

The women and men of our society are all victims of imperialist oppression and domination. That is why they wage the same struggle. The revolution and women's liberation go together. We do not talk of women's emancipation as an act of charity or because of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the triumph of the revolution.

In one of the poorest countries of imperialist-ravaged West Africa, with the highest infant mortality rate in the world, where illiteracy among women stood at 99 percent, Sankara confidently raised the banner of women's emancipation, put forward a scientific, materialist explanation of the social and economic roots of women's oppression within class society, and pledged the support of the National Revolutionary Council to organize and mobilize women to fight to change their conditions of life, and the conditions of life of all Burkinabè. More than a pledge, this was a course of revolutionary action that over the next four years set an example not only for all of Africa but also far beyond.

Karl Marx, the founder of the modern working-class movement, and one of the most intransigent defenders of the fight for women's equality the world has known, was among the first to point to the social status of women as a measure of the degree of progress of any society. It is one of the most powerful demonstrations of the uneven and combined development of history that in the mid-1980s, Burkina Faso, one of the most oppressed nations in the world, suddenly took its place within the revolutionary vanguard on a world scale.

This small book is not about the fight for women's equality in Africa alone, important as that objective may be. The perspectives offered by Thomas Sankara belong to those fighting for human dignity everywhere, including in the most industrially developed countries such as the United States, and the most politically advanced such as Cuba.

One confirmation of this is the reception this booklet has received since it was first published in English by Pathfinder Press over a decade ago. Well over 7,000 copies have been sold, in addition to another 6,000 copies of Thomas Sankara Speaks, a broad selection of speeches and interviews by Sankara that contains the talk on women's emancipation as one of its most important pieces. Most of these have been sold in the United States and other imperialist countries.

And that is in English alone. With the publication of the booklet in French and Spanish this year as well, its reach, its impact will be much greater.

Young Socialists from many countries who brought this pamphlet as well as other revolutionary literature from Pathfinder with them to the World Festival of Youth and Students in Algiers last summer were able to register this growing impact in a very immediate way. As word spread among the delegations--from Africa especially--many sought out the literature tables where they could get copies.

Likewise, from Pathfinder's bookstores and street tables in working-class neighborhoods of cities throughout the imperialist metropolitan centers--where tens of thousands of students and workers from countries across Africa increasingly find themselves obliged to emigrate by the inhuman consequences of the lawful workings of finance capital--we have found that Thomas Sankara, together with titles like Che Guevara Talks to Young People and the Communist Manifesto, are among the most sought-after books. What better indication of the fresh winds that are blowing among new generations in Africa and elsewhere today?

To end, I would like to say a few words about Pathfinder Press itself, which may be new to some of you here today. We like to say that Pathfinder was born with the October Revolution, because that is when our forerunners began publishing the speeches and writings by Lenin and others who led the first socialist revolution and remained true to its proletarian internationalist course. For 85 years we have had one single objective, to publish and distribute as broadly as possible the books, pamphlets, and magazines necessary to advance the struggle for national liberation and socialism.

Along this road, we strive to allow revolutionary leaders the world over to speak for themselves, in their own name. And these words by Sankara are a fine expression of the line of march we work to advance.

It seems particularly appropriate to be presenting this Spanish edition here in Cuba, where so many hundreds of thousands of compañeros and compañeras have such deep and lasting ties to the struggles of the people of Africa. As Sankara said, Cuba sets an example "of courage, determination, and the constant involvement of the people" for Africa and the world. We would like to express our appreciation to our brothers and sisters of Tricontinental for making this joint presentation possible and look forward to more such opportunities in the future.
 
 
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