Decolonisation Beyond Politics: The African Refusal

 Decolonisation is often spoken of as a historical moment, an event contained within the mid-twentieth century when African nations declared independence from European empires. Flags were raised, constitutions signed, and the old colonial powers forced to retreat from the continent they had carved into possessions. Yet what followed independence was not always freedom. The colonial state left behind more than soldiers and governors; it left its languages, its economies, its symbols, and its ways of thinking. It left structures of dependence so deep that to be “independent” often meant still looking outward for approval, for validation, for permission.

But today, across the African continent, we are witnessing something different something more profound. We are witnessing refusal.

Refusal is not merely opposition. It is not simply protest. Refusal is the act of saying no to the conditions that attempt to define us. It is the insistence on stepping outside the frameworks that diminish us, the courage to reject what has long been normalised. And refusal is taking shape not only in the streets, not only in the parliaments, but also in the languages we speak, the clothes we wear, the ways we understand ourselves.

In Burkina Faso, under the leadership of Ibrahim Traoré, refusal has become government policy. It has become a national ethos. And it offers a glimpse of what Africa’s future might look like if it chooses not merely to be free in theory, but free in practice.

The Burkinabè Example: Decolonisation in Action

When Captain Ibrahim Traoré assumed power in 2022, many outside observers dismissed him as just another young officer seizing the opportunity of instability. But what he has represented since then is more than a military takeover. His government has redefined the meaning of sovereignty, moving decolonisation out of the abstract realm of politics into the tangible spaces of culture, language, and daily life.

In December 2023, Burkina Faso’s transitional authorities declared that French would no longer be the country’s official language. Instead, French was reduced to the status of a “working language,” while the national languages Mòoré, Dioula, Fulfulde, Gourmantché, Bissa, and others were elevated to official recognition. This was not only a linguistic reform; it was a profound act of refusal. It refused the idea that law and governance must always speak in the tongue of the coloniser. It refused the silent assumption that modernity and progress are tied to Europe’s words. By translating the constitution and the anti-corruption law into indigenous languages, Traoré’s government declared that democracy belongs to the people who live it, not just to those who can read French.

In the courts, refusal has taken another form. Judges no longer don black satin robes imported from Europe. Instead, they now wear Faso Dan Fani, the handwoven cotton cloth that is a source of Burkinabè pride. This change may appear symbolic, but symbols matter. They shape the imagination. To see justice robed in Faso Dan Fani is to see justice rooted in local soil, not borrowed from a foreign culture. It is to remember that even law can be clothed in dignity that is ours.

Burkina Faso has also banned the import of second-hand clothes from Europe, a market that for decades has flooded African streets with discarded fashion. By saying no to this trade, the government is refusing the logic that Africa must wear the West’s leftovers. It is insisting on supporting local production, on weaving its future with its own threads.

Each of these decisions is political, yes, but they are also cultural. They are not just about statecraft; they are about identity. And identity is where the battle for decolonisation is truly fought.

Refusal, for me, has meant something similar, though lived on a personal scale. It has meant refusing to shrink myself into the images others made of me. Refusing to let racism decide the limits of my worth. Refusing to let disability be treated as silence or absence. Refusal has meant insisting on being heard in my own voice, even when others would rather, I repeat back theirs. When I see Burkina Faso translate its constitution into local languages, I recognise the same struggle: the fight to ensure that dignity speaks in its own tongue.

Traoré’s project is not without precedent. He walks in the footsteps of Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, whose vision remains one of the most inspiring in Africa’s modern history.

Sankara understood that true independence required more than a flag. He renamed the country from Upper Volta, a colonial label, to Burkina Faso, the “land of upright people.” He urged Burkinabè citizens to wear local fabrics instead of imported suits, to eat food grown on Burkinabè soil rather than relying on foreign aid. He refused the domination of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, declaring that debt was another form of slavery.

In this, Sankara was an early prophet of refusal. His assassination in 1987 interrupted his project, but the spirit of refusal he ignited never disappeared. Today, Ibrahim Traoré is reclaiming that inheritance, reviving Sankara’s radical commitment to dignity. To wear Faso Dan Fani in a courtroom, to reject second-hand imports, to elevate national languages these are echoes of Sankara’s conviction that freedom must be lived, not just declared.

Refusal, for me, has meant looking at inherited narratives and deciding not to carry them further. It has meant saying no to the ways history tries to script my life. Sankara’s refusal was continental, but mine, too, has been revolutionary in its own small way. In the face of those who reduce me, refusal has been survival. In that sense, I know exactly why refusal matters for nations it matters for people first.

Burkina Faso may be a focal point, but it is not alone. Across Africa, a wave of refusal is building.

In Mali and Niger, governments have expelled French troops, rejecting the idea that security can only come from external saviours. These states, alongside Burkina Faso, are now pursuing a confederation, exploring new forms of regional sovereignty that place African solidarity above Western alliances.

In Tanzania, the long-standing use of Swahili as the national language continues to serve as a powerful example of how indigenous languages can unify and empower a nation. In South Africa, debates over reclaiming African languages in education challenge the dominance of English and Afrikaans. Across the continent, young Africans are refusing to be defined by colonial tongues alone, insisting on the richness of their mother languages.

Culturally, too, there is refusal. In music, Afrobeats and Amapiano dominate global charts, no longer imitating Western pop but shaping global soundscapes. In fashion, designers are reviving traditional textiles and fusing them with modern styles, refusing to be mere consumers of Paris or Milan. In literature, African writers are rejecting the expectation to write “for the West,” centring their stories in African contexts without translation for a colonial gaze.

This is not coincidence. It is the emergence of a continental ethos: Africa is learning again how to say no.

Refusal, for me, has also meant saying no to second-hand identities. Just as Africa rejects discarded clothes, I have learned to reject the second-hand expectations imposed on me expectations of silence, compliance, invisibility. I have learned to say no to the stories handed down by those who would rather I disappear. Africa’s cultural refusal mirrors a personal one: we both insist on wearing what is truly ours.

A nation may raise its flag, but if its children are taught to despise their mother tongues, has it truly broken free? A country may have its own constitution, but if its people must wear the garments of Europe to feel dignified, is it truly sovereign? A continent may trade with the world, but if its people are dressed in the cast-offs of others, how can it claim self-respect?

Cultural decolonisation is about re-rooting identity in the soil of the people themselves. Refusal is creative: it clears the ground of dependency so that something new can be built. To refuse is not to close off possibilities, but to open them. When Burkina Faso refuses French linguistic dominance, it opens the possibility of justice understood in every village, of laws that speak to the farmer and the trader in their own words. When judges wear Faso Dan Fani, they not only refuse European robes they affirm that African cloth can carry the weight of justice.

Refusal becomes a path to affirmation.

And here again, the personal resonates with the political. Refusal, for me, has never been only about turning away it has always been about turning toward. Toward self-respect. Toward survival. Toward dignity. In my refusal to be diminished, I affirm the fullness of who I am. And so too does Africa, when it chooses refusal, affirm its potential to be whole.

Challenges of the Refusal

Yet refusal is not without risks. The global economy is tightly bound, and rejecting foreign imports can bring short-term hardship. Western powers do not easily tolerate disobedience; sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and economic retaliation often follow acts of refusal. There is also the danger that revolutionary language may be used to mask authoritarian practices, with leaders suppressing dissent in the name of sovereignty.

These challenges are real. But they do not erase the necessity of refusal. Rather, they highlight the courage it takes for nations like Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to walk this path. The refusal is costly, but dependence is costlier.

Across Africa, from the Sahel to the Cape, refusal is rising. It is not uniform, not without contradictions, not without setbacks. But it signals a turning of the tide.

Burkina Faso under Ibrahim Traoré is more than a national story; it is a symbol of continental possibility. It tells us that decolonisation is not finished. It is not a chapter closed in the twentieth century. It is alive, unfolding, demanding to be lived every day.

Refusal is not despair. Refusal is hope. It is the courage to imagine differently, to say no to what diminishes us so that we may say yes to what liberates us. It is a reminder that freedom is not given it is taken, insisted upon, embodied.

Refusal, for me, has always been about survival in a world that often tries to erase me. For Africa, refusal is about survival too. It is about dignity, sovereignty, and the right to dream its own dreams.

The question is not whether Burkina Faso alone can transform Africa. The question is whether Africa is ready to embrace refusal not as retreat, but as rebirth.

Because the age of refusal has begun. And with it, the chance for Africa to finally be free.

Postscript

We celebrate when Africa recognises itself in its languages, its cultures, its knowledge systems, and its people. But we do not celebrate nor accept authoritarian regimes that use identity as a mask for oppression. True decolonisation is not the replacement of one domination with another, but the affirmation of freedom, dignity, and self-determination for all African peoples.