With the opening of the National Culture Week (SNC) just days away, the need to affirm that the SNC is essential arises once again to magnify this biennial celebration of our cultural foundation, while also hoping for some improvements to enable it to better meet one of its main objectives, namely the building of the Burkinabè nation-state, if indeed the nation is first and foremost cultural before anything else.
In both sociology and ethology, culture is what is common to a group of individuals, what "binds" a community. In other words, it is the distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional traits that characterize a society or social group.
This is therefore, "the common reservoir." It would therefore be appropriate, in our view, to integrate into this week all the other components of our culture, beyond the arts, literature, sport and leisure.
What about the body of knowledge, beliefs, laws, morals, customs and habits acquired by Burkinabe people as members of a society?
What about the question of language, beliefs, and practical social and customary values?
Finally, what about the explanation of the creation of the world and the foundation of societal or religious rules?
These are all dimensions of culture that are obscured, leaving room, as mentioned above, only for the arts and cultural expressions (music, literature, dance, painting, etc.). As a result, the identity of our people will be more closely tied to a recognized historical and cultural past, leading to a national consciousness.
This, moreover, prompted remarks from the President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, during his latest major press conference, where he spoke of the need to revisit this history to better address current challenges. Therefore, through the National Cultural Movement (SNC), we must raise public awareness through more sophisticated, forward-thinking work, moving beyond established approaches and clichés. This is the essential condition for the renaissance that the progressive popular revolution must bring about.
Let's go further out into the open.
Boubakar SY
