In high school a friend of mine won the superlative “Most Likely to be a Martyr”, the distinction was aimed at honoring my friend’s propensity to “do for others”. Today he works as a policeman for the NYPD, dare I say he might have just fulfilled that prophecy.

For that specific role in society selflessness is key, but as a leader of a nation I think a touch of selfishness is crucial. I present both Thomas Sankara and Samora Machel, both leaders of newly independent African nations (Burkina Faso and Mozambique) would be assassinated by internal and external forces they had the opportunity to “stamp out”.

My aim is not to really tell their life stories but rather point out some interesting happening in their lives. I came across this film footage of Samora Machel “reinstating” traitors and enemies of the FRELIMO movement into Mozambique’s society

Machel’s belief was that there are other ways of dealing with ones enemies, which is a feat of human character most of us in his position could never emulate. However each time I watch that clip I can not help but wonder if the man that conspired in his death stood in that room…

This excerpt from an interview with Thomas Sankara’s Foreign Policy Adviser, Fidèle Kientega, MP, and Bubacarr Sankanu suggests that Sankara really was an “Incorruptible man”

Sankanu: One of Sankara’s bodyguards said he detected Blaise Campaore’s plot and asked Thomas Sankara for the permission to arrest Blaise but Sankara declined. He said he would not betray friendship and that, if Blaise wanted to betray him, he could go ahead. What super human qualities prevented Sankara from stopping his killer, Campaore?

Kientega: Thomas Sankara was not a power hungry leader who would kill people in order to enjoy and monopolise power. He saw himself as a Servant of the Burkinabé and was prepared to die serving his people. One day we were working until very late at night and I called my family to advise them that I would be late. Sankara heard me and took the handset when my mother was on the line. He said “Mama, some of us have to sacrifice so much time for the next generation. Many people lost their lives in plane crashes before the aeroplane became a convenient form of mass transport for other people. Many people died in shipwrecks before the ship became a worldwide means of transportation for humanity”. Sankara knew that he would be killed. The Ghanaian secret service also detected the plot to kill Sankara and JJ Rawlings offered his help. Sankara named our National Slogan “La Patrie Ou La Mort, Nous Vaincrons” (Fatherland or death, we will vanquish). Death was an option Sankara preferred to failure!

Individuals with good ideas don’t grow on trees, and it might be generations before Africa can produce the “talent” possessed by the men above. Sankara noted that “You cannot kill ideas; ideas do not die. That is why Che Guevara—an embodiment of revolutionary ideas, of self-sacrifice—is not dead.” Unfortunately El Che is a level that Sankara and Machel will probably never reach, which to me a shame. Had Sankara’s belief in the need to save the third world’s environment a “Green Revolution” might have been a “Green Reality” in Africa today.

Most people will never know their ideas, since they themselves never had the opportunity to really develop them. For that very reason certain selflessness in the grand scheme of things can be selfish. I am sure deep down they thought their revolutions would never dry up like raisins in the Sun… Poet/Musician Saul Williams said “There ’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come” maybe so but they can be pretty powerless if they barely make it past the individual that thought it.