1. Opening and Identity Declaration
Honorable 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 speaking the rehearsed language of polished politics. I come to you as a soldier of my people, as a guardian of a wounded land, as a son of a continent that has carried the cross of the world yet has never worn its crown. My name is Captain Ibrahim Taore, president of Burkina Faso. And today I speak not only for the 22 million souls in my nation, but for a continent whose stories have been twisted, whose pain has been ignored, and whose dignity has been repeatedly auctioned off at the altar of foreign interests. Africa is not the bigger. Africa is not a battlefield. Africa is not your experiment, your puppet, your warehouse of raw materials. Africa is rising not to kneel, but to stand. And today I say before this great assembly of nations, Africa will not kneel.
2. Hypocrisy of Global Aid and Exploitation
One on the false generosity of global politics. For decades you have sent us aid with one hand while extracting our lifeblood with the other. You build wells in our villages while your corporations drain our rivers. You donate vaccines yet patent the cures. You speak of climate action yet continue to fund the very forces that burn our forest and dry our lakes. What kind of generosity is this? The kind that feeds the mouth but silences the voice. the kind that keeps a man alive just enough to keep him dependent. We are not blind to this hypocrisy. Let me be clear. We are not ungrateful for sincere humanitarian assistance, but we reject a global order that disguises exploitation as partnership. We reject financial institutions that lend with one hand and steal sovereignty with the other. Africa no longer wants charity. We want justice. We want control over our own destinies.
3. Colonialism and Its Modern Descendants
Two on the chains of colonialism and its modern descendants. Our wounds did not begin with us. They were inherited legacies of an empire building madness that saw us not as humans but cheap as cargo labour tools. My ancestors were not consulted when maps were drawn with rulers and compasses in Berlin. The borders of Burkina Faso, like those of many African nations, were not carved by our ancestors, but by men who had never stepped 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 contracts in Geneva and Paris and Washington. But it still takes without consent. It still dictates instead of dialogues. It still silences instead of listening. If you want to talk about peace, then let's begin by unlearning the arrogance that peace is something only you can teach us.
4. Resource Exploitation and the Myth of Development
Three, on resource exploitation and the myth of development. They call us developing as if the theft of centuries did not set us back. as if the gold from our lands, the diamonds from our rivers, the oil beneath our feet did not build the very skyscrapers in d which this assembly sits. Let us speak plainly for kinao is rich. Africa is rich, rich in minerals and culture and wisdom and youth. But you have taught us to measure richness 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 puts children in classrooms, not minerals on cargo ships. Development that respects the land, the people, and the soul of a nation.
5. Sovereignty and Interference
Four on sovereignty and interference. Why is it that when an African nation makes independent choices, we are called unstable? Why is it that when we seek military cooperation outside the colonial sphere, we are labeled a threat? Burkina Faso has chosen to walk a path of sovereignty that is not a threat to peace. It is a declaration of adulthood. We are no longer under your guardianship. We are no longer your junior partners in diplomacy. We are a free people. If a nation chooses partners that respect it rather than exploit it, that is not rebellion. That is wisdom. Let it be known no foreign power will dictate the alliances of Burkina Faso. We will build relations based on mutual respect, not historical guilt or present- day intimidation.
6. Terrorism and Manufactured Wars
Five, on terrorism and manufacture wars. You ask why there is violence in the Sahel. You ask why our youth take up arms. But you do not ask who benefits when our mines are guarded by private mercenaries while our villages are left vulnerable. You do not ask how weapons arrive in deserts that produce no steel. You do not ask why peacekeeping never seems to end the war. The truth is 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 that cycle. We will fight terror but not with dependency. We will secure our nation not with foreign dictates but with national dignity.
7. Migration and Human Dignity
Six, on migration and human dignity. We do not want our youth drowning in the Mediterranean. We do not want our brightest minds fleeing to countries that once called us savages. We do not want remittances. We want reasons for our people to stay. Why do our youth flee? Not because we lack beauty, but because we are made to lack opportunity. Not because we hate our land, but because our land is treated as someone else's property. Migration is not a crisis. It is a symptom of wars we did not start. Of loans we did not need. Of a world order that tells our youth their only value lies outside their own homes. The solution is not border fences. The solution is justice.
8. Africa's Place in the World
Seven on 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 keeper of tomorrow's hope. We have been made invisible in global decisions that affect us deeply. At the UN Security Council, Africa with 54 sovereign nations has no permanent seat. What justice is this? You call it balance. We call a betrayal. You speak of democracy yet uphold a global structure where the powerful few veto the dreams of the many. We will no longer whisper in rooms where we deserve to speak with full voice.
9. Faith and Spiritual Dignity
Eight on faith and spiritual dignity. We are a spiritual people. Before your cathedrals, our ancestors sang to the sky. Before your missionaries, we knew the language of the rivers and the laws of the sacred forest. Christianity came, Islam came, and we received them not as slaves but as seekers. But now we ask, will the church and the mosque stand with us truly with us when all people are displaced by greed masked as globalization? Will your pulpit echo our cries or only repeat the songs of the powerful? Faith too must be decolonized. It must walk with the poor, not the privileged.
10. African Unity and Pan-Africanism
Nine on unity among African nations. This is not a speech from one country. This is the steering of a continent. You see Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso forming a new bond. You fear our unity. Why? because it threatens the myth that Africa can only rise under your supervision. We are uniting not to wage war, but to wage dignity, to pull our courage, to share strength, to protect each other when the world turns its back. Panaffricanism is not a dream. It is our lifeline. And we will build it stone by stone, heart by heart, with or without your approval.
11. Message to the Youth of Africa
Ten, to the youth of Africa, to the young boy selling oranges by the roadside. To the girl who walks 10 kilometers to attend school. To the child whose only toy is a stone but who dreams of stars. You are the reason we fight. Do not believe the lie that your continent is cursed. You are the blessing. Do not envy foreign passports. Be proud of your name, your land, your roots. The world may not applaud you now, but the future will speak your name in honor.
12. Final Words
Eleven, final words. We will not kneel. I do not come to declare war. I come to declare will. So we will not kneel to fear. We will not kneel to foreign banks. We will not kneel to outdated empires masquerading as 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 lacks nuclear arms. 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. Let the world hear it today and always. Africa will not kneel. Thank you.
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