Afrique Life - June 2008
Obama's political trajectory inspires Africans
"Mandela was South Africa’s Obama who, in turn, could well turn out to be America’s Mandela. Time– and White folks – will tell come November."
The prospect of a Barack Obama presidency in the United States has generated no end of excitement in much of Africa and throughout the developing world. In fact, in terms of a full African American appreciation of the impact that Obama’s candidacy is generating, it should be pointed that this impact resonates in Asia as well as Africa.
A case in point would be former high-ranking Indian UN diplomat and columnist Shashi Tharoor, who was quoted in a recent TIME magazine article as stating that “An Obama victory would fulfill everything the rest of the world has been told America could be, but hasn’t quite been.” In other words, he's political trajectory is inspirational.
Courtesy Photo
Francis Kornegay
Obama has already emerged as one of the external influences pressing for the successful implementation of the political settlement brokered by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in conflict-wracked Kenya in the aftermath of Kenya’s elections.
In a Kenyan newspaper commentary, titled "Kenya has come too far to waste gains," Obama voiced his "deeply troubled" concerns about the political impasse and threat posed by post-election violence to "Kenyans, Kenyan democracy, and stability and economic development in a vital region."
He went on to say that "when I recently spoke with opposition leader Raila, I urged him to enter into talks with President Kibaki without preconditions…I have also reached out to President Kibaki in order to encourage him to refrain from further steps that would exclude meaningful opposition participation in the government."
Obama has a vested interest in Kenya in a way that few other African Americans can identify, and probably no other American politico can come close to matching. A fact belying some of his African American detractors who have questioned his "Blackness" when, in fact, he is closer to his African roots than most of us will ever be.
Nor is Obama one to downplay his African roots, in spite of his White Kansas family affiliations. This gives him an inside track into the politics of Africa that will stand him in good stead should he win the general election. He will be able to relate to Africa in a way no other American political leader, Black or White, would ever be able to match.
Iconic symbol in South Africa
This is all by way of conveying the intense interest and attention being paid to this year’s U.S. presidential election cycle to a degree that is globally unprecedented. Moreover, Obama’s instant iconic status is plain to see in South Africa, where, before one leaves the airport in Johannesburg, one is greeted with a South African Airways billboard featuring the face of none other than Obama.
Black South Africans, in fact, are so enamored with Obama that the heroic "miracle maker" of post-apartheid South Africa, and "Father of the Nation," Nelson Mandela seems almost forgotten.
One columnist was, in fact, bemoaning South Africa’s need for "a Barack Obama" when, not too long ago, African Americans were enviously wishing for our own Mandela and, indeed, adopting him as our own. Well, perhaps Mandela was South Africa’s Obama who, in turn, could well turn out to be America’s Mandela. Time – and White folks – will tell come November.
South Africa has produced some acutely keen and perceptive analysts of America’s contemporary politics, with particular reference to the current Democratic campaign for the party’s presidential nomination.
Meanwhile, African Americans who live in South Africa have moved actively behind Obama’s candidacy with a networked grouping called "Americans in Africa for Obama" working in cooperation with Democrats Abroad. Beyond our collective ego-gratification about one of our own having a fighting chance of gaining the White House, it behooves African Americans at home and abroad to enter the intellectual fray over what is being called Obama’s "engaged diplomacy doctrine" which is part of the reason for his global resonance after eight disastrous years of President George Bush’s foreign policy.
We dare not concede this debate to the warmongering forces of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and GOP. Obama’s significance, apart from the possibility of his being elected the first Black president, is that he could mark a major historic turning point in American foreign policy and its standing in the world.
