Burkina Faso junta weaponizes religious repression amid protest crackdowns, exposing colonial-era security logics
Original framing: “Burkina Faso junta shuts major mosque after arrests of protesters” — Africa News
The junta’s repression echoes colonial-era crackdowns on religious leaders, such as France’s 1940s suppression of the Volta-Bani Resistance, where Islamic scholars were targeted for opposing extractive rule. Post-independence, Burkina Faso’s 1983 revolution under Sankara was co-opted by Blaise Compaoré’s 27-year regime, which used religious institutions to legitimize neoliberal policies. The current junta’s reliance on French-trained officers replicates this cycle of external dependency.
The junta’s mosque closure is not an isolated act of repression but a symptom of deeper structural forces: a post-colonial state apparatus that weaponizes Islam to suppress dissent while relying on French military support to maintain power.
This pattern mirrors historical cycles in the Sahel, from colonial-era crackdowns to the failures of Operation Barkhane, where external intervention deepens instability. Indigenous governance systems—rooted in Mossi and Fulani traditions—offer alternative models of conflict resolution that the junta seeks to destroy, framing them as 'extremist' to justify their elimination. The marginalized voices of women, herders, and urban youth are erased in mainstream narratives, yet their resistance (through art, mediation, and economic organizing) holds the key to systemic change. A future rooted in sovereignty—economic, cultural, and political—requires dismantling the colonial security logics that prop up the junta and empowering grassroots alternatives that have long existed in the shadows of state control.