Ibrahim Traoré: A Black Winter is Coming

This message comes from Ibrahim Traoré, and he speaks as the president of Burkina Faso to warn his people and the wider African world about the colonial imperialist forces he says are deliberately pushing West Africa toward chaos, war, and division. The full video in French is below. Video Url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9QUQo7IFRA&t=2s TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH I will apologize once again in advance to those whom my words may offend, because I will not sugarcoat

anything. We are once again going to confront the words that mimic Africa.

You have all certainly already heard of the Arab Spring, this phenomenon that overturned the geopolitics of the Arab world, beginning in the Maghreb in Africa and extending into Asia. It manifested with consequences that were often disastrous, deaths, divisions in some places, and unprecedented political upheavals in others. And I believe that all Africans should understand what this phenomenon is, where it comes from, and what must be done to protect ourselves from such a phenomenon. Unfortunately, we must regretfully observe that some Africans are not waking up.

What I am about to say reflects my own thinking, my own analysis.

Something is coming over West Africa, and I have called it the Black Winter.

The Black Winter is coming. It will be a very cold winter, a bloody winter, a murderous winter.

You are going to ask me why.

Well, when we founded the confederation, we felt this cold coming. And every day God gives, we warned ourselves to find tree trunks to light a fire. A fire that will warm the hearts of Africans. A fire that will warm African mindsets and African blood, so that we may unite around it.

We also worked hard to hunt the wolf, to try to use its skin to make coats to protect ourselves from the cold of winter.

We worked to build mountains, great mountains, to break the winter wind that is supposed to descend upon our communities.

Unfortunately, we are forced to observe that some Black people are there every day watering our tree trunks with fresh water so they cannot burn. They turn into wolves, or they make sure that we, the wolf hunters, cannot catch the wolf.

When we want to build our mountains, they break the stones so that we cannot succeed.

Yet winter is coming. And when winter comes, should we allow those who fought us to come protect themselves with the coats we made, with the mountains we built to protect ourselves from the winds, or to warm themselves with us around the fire?

That is the question we must ask ourselves.

What will become of Pan-Africanism when winter comes? Winter will come because war is moving into West Africa.

Imperialists are doing everything they can to set West Africa on fire and bathe it in blood.

But from the highest levels of the state down to certain populations, either we pretend not to see the danger coming, or we ourselves are accomplices in what is going to happen.

Chaos could settle in. I say could settle in. Many people could die.

We will tear each other apart in such an atrocious way that during that time, they will be there looting our resources and imposing their will.

And those who survive this tragedy will have only two choices.

Either unite forever against imperialism, or resign themselves to being slaves until they disappear.

So we must prepare ourselves for winter, the Black Winter that is coming.

We cannot understand that Black people in West Africa pray to God while terrorists kill Black populations.

We cannot understand that heads of state hide behind so-called media to discourage, insult, and activate hatred between populations.

These individuals who are on their platforms, who from morning to night spit their toxic venom to inflame hatred between communities, are generally very ugly, with miserable faces.

They know how to do only that.

Look at them carefully. They are there with wild fruit-fly eyes. Every day it is venom being spat.

They seek to divide communities on social networks. They are there, and they are numerous.

Why do we Black people seek to cultivate hatred among ourselves? And through hypocrisy, we call each other brother.

We must be able to tell ourselves the truth in a very raw way. Even if it offends, we will apologize later, but we must wake up.

Why is the Black person like this?

Why can we not see the danger coming, unite, and protect ourselves? Why do our behaviors lead us to confront dangers that risk wiping us out?

Others have closed their ears. They pretend not to hear Austria’s policy.

Some peoples take comfort in colonization. They love this domination. They call the imperialists and say, “Come colonize us. We love being your slaves.”

We often ask ourselves questions when we see the reactions of these pseudo-intellectuals, brainless individuals who spend all day engaging in debates with complete indignity and dishonesty, as if they do not see the reality and the examples right in front of us.

There are many examples.

When democracy does certain things that go against the very rules it set for itself, they close their eyes to it. But they are quick to call us youths or putschists.

But be sure of one thing: we are united, and we will remain united. And we must open our eyes.

Things will evolve.

Everything is not necessarily rosy. Everything cannot move at the pace we would like. But we are moving forward calmly, and we will reach our objective.

And when winter comes, if we must go through winter to be free, to be united, we pray to God that it be so and that He protect our populations.

Otherwise, one thing is certain: we will win, we will grow.

Remain calm, because we trust our populations. We trust you to understand that no manipulation today can divide us among ourselves. No manipulation can lead us to hate other people. No manipulation must lead us to respond with physical violence toward these individuals who have understood absolutely nothing.

Remain calm. Do not respond physically. We will respond through communication until they themselves change their method of action, and we will also respond according to the method of action.

Remain calm. God will protect the AES. God protects you all, all the populations. God accompanies you all in your objectives. And God, who is so just, fights for those who fight.

We fight. We are a resilient population, the most resilient in the sub-region. No one would have believed that you could endure what you are currently living.

We will defeat terrorism.

We will develop ourselves and we will assert ourselves.

We will have our place in the concert of nations.

Thank you.