During its 4-year existence (1983-1987), the "Democratic and Popular Revolution" led by Thomas Sankara developed its own rhetorical and metaphorical repertoire, which, indeed, made a surprisingly large use of derogatory animal comparisons to ridicule its many enemies: the politicians, functionaries, bourgeoisie, military, merchants, and traditional chiefs who were associated with the previous regimes (and with foreign powers including France) and suspected to plot against the new one, or who were at least accused of being corrupt and lazy. There have been at least two works that have studied these rhetorical flourishes: an article titled Du langage animalier en politique (Euphorion, 1988), and a chapter of French political scientist Jean-François Bayard's The Illusion of Cultural Identity (first published in 1996).

Unfortunately I don't have full access to Euphorion's paper (and I cannot find who they are/were, apart that they're probably Burkinabe). I can only read some extracts, and the list Euphorion established from issues of the government magazine Armée du peuple published in 1983 and 1984 (Bovier and Fluckiger, 2013). Here are the animal names collected by Euphirion, with or without qualifiers:

Animal names with qualifiers

• Panicked buffaloes (buffles affolés) -> trader bourgeoisie
• Political cockroaches (cafards politiques) -> dignitaries of the CMRPN (Comité militaire de redressement pour le progrès national)
• Starving jackals (chacal affamés) -> corrupt functionaries, dishonest merchants
• Black cats (chats noirs) -> local puppets of French imperialism, French people
• Stray dogs (chiens errants) -> local puppets of imperialism
• Mangy dogs (chiens galeux) -> corrupt functionaries
• War dogs (chiens de guerre) -> mercenaries, racists who do not care about black people's lives
• Puffed-up turkeys (dindons gonflés) -> military and custom officers who do not care about other people's belongings
• Bewildered owls (hiboux éberlués) -> non-revolutionary functionaries
• Owls with slimy/rheumy eyes (hiboux au regard gluant) -> politicians of the Third Republic, members of the PCRV (Parti communiste révolutionnaire voltaïque)
• Frightened hyenas (hyènes apeurées) -> dishonest merchants and functionaries
• Starving wolves (loups affamés) -> politicians
• Wild geese (oies sauvages) -> mercenaries
• Arrogant/haughty/strutting guinea fowls (pintades orgueilleuses) -> false activists
• Terrorised foxes (renards terrorisés) -> merchants, non-revolutionary functionaries, false revolutionaries
• Double-shelled tortoises (tortues à double carapace) -> trade unionists, merchants
• Tightrope chameleons / fence-sitting chameleons / chameleons doing balancing acts (caméléons équilibristes) -> counter-revolutionaries, shady businessmen, reactionaries, representatives of the neo-colonial army

Animal names without qualifiers

• Lambs (agneaux) -> apolitical functionaries and military
• Caiman -> corrupt functionaries
• Cerberuses -> functionaries who exploit illiterate peasants
• Scavengers (charognards) -> merchants, corrupt functionaries, traditional chiefs, "feudal" men
• Crocodiles -> merchants, politicians of the Third Republic
• Elephants -> politicians of the Third Republic
• Hippopotamuses -> military who strike at the weak, functionaries who drink
• Lizards -> functionaries who sleep
• Geckos (margouillats) -> apolitical functionaries, trade unionists
• Shrews (musaraigne) -> functionaries and military who live off the backs of peasants and merchants
• Birds of prey (rapaces) -> corrupt functionaries
• Rats -> thieving functionaries
• Leeches -> politicians, traditional chiefs
• Moles -> politicians, intellectuals
• Vultures -> every person who exploits others

These terms were widely disseminated in articles and in speeches, either formal ones made in political meetings, or as is the case in the video, in speech using the "call-and-response" pattern typical of subsaharan African cultures.

Here are two examples that features some of the animals cited above:

Comrades, let us not play into the hands of reaction and counter-revolution. Let's not play into the hands of populism, and on the contrary, let's say that there should not be a single human being in Burkina Faso, whatever his age, who has not been mobilised. We need them. And then, I must tell our dear comrade elders that if it is true that the snow on the roof does not mean that it is not warm inside, we must understand that inside the elders themselves there are double-shelled tortoises [applause]. Among the elders there are owls with slimy eyes [applause], that is to say, a certain number of tigthrope chameleons who think and believe that, as in a game of checkers, the revolution has just given them a very dangerous opening which they will take advantage of to position themselves to resume their favourite sport, that is to say: intrigues, plots, settling of scores, defamation, scheming, and what have you! It is first and foremost up to the elders to unmask and fight these bad elders [applause] (Speech by Thomas Sankara, First National Conference of CDRs, 4 April 1986).

Comrades, let us have the courage to recognise that in a number of our offices and military corps hippopotamuses, lizards, and chameleons are still in our midst. These water or land animals are trying in every way they can to block the transformation taking place in the army. But their acts of sabotage directed against the RDP are so subtle and clever that all sincere comrades must be much more vigilant and determined to unmask and combat them. But the people will not be fooled. That is why the immediate task incumbent upon every soldier involved in the revolutionary process is to dislodge the last representatives of the neo-colonial army, wherever they may be hiding (editorial of Armée du peuple, 6 October 1984, cited by Euphorion and Bayard).

For Euphorion, Bayard, and Cameroonian philosopher Jean-Godefroy Bidima, this way of addressing the public had roots in the local culture. Of course, all human cultures do make ample use of animal symbolism. Animals are given negative and positive attributes (which can coexist withing a culture, eg in European medieval bestiaries dogs were both filthy/lecherous and faithful). These attributes are metaphorically transferred to humans (individuals or groups), notably in political context where they are typically used derogatively, from the counter-revolutionary "merciless tigers" of the French anthem La Marseillaise to the "zoosemic labelling" found in Kenyan songs comparing political leaders to hyenas, leopards, frogs and mongooses, and rival ethnic groups to wolves, pigs, baboons, and owls (Ouma and Macharia, 2019). Euphorion, about the use of political bestiary in Burkina Faso:

Burkinabe animal language is not new, but it does not leave the speakers, listeners and readers indifferent. It manifests itself in speeches, in writings and in emblems. In Burkina Faso, politics appropriates the animal world, just as the oral tradition did to explain the power of Princess Yennega in the Mossi universe, because the animal language is the only one that all social strata accept with humour. This particular language takes up and transforms the object of language, manipulates it and makes it acceptable, because it indicates in its general sense a category of individuals who behave in a non-conforming way and sometimes accurately locates individuals that everyone knows.

-> PART 2