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Burkina Faso bans homosexuality as a crime punishable with prison, fines
(www.aljazeera.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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It is easy to understand why they're anti-social progression without excusing it.
And your edit is a downright malicious attitude. Awful. All my comrades should be welcomed and accepted in a revolution; they should not be told to go and make their own.
All of mine would be as well, but criticizing what other people are building because it doesn't fit your standards on the other side of the world is just chauvinistic.
I'm not saying being socially conservative is good, but I'm not gonna denounce a revolution just because something is not going the way I personally want to.
Not trying to downplay your arguments or anything, but it's called critical support for a reason. Of course, different levels of critique are warranted for different situations depending on the nature of an anti-colonial or anti-capitalist movement, keyly if it is principled or not.
For instance, support for Russia warrants an extremely large amount of critique due to it's non-inherent revolutionary character. Russia, while we can still cheer their victories, will ultimately not lead the proletariat towards socialism, and thus, warrant a large amount of critique.
China, on the other hand, has a far more legitimate and founded revolutionary character, which is why we critique it less. China has expressed interests and has lead endeavors to bring the proletariet closer to socialism, even if flawed, and thus, deserves more support and less critique.
In this way, Burkina Faso is proving itself to be closer to Russia than it is to China. While it can always change, as everything can, Burkina Faso is positioning itself less as an inherently socialist country, but more so as a conditional opponent of US dominance, with the condition being sovereignty.
The reason for this is the question of nationalism vs. socialism. While a third world nationalism is good for rallying support, it must be replaced by socialism upon gaining considerable power lest it indulge in moves like these.
But, we lack a lot of information as to a key question - whether Ibrahim Traore considers his project a nationalist one or a socialist one utilizing nationalism. And to that, only time can tell. But for now, this action is a counter-revolutionary one, and as such, we must condemn solely this action, with continued support towards Burkina Faso's anti-imperialist operations.
Correct!
The reason for my original comment is not to show uncritical support for Traoré, but to have western leftists realize that abandoning and denouncing a budding anti colonial revolution because of a particular social conservative move is undialectical.
Well then, to that end, all I can do is repeat myself by saying that time will tell.
I wonder if this decision fits the LGBT Burkinabe' standards?
Fair enough, I think we basically agree. And I appreciated you changing out the edit, thanks comrade.
It's actually possible to have a revolutionary movement without banning homosexuality, and not banning homosexuality would not dilute the class struggle or align the movement with colonialist powers.
It is possible, but not under the social, political, and economic conditions in Burkina Faso, otherwise they would not have pursued this policy.
It's important to apply a dialectical view of geopolitics, free from idealisms.
Again, they are not refraining from legalising homosexuality, they are making an active choice to engage in homophobia. They could always not do that. It is not idealism or undialectical to point that out. We don't have to condemn Burkina Faso, but you are merely stating that they have to do this when not only is there no real theoretical basis for that, you have provided no information on the material conditions of Burkina Faso that would necessitate banning homosexuality as a revolutionary act. You're basically just saying that social progressivism in the form of acceptance of homosexuality is a tool of the colonial powers and that also Burkina Faso isn't advanced enough to not do homophobia which seems (given that you have provided little evidence of how this would work) condescending towards the population and tendentious towards justifying homophobia.
I know, and I'm not celebrating that, but it is very likely that the social and political conditions today are very homophobic and basically required said legislation. Are there any polls that show the move as unpopular there?
And just as Cuba and Castro started with a homophobic path and then backtracked, we need to trust that the oppressed people's of the nation will also rise up and demand a backtrack of homophobic and regressive laws.
I don't know. And I'm saying that just assuming that it is necessary to do this without any information like that isn't exactly well reasoned.
And it would not have been wrong at the time to call that a mistake, and to refer to it as a mistake with hindsight. Both of those have been done by Cubans themselves, and the second thing by Castro himself. And just as we didn't and don't have to condemn Cuba for this early homophobia, we don't have to condemn Burkina Faso. But we can acknowledge that this is a regressive law that will hurt people and it is disappointing to see.
they could've chosen to say nothing instead of formalizing it. I doubt either of us actually knows whether the revolution there lives or dies by throwing gays under the bus.
They made gays illegal because it's necessary, and we know it's necessary because they've made gays illegal?
I don't think it's right to assume that discrimination must have an underlying revolutionary foundation. Being a socialist doesn't necessarily make you immune to bigotry or bad judgement.
I think the issue is whether we are putting up socialist standards to a revolutionary government that maybe is not socialist in nature. And even then it's civil society can be very complex, see China.
But unfortunately I think that yes, some political calculation was made to say that in fact, they should ban being gay.
It's actually pretty easy to critically support anti-colonial struggle without justifying homophobia, but I guess you could also just choose not to do that if you didn't care about either and were just looking for a pretext to normalize bigotry and blame sexual minorities for their own oppression.
If you read the comment I'm blaming the western imperialists for their weaponizing of social progressivism, not the oppressed people's themselves.
What I am against is hand wringing about a revolution in the other side of the world, because it doesn't fit to your western standards.
BTW social progressivism follows material conditions. If the conditions arise, LGBT issues and other social progressive issues will come to the forefront of a serious revolution.
Being anti- any of the other things you mentioned in your edit is very good reason to be skeptical of a revolutionary project's potential. Those things are all interrelated with class struggle. Even putting the suffering of LGBTs aside, failure to recognize that, being unable or unwilling to discipline your revolution on those matters, is a bad sign.
Don't tell your comrades to shut up about LGBT issues anywhere, seriously.
We are in a contradiction between criticism of LGBT issues and criticism of people in the global south.
I acknowledge that the move is not okay, but I'm tired of white/western leftists denouncing revolutionary governments in the global south because it doesn't fit their standards.
you know, there are a lot of varying critical responses in this thread, but i don't think a single one of them is "denouncing" a revolutionary government in the global south because it doesn't "fit their standards." i see a lot of people disappointed that a promising anti-imperialist force is embracing imperialist bigotries via state force. you just seem interested in infantilizing the people of Burkina Faso on the grounds that their government must be doing this for good reasons, somehow. De jure homophobia. ok dude
Never said it was a good reason, but it was very likely a social and politically driven decision.
In other words, the people there are very likely highly socially conservative and so making this move was more popular than not.
It's not a morally driven thing, so don't put words in my mouth. I don't agree with the move either.
then don't make excuses for it. you're allowed to find it distasteful but understandable and not post about it as if people here are advocating for the NATO invasion of Burkina Faso.
Fair, maybe I could've given a second thought to context as this forum is not what a regular lib would think.
Washed up tired old reactionary bigotry logic sadly common too. This defensive rethoric in favor of bigotry is doing an incredible disservice to people in these countries, implying they can't uphold socialist liberal principles on their own, they're incapable of this because reasons and therefore we're not allowed to criticize. Do you think global south LGBTQ people are ready and willing to throw themselves to the gallows for the "greater good"? You know damn fucking well anyone affected by this would obviously denounce it. So do you think people who are victims of this are not criticizing it too? Do we need to go to their prisons full of minorities just to get "both sides"? So after you hear how much they hate it then will you accept the criticism as a valid reason to disown this shit? Yeah fuck off, you`re the one who needs to STFU.
Demanding absolute unconditional support for people that prove they suck in some way or another is not a tactic for building a lasting movement. Please show us the massive success of this great global south socialist project built on top of compromising and accepting every bigoted fascist there is... You`re right, there is none.
And btw you don't even know how many people here are even "western", shut the fuck up with the reddit bro culture. The year is not 2020 anymore and this isn`t fucking chapo reddit. Grow the fuck up. One of the most embarassing shit on this site, the root of the huge struggle session with the previous celebrity last year that "came back" to "fix" us. Stop assuming just because you're a cis cracker everyone else must be too.
Its wild even a fuck up, a clear mistake in policy must be fucking excused and explained away using reddit tier level discourse. "You're just western socialists" lol fuck off. You're absolutely right, we're all just purple haired nerds living in New York, sitting in internet caffees with our $5000 Macbooks day dreaming about socialism in Africa. The victims who happen to find themselves in prisons or a camp? "Nah bro you don't understand how tough it is to build socialism in backwater Africa, they realy can't afford but throw their allies under the bus" is just blatant reactionary racist shit.
Who was this?
Find the years of posts about "[username] thought".
https://hexbear.net/post/3871189
Thanks, I thought it was a podcaster or youtuber.
Alright, fine I'll remove myself from the convo in this post, I'm annoyed at some shit and don't want to keep fanning the flames here.
If I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, as you seem to be clarifying in the replies, I would say that you worded this badly.
Maybe, and could be product of frustration since I'm annoyed at Americans telling others what to do. Recent news about Venezuela doesn't help.
But I will stand on the fact that as much as we want the world to be a particular way, the world today fucking sucks and we need to toughen up cause we are in it for a long ride.