Africa will not kneel: Ibrahim Traoré’s UN speech shocks the West

In a powerful speech to the UN, Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré declares an end to African subjugation. He uses clear words to denounce neocolonial exploitation, Western hypocrisy, and global inequality. Africa, Traoré says, no longer wants handouts – but justice, sovereignty, and respect. A powerful statement: Africa will not kneel.

“Distinguished delegates, heads of state, leaders of nations, distinguished representatives of peoples great and small. I greet you not as a career diplomat, nor as a man bred for banquet halls and handshakes. I do not come to you to speak the rehearsed language of polished politics. I come to you as a soldier of my people, as the protector of a wounded country, as a son of a continent who has borne the cross of the world but never worn its crown.

My name is Captain Ibrahim Taore, President of Burkina Faso. And I speak today not only for the 22 million people of my country, but for a continent whose history has been distorted, whose pain ignored, and whose dignity has repeatedly been auctioned off on the altar of foreign interests.

Africa is not greater. Africa is not a battlefield. Africa is not your experiment, your puppet, your storehouse of raw materials. Africa rises not to kneel, but to stand. And today, before this great assembly of nations, I say: Africa will not kneel.

On the false generosity of world politics

For decades, you’ve sent aid with one hand and drained our lifeblood with the other. You build wells in our villages while your corporations drain our rivers. You donate vaccines and patent the cures. You talk about climate protection, but continue to fund the very forces that are burning our forests and drying up our lakes. What kind of generosity is that? The kind that feeds the mouth but silences the voice. The kind that keeps a person alive just long enough to become dependent.

We are not blind to this hypocrisy. Let me be clear. We are not ungrateful for genuine humanitarian aid, but we reject a global order that disguises exploitation as partnership. We reject financial institutions that lend money with one hand and steal sovereignty with the other. Africa no longer wants charity. We want justice. We want control over our own destiny.

In the Chains of Colonialism and its Modern Descendants

Our wounds are not of our own making. They are the legacy of a delusion to build an empire that viewed us not as human beings, but as cheap labour.

My ancestors were not consulted when maps were drawn with ruler and compass in Berlin. The borders of Burkina Faso, like those of many African nations, were not drawn by our ancestors, but by men who had never set foot on our soil, who knew nothing of our languages, our tribes, or our spirits.

Today, colonialism has a new face. It wears suits. It hosts forums. It signs treaties in Geneva, Paris, and Washington. But it still takes without consent. It still dictates instead of engaging in dialogue. It still remains silent, instead of listening. If you want to talk about peace, let’s start by abandoning the arrogance that peace is something only you can teach us.

On the exploitation of resources and the myth of development

They call us a developing country, as if centuries of theft hadn’t set us back. As if the gold from our lands, the diamonds from our rivers, the oil beneath our feet hadn’t built the skyscrapers in which this assembly sits. Let’s speak plainly, because Kinao is rich. Africa is rich, rich in minerals and culture and wisdom and youth.

But you taught us to measure wealth in GDP and export value. You call it development when a foreign company owns 90% of a gold mine on our land. You call it progress when your security forces guard cobalt mines but not our children’s schools. That is not progress. That is piracy with legal documents. From now on, we will define development on our own terms. Development that educates children in classrooms, not minerals on cargo ships. Development that respects the land, the people and the soul of a nation and relies on sovereignty and interference.

National sovereignty

Why, when an African nation makes independent decisions, are we labelled unstable? Why are we branded a threat when we seek military cooperation outside the colonial sphere? Burkina Faso has chosen a path of sovereignty that poses no threat to peace. It is a declaration of adulthood. We are no longer under your tutelage. We are no longer your junior partners in diplomacy. We are a free people.

When a nation chooses partners who respect it rather than exploit it, that is not rebellion. That is wisdom. No foreign power will dictate Burkina Faso’s alliances. We will build relationships based on mutual respect, not on historical guilt or present-day intimidation.

Fight against terrorism and the manufacture of wars

You ask why there is violence in the Sahel region. You ask why our youth are taking up arms. But you don’t ask who benefits when our mines are guarded by private mercenaries while our villages remain unprotected. You don’t ask how the weapons arrive in deserts where no steel is produced. You don’t ask why ‘peacekeeping’ never seems to end the war.

The truth is that many of the so-called solutions to African security problems are merely business models. Endless conflict has become a market, and African suffering has become a subscription-based service. Burkina Faso has decided to break this cycle. We will fight terrorism, but not with dependence. We will secure our nation not with foreign dictates, but with national dignity.

Migration and human dignity

We don’t want our youth drowning in the Mediterranean. We don’t want our brightest people fleeing to lands that once called us savages. We don’t want remittances. We want reasons for our people to stay. Why are our youth fleeing? Not because we lack beauty, but because we are being made to lack opportunity. Not because we hate our country, but because our country is being treated like someone else’s property. Migration is not a crisis. It is a symptom of wars we didn’t start. Of loans we didn’t need. Of a world order that tells our youth their only value lies outside their own homes.

The solution does not lie in border fences. The solution lies in the justice of taking Africa’s place in the world. Africa is not a mistake to be fixed. Africa is not a failed continent. Africa is the womb of the world, the cradle of civilization, the guardian of tomorrow’s hope. We have been made invisible in global decisions that affect us deeply. In the UN Security Council, Africa, with 54 sovereign nations, has no permanent seat. What kind of justice is that? They call it balance. We call it betrayal. They talk about democracy but maintain a global structure in which the powerful few veto the dreams of the many. We will no longer whisper in rooms where we deserve to speak with a full voice.

Help for faith and spiritual dignity

We are a spiritual people. Before your cathedrals, our ancestors sang to heaven. Before your missionaries came, we knew the language of the rivers and the laws of the sacred forest. Christianity came, Islam came, and we welcomed them not as slaves, but as seekers. But now we ask:

Will the church and the mosque truly stand with us when all people are displaced by greed disguised as globalization? Will their pulpits echo our cries or simply repeat the songs of the powerful? Faith, too, needs to be decolonized. It needs to walk with the poor, not the privileged.

For unity among African nations

This isn’t the speech of a single country. It’s about the governance of a continent. They see Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso forging a new bond. They fear our unity. Why? Because it threatens the myth that Africa can only rise under your watch. We join together not to wage war, but for dignity, to gather our courage, to share our strength, and to protect each other when the world turns away.

Pan-Africanism is not a dream. It is our lifeline. And we will build it brick by brick, heart by heart, with or without your consent.

To the Youth of Africa

To the little boy selling oranges by the roadside. To the girl who walks 10 kilometres to get to school. To the child whose only toy is a rock but who dreams of the stars. You are the reason we fight. Don’t believe the lie that your continent is cursed. You are the blessing. Don’t be jealous of other people’s passports. Be proud of your name, your country, your roots. The world may not applaud you now, but the future will honour your name.

Final words

We will not kneel. I have not come to declare war. I have come to declare will. So, we will not kneel before fear. We will not kneel before foreign banks. We will not kneel before outdated empires that claim to be friends. Africa is not asking for a seat at your table. We are building our own, a table where no child eats last. Where no nation is silenced because it does not have nuclear weapons. Where justice is not filtered through the lens of race or history, but shared as breath is shared. This is our vision and this is our vow. The world shall hear it today and always. Africa will not kneel. We thank you.”

 

yogaesoteric
June 11, 2025