In Milan installed statue of revolutionary Sankara next to that of Montanelli

An iron statue that reproduces, stylized, the features of African revolutionary Thomas Sankara, who became president of Burkina Faso in 1983 at the age of thirty-four and was then assassinated four years later in a coup d’état, was installed Sunday at the bastions of Porta Venezia in Milan, not far from the disputed monument to Indro Montanelli. The statue dedicated to Sankara is the work of a Senegalese sculptor, Mor Talla Seck, who adorned it with a plaque that reads, “We must decolonize our mentality and achieve happiness.”

“As of today, Milan has a public monument created by an African artist, as of today the gardens of Porta Venezia have a statue dedicated to Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary of the Resistance and Liberation to colonialism,” was the comment of the Cantiere Social Center, one of the individuals who organized the creation and installation of the monument.

The collective then recalled the reasons behind the decision to erect a monument to Sankara: the figure of the African revolutionary is in fact, according to Cantiere, a “symbol that speaks of the reality of European colonial and neocolonial exploitation in Africa, but also of the resistance and liberation of Burkina Faso and the continent. This statue is an act of sharing knowledge, a way of affirming that there is no single memory, no single history, and no single truth.” Sankara is remembered as a positive figure (in Africa he is celebrated as a hero) who worked to enfranchise his country, Burkina Faso, from its colonial past, seeking to ensure that his people had social reforms to lift them out of poverty, lack of education, and difficult access to health care. During the four years he ruled Burkina Faso, he promoted a vast campaign of vaccinations for children, initiated programs to increase literacy rates, promote sports and expand the public transportation network, built schools and wells, and opposed land exploitation.

The initiative, which the collectives’ activists took autonomously (so much so that it drew the strides of the regional councillor for immigration and security, Riccardo De Corato, who called for the prefect’s intervention against “this statue that celebrates an African leader who has nothing to do with our history.” branding the installation as an “insane act outside any rules”), is part of the Decolonize the city campaign, launched in June with the goal of opening a public debate on colonialism, supremacism, racism and violence.

In Milan installed statue of revolutionary Sankara next to that of Montanelli

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