January 18, 2009
Twelve Thanksgiving holidays ago, my wife and I were invited by some friends of ours in Gaithersburg, MD to a small get-together in their apartment. As native Africans, we are social animals, and while American holidays like Thanksgiving have no special meaning to us, they afford us the opportunity to get together, be ourselves, and ward off the omnipresent homesickness in this sometimes-harsh foreign land.
Predictably, the conversation turned to the question of the year: did he do the right thing by “chickening” out of the race to challenge President Clinton who was seeking a second term, or did he deprive America of a potential racial healer in the then impending 1996 elections? The “he” of course is Colin Powell, military hero, famous trailblazer.
If a black man existed in this country in 1995 who could be tagged the oft-abused ambiguous term “post-racial,” it was Colin Powell. He was able to accomplish what few thought possible: he had one foot firmly entrenched in the thinly disguised race-baiting, mean-spirited, lily-white inner circle of Ronald Reagan, and the other in the middle rung of the black social class where he hails from. Powell accomplished that impossible juggling act without incurring the wrath of either side. He was neither an Uncle Tom to the generality of black folks, nor a threatening “angry” black man to the white power structure. In short, he was the personification of a Bridge between two seemingly irreconcilable worlds.
That day, several people swore Powell would win the impending election if he were to change his mind and run. Someone brought up Oprah Winfrey and her popularity, and how she has been able to transcend race as a TV Talk Show host. His argument was “even Oprah could run for president and win because of her TV success.” I frankly thought the whole argument was malarkey. However, someone kept reminding me “anything is possible.” I was simply incredulous at what I thought was banal naïveté. I was sure my fellow conversants were out of their minds. In hindsight, the “anything is possible” brother was right. And I was wrong in being so cynical. Dead wrong!
My skepticism was due to many reasons and I said so. Among those, I noted that in the eyes of many “mainstream” (read White) Americans, Oprah is not a great Talk Show host; she is a Black Talk Show host –an entertainer. This was a woman who according to her own narrative was denied entry into a store in New York City around that same time because they “had been robbed by some black people that day.” Though she was rich enough to buy the shop, she was not allowed in because of her skin color. (The store later apologized and made some kind gestures to Oprah that she – rightly, turned down.)
My own personal experience then only reinforced my awareness of the dirty secret Oprah’s New York City experience revealed: White Americans say one thing, and behave in very different ways when left to their own designs. At the time, as a foreign student, I worked for the Grocery section of a Health Food Store that catered to the high end of the Washington DC social market. Company policy was “anyone could advance.” There was no way of missing that policy - management sang it, and had signs plastered everywhere: the Equal Employment Opportunity Poster Store had arrived. On paper that is.
I learnt quickly to my chagrin not to take that policy statement at face value. A string of young white Managers – apparently without even decent basic High School grades (because none seem to be able to write simple instructions that anyone can understand,) were made Supervisors of our mainly immigrant team that included an American-educated college graduate from Cameroon, active college students like myself, and others with various technical diplomas. The only Americans on our team were all black. Like our white managers, they also have only High School diplomas, only they were on par with us foreigners. That scenario never changed in the nearly six years that I worked for that company.
The relationships I had at work in those days were interesting only because one learns to play the fool, and take things in his strides. Everyone I met in those days (still true to some extent,) knows everything about Africa, and knows absolutely nothing about Africa. Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness,) and R.L Stevenson (Treasure Island,) - among others, taught them well. Those that never read those books have nothing to worry about because there is CNN and the BBC nowadays with their Only-African-Disasters-are-Africa-news policies. They say, "Seeing is believing" after-all, and good students remember their lessons. How can you argue with someone who has seen something “on CNN Live?” I cannot recall how many times I have interacted with someone only to recoil because of the shock (yes shock!) expression I see on his or her face. My gut tells me they are shocked that I am telling them something “intelligent.” That is not suppose to happen. Someone asked me once if I am truly African because “you’re too informed” she told me. Feeling insulted, my face fell even as she chatted away introducing me to her companion as “My good friend from Afeeka!” In moments like that, I felt like a curiosity – an Invisible Man to borrow from Ralph Ellison. Such is the consequence of the biased and profoundly negative narrative regarding Africa and Africans in the Western media.
The cruel irony of those experiences is that white people are much better than Negroes (do not confuse with Black Americans. I was to later meet many of the latter, which is how I know the difference.) At least white people are nice, and generally tend to be open to adjusting their views when one’s behavior belies their perception. Negroes on the other hand, are simply Chicken Crazy – figuratively, they seem to have an affliction in the head, which makes them saunter anchorless disorientedly. Not only do they believe they “know more than you,” many would openly talk down at you. They might not be able to spell their own name, but they are cocksure they can “teach you.” The warped mindset exhibited by freed slaves sent back to Liberia in the 1840s and their posterity that ultimately led to fourteen years of avoidable bloodletting in that country, is classic Negro – the belief in their Otherness; the false sense of superiority towards Africans; the open condescension towards non-Western Blacks generally. As in Liberia, they seem to hear an indiscernible call to “civilize native African tribes.” (Doubters can follow Keith Richburg – the Foreign Affairs Editor at the Washington Post who never tires of publicizing how blessed he is that his ancestors are American slaves that left behind the god-forsaken Africa.) If I was a betting man, I would posit that the biggest threat to Barack Obama’s success is not Right-wing schemers, it is Chicken Crazy Negroes! Their innate inferiority complex and need to be tele-guided by Massa is what drives their indiscipline, and thus makes them such potential liabilities to Obama.
Anyhow, in 1995, I was a staunch member of Club Cynic. I was sure Powell had done the wise thing by “not hearing the call” to run for the presidency in 1996. I believed he would have been set-up and then betrayed by some of the very people who were egging him on. That argument is now an eternal battle left to our imagination. That was 1995.
Fast forward to 2004. When I heard of this half-African brother from Chicago with a Magic Touch, I thought he was a Paul Boateng (British MP of Ghanian-Scotish stock.) I did not pay him any real attention. I watched his Keynote address at the Democratic Convention in 2004. Unlike most, though I thought his speech was very good, I was not held spellbound. In fact, I told some people, “He is too glib to be truly profound.” That was to be the first of many wrong assessments I was to make about Barack Obama:
I thought he had Jumped The Line too early, I was wrong; I thought there was no way lily-white Iowa would vote for a Black man whose very name betrays his non-Outhouse roots (no floor marks on his ancestors’ kneecaps,) I was wrong; I thought there was no way Negroes (not Black Americans) will rally around a Blackman without “My-dad-is-the-man-in-the-x-shirt-in-the-picture-with-Dr. King-on- the-bridge-to-Selma” credibility, I was wrong; I was sure he would eventually be intimidated and taken down by the Clinton political machine, I was wrong; I thought he was crazy to select gaffe-prone Joe Biden as Veep, I was wrong; I was sure the party of race-baiters and self-acclaimed phony Average Joe representatives with their crazy-as-a-Fox Channel propaganda medium will come up with something that would convince enough dull-witted people in crucial States to deny him the presidency (the last time they found enough out-of-work Bubbas in Ohio who defied basic commonsense to vote for the now-manifestly failed George Bush because John Kerry didn’t have the “where wit-tall” to lead the country,) I was wrong. I just didn’t get this Barrack fellow. I did not see his coming -honestly. He is on a different plane.
To me, to predict Obama’s emergence is to except, or anticipate a litany of seemingly improbable scenarios –caveats, longer than I can list on a single piece of paper: a clueless and incompetent white president who ascended to the office solely because of his privileged background; a nation scared straight by evidence of the profound damage eight years of obtuse leadership can wreak; a nation weary of wars and the lies that sold them; a young generation disconnected from their parents’ ethnic-tinged mentality; an ineffably arrogant party that “doesn’t get it”; a changing-faster-than-realized demography hungry for something different; an impatient and mobile world looking elsewhere for global leadership… These are just a start because as I said, the permutation is long.
What I did recognize midway through this remarkable phenomenon is the hand of destiny. Now, this might be my superstitious African mind, but I believe the man Barrack is unlike anything we have seen before. He is a real-life Passpartout and scarlet Pimpernel. He is a man on his way to a meeting with forces bigger than us mortals. That - in my view, explains why anytime one thought his train would be derailed by what seemed like an impenetrable jam: - Rev. Wright; “bitter” Coyote country Bubbas clinging to gun and religion; “He’s an anti-Christ Moslem” Internet smear campaign; a never-die Clinton Woman; divisive Chicken Crazy Negro hero OJ Simpson; photogenic Barracuda Sarah, - a guardian angel intervened to clear his way effortlessly as one would a shopping trolley in a grocery store aisle. Nothing can stop a man sent on a mission by the gods. Do not take my word for it, look at what happened to all those that tried!
For those god intend to crown king, he makes their enemies look and act like fools. A man named Ryan tried to stop him from reaching the Senate in 2004, he ended up being the butt of jokes as a sex deviant in Chicago. Long after all her colleagues had thrown in the towel, a stubborn Hillary Clinton, incredulous that an out-of-nowhere “uppity” Blackman had upstaged her, vowed to “go all the way to the convention because he cannot win” the general election (note the Coded subtext.) Or so she believed. However, within weeks, no one was more relieved than she that the Primary season was over. The once adorable Clinton veered from looking desperate to looking pathetic, as she teetered on the brink of complete political disaster. It seemed that each time she opened her mouth; she chopped off a part of her foot. An SOS went out among her friends as to who would save the woman – from herself and her sulking husband!
Then the real contest began. Old Pa McCain, candidate of the Privileged People’s Party - himself fittingly, a son of privilege, whose inconsequential military record is blurred by his five years residency at the Hanoi Hilton, thought he had a one-upper in Sarah the mannequin-like Ice Queen from Alaska. Going by a well-rehearsed Politics-as-a-Con Game book authored by a pudgy, goofy, and odd-looking character named Karl Rove, Sarah played the part of Joe-Six-Pack’s buddy. In reality, she has more in common with Joe-Six-Figures. But bespectacled, know-nothing, anti-intellectual, can-see-Russia-from-an-island-in-AK-so-I-have-foreign-experience, modern-day Mrs. Malaprop Sarah, who actually makes GW look informed, did serve a purpose. As shamelessly attested to by several Conservative voices, the Ice Queen became their real life Viagra. All they require is her sight on TV and a couch, and they are well on their way to getting relieved of sexual tension. Now we know why some regard Anglo-Saxon conservatism to be a step on the way to perversion. Thank god, they are an ever-dwindling minority in this country. However, as it turned out, they needed more than a winking, and purposefully seductive Sarah to match Obama magic.
In what became metaphors for Old Pa McCain’s campaign, he turned into his own worst enemy. He stepped on a dais at a political rally in Ohio, and became dazed. He looked into the sea of faces in front of him, and saw his “fellow prisoners.” At another location, he veered left, then right on stage, not sure which way he came – in the klieg lights! When he heard of a loud economic tornado approaching, he had the wonderful idea that they should stop the clock on everything else, as that is “putting the country first.” This, while seeking an office whose occupant assumes the self-anointed role of caretaker of planet earth. The gimmick flopped. As did his literal interpretation of Obama’s use of fine language -“putting lipstick on a pig” for instance. Even his selection of pretty Sarah that was herald as a hit initially became a huge liability when the woman’s utter barrenness could no longer be masked. There is more to folksy astuteness than the robot-like mouthing of “Doggone It” and “You Bet Ya!” And enough people knew the difference. Consequently, Old Pa McCain became a caricature of his old self. I say Obama magic did him in!
On a personal front, Obama probably didn’t need me to put myself through three weeks of self-censorship. Don’t ask me why, but I found myself consciously watching what I say, how I behave, even how I drive on the highway, for the last three weeks before the election. All that, because I didn’t want to jinx it for him – like I can. Silly, silly me.
Therefore, as we count the hours to Obama’s inauguration, one can only wonder what his rule will be like. One of the pleasant certainties is that he is no Bush-man. Someone asked me what Obama can do for Africa. I told him, and I repeat here: Obama should keep it simple! He should not try anything sophisticated. All of Africa’s problems center on failures on basic issues: lack of genuine elections, motorable roads, functioning hospitals, clean drinking water, unharnessed fertile agricultural lands. It is now apparent to anyone with eyes to see that money is not the issue. Otherwise, Africa would have long surpassed the stage it is at. The problem is leadership!
First, Obama should break with tradition by letting patriotic African leaders be. A fact hardly ever mentioned in the Western press (and derided where it is,) is that Africa – and indeed the so-called Third World, has lost a long list of locally-beloved patriotic leaders through American CIA-sponsored terrorism: Mosaddeq in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo, Suleyman Demirel in Turkey, Omar Torrijos in Panama, Ali Bhuto in Pakistan, Salvador Allende in Chile, Nkrumah in Ghana. Even the annulment of Moshood Abiola’s election as Nigeria’s president in 1993 by military autocrat Ibrahim Babangida had CIA written all over it (Abiola is an avowed advocate for Trans-Atlantic slavery Reparations.) The list goes on. Obama should desist from killing or overthrowing other people’s leaders because they refuse to hand their countries over to greedy American business interests. The current financial crisis that the US is experiencing is the type that so many countries live under permanently thanks in part to American policies. Refusing to be an American puppet should cease to be a death sentence for Third World leaders with resources America needs. (Obama might find it useful to read John Perkins’ Confessions of a Economic Hitman.)
Second, Obama should once again break with tradition by refusing to continue the usual shameless hypocritical American foreign policy: supporting criminals masquerading as leaders because they do America’s bidding in one country (like Egypt,) while condemning others for the same things (like in Zimbabwe.) He would not fool the world if he keeps up the status quo, and it is NOT a Change We Can Believe In. Obama has to muster the courage to not only talk different, but also walk that talk!
Third, Obama should resist the temptation of giving generalized, patronizing, and shallow Drive-By lectures to African leaders that will accomplish nothing other than endearing him to Right Wing elements in Western societies whose main goal is to squelch the admission of any notion of Western responsibility for the African condition. He has in fact engaged in such in the past. Fact is, the Congo –for example, would not be in the state it is in, if the US did not help depose and kill Lumumba to impose a thinking-challenged autocratic idiot named Mobutu on the people. In any case, African leaders today are as diverse as the countries they represent. They range from top-notch international savvy technocrats like Boni Yayi in Benin, and Atta Mills in Ghana; to focused pragmatists like Mbeki-Motlanthe in South Africa, and Ian Khama in Botswana; to educated-but-hapless and ineffective “gentlemen” like Umar Yar’Adua in Nigeria and Mwai Kibaki in Kenya; to outright clinically-mad, god-playing murderous criminals like Yaya Jammeh in my native Gambia, Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea, and the once-admired Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe who have turned their countries into their personal property literally letting their goons loose to beat, harass, and kill their opponents with impunity. Therefore, addressing African leaders as if they are the same, is simply an injustice.
If Obama really wants to help, he should go over the leaders’ heads and connect with the common African as he has done at home especially in the key regional Big Brother countries: Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa. Most African countries now have their own YouTube-like online communities that are an invaluable resource for authentic and unfiltered news on what is actually going on in the respective countries. There is no excuse for Obama’s team not to tap this resource. What passes for Official News in many African countries is nothing but blatant fabrications concocted by corrupt governments to evade public accountability.
For instance, as Nigeria goes, so does West Africa. Yet Nigeria is at the mercy of an unelected and physically sick man, imposed on the polity by a fraudulent predecessor. The man -Yar’Adua, now seems to be held hostage by an even worse cabal of thieving murderers – mainly former State Governors and military autocrats, determined to scuttle any prospect of their reckoning. With Yar’Adua’s apparent indifference or connivance, these notorious crooks continue to gallivant on Nigeria’s political stage openly handpicking their lackeys to head key law enforcement, and other Federal offices. In short, the inmates are now fully in charge of the Mental Asylum in Nigeria! (Doubters only need to look at Yar’Adua’s delegation of the ever-ambitious and shamelessly filthy corrupt former autocrat Ibrahim Babangida as his representative to Guinea’s new military rulers. Of all the two hundred million West Africans, why in the world would Yar’Adua select the one man who has no business being invited to any gathering where Decency is the subject? Babangida as an emissary for integrity? Some people know how to rub it in.)
Obama should not choke on “oil interests” to say what every engaged literate African knows about our mainly imposed leaders. The most obvious clue that an African leader should be shunned is the length of time he has been in office. Without exception, every single one of the over-ten-years rulers is either corrupt, incompetent, murderous, ineffective, or a combination of these. Obama should not fete such people because of Dollar diplomacy. The only language they understand – because that is how they maintain their oppression, is hardball. Charles Taylor did not leave Liberia because of diplomacy. As was done him, so it should be for the other members of his dishonorable club even if in less dramatic ways.
If Obama fails to break with tradition, he would become –in the eyes of many of us Africans, just another irritating American bully that we tolerate only because we do not have a choice. He is after-all, truly one of us. He is a man whose father’s remains lie in a shallow grave in tiny Kogelo in Western Kenya, a life cut short partly by the accident of him being born on the wrong tracks of an invisible ethnic divide that crisscrosses his country. Obama should use his late father’s bitter experience to side with helpless Africans against their oppressors – whether local, national, or international. American Oil Majors are part of the problem in Africa. It is about time they are forced to change their ways. It would be a real loss if Obama, a real African-American president with the power to effect enduring change, fails to do so. Like America, a hopeful Africa is watching and waiting!
Predictably, the conversation turned to the question of the year: did he do the right thing by “chickening” out of the race to challenge President Clinton who was seeking a second term, or did he deprive America of a potential racial healer in the then impending 1996 elections? The “he” of course is Colin Powell, military hero, famous trailblazer.
If a black man existed in this country in 1995 who could be tagged the oft-abused ambiguous term “post-racial,” it was Colin Powell. He was able to accomplish what few thought possible: he had one foot firmly entrenched in the thinly disguised race-baiting, mean-spirited, lily-white inner circle of Ronald Reagan, and the other in the middle rung of the black social class where he hails from. Powell accomplished that impossible juggling act without incurring the wrath of either side. He was neither an Uncle Tom to the generality of black folks, nor a threatening “angry” black man to the white power structure. In short, he was the personification of a Bridge between two seemingly irreconcilable worlds.
That day, several people swore Powell would win the impending election if he were to change his mind and run. Someone brought up Oprah Winfrey and her popularity, and how she has been able to transcend race as a TV Talk Show host. His argument was “even Oprah could run for president and win because of her TV success.” I frankly thought the whole argument was malarkey. However, someone kept reminding me “anything is possible.” I was simply incredulous at what I thought was banal naïveté. I was sure my fellow conversants were out of their minds. In hindsight, the “anything is possible” brother was right. And I was wrong in being so cynical. Dead wrong!
My skepticism was due to many reasons and I said so. Among those, I noted that in the eyes of many “mainstream” (read White) Americans, Oprah is not a great Talk Show host; she is a Black Talk Show host –an entertainer. This was a woman who according to her own narrative was denied entry into a store in New York City around that same time because they “had been robbed by some black people that day.” Though she was rich enough to buy the shop, she was not allowed in because of her skin color. (The store later apologized and made some kind gestures to Oprah that she – rightly, turned down.)
My own personal experience then only reinforced my awareness of the dirty secret Oprah’s New York City experience revealed: White Americans say one thing, and behave in very different ways when left to their own designs. At the time, as a foreign student, I worked for the Grocery section of a Health Food Store that catered to the high end of the Washington DC social market. Company policy was “anyone could advance.” There was no way of missing that policy - management sang it, and had signs plastered everywhere: the Equal Employment Opportunity Poster Store had arrived. On paper that is.
I learnt quickly to my chagrin not to take that policy statement at face value. A string of young white Managers – apparently without even decent basic High School grades (because none seem to be able to write simple instructions that anyone can understand,) were made Supervisors of our mainly immigrant team that included an American-educated college graduate from Cameroon, active college students like myself, and others with various technical diplomas. The only Americans on our team were all black. Like our white managers, they also have only High School diplomas, only they were on par with us foreigners. That scenario never changed in the nearly six years that I worked for that company.
The relationships I had at work in those days were interesting only because one learns to play the fool, and take things in his strides. Everyone I met in those days (still true to some extent,) knows everything about Africa, and knows absolutely nothing about Africa. Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness,) and R.L Stevenson (Treasure Island,) - among others, taught them well. Those that never read those books have nothing to worry about because there is CNN and the BBC nowadays with their Only-African-Disasters-are-Africa-news policies. They say, "Seeing is believing" after-all, and good students remember their lessons. How can you argue with someone who has seen something “on CNN Live?” I cannot recall how many times I have interacted with someone only to recoil because of the shock (yes shock!) expression I see on his or her face. My gut tells me they are shocked that I am telling them something “intelligent.” That is not suppose to happen. Someone asked me once if I am truly African because “you’re too informed” she told me. Feeling insulted, my face fell even as she chatted away introducing me to her companion as “My good friend from Afeeka!” In moments like that, I felt like a curiosity – an Invisible Man to borrow from Ralph Ellison. Such is the consequence of the biased and profoundly negative narrative regarding Africa and Africans in the Western media.
The cruel irony of those experiences is that white people are much better than Negroes (do not confuse with Black Americans. I was to later meet many of the latter, which is how I know the difference.) At least white people are nice, and generally tend to be open to adjusting their views when one’s behavior belies their perception. Negroes on the other hand, are simply Chicken Crazy – figuratively, they seem to have an affliction in the head, which makes them saunter anchorless disorientedly. Not only do they believe they “know more than you,” many would openly talk down at you. They might not be able to spell their own name, but they are cocksure they can “teach you.” The warped mindset exhibited by freed slaves sent back to Liberia in the 1840s and their posterity that ultimately led to fourteen years of avoidable bloodletting in that country, is classic Negro – the belief in their Otherness; the false sense of superiority towards Africans; the open condescension towards non-Western Blacks generally. As in Liberia, they seem to hear an indiscernible call to “civilize native African tribes.” (Doubters can follow Keith Richburg – the Foreign Affairs Editor at the Washington Post who never tires of publicizing how blessed he is that his ancestors are American slaves that left behind the god-forsaken Africa.) If I was a betting man, I would posit that the biggest threat to Barack Obama’s success is not Right-wing schemers, it is Chicken Crazy Negroes! Their innate inferiority complex and need to be tele-guided by Massa is what drives their indiscipline, and thus makes them such potential liabilities to Obama.
Anyhow, in 1995, I was a staunch member of Club Cynic. I was sure Powell had done the wise thing by “not hearing the call” to run for the presidency in 1996. I believed he would have been set-up and then betrayed by some of the very people who were egging him on. That argument is now an eternal battle left to our imagination. That was 1995.
Fast forward to 2004. When I heard of this half-African brother from Chicago with a Magic Touch, I thought he was a Paul Boateng (British MP of Ghanian-Scotish stock.) I did not pay him any real attention. I watched his Keynote address at the Democratic Convention in 2004. Unlike most, though I thought his speech was very good, I was not held spellbound. In fact, I told some people, “He is too glib to be truly profound.” That was to be the first of many wrong assessments I was to make about Barack Obama:
I thought he had Jumped The Line too early, I was wrong; I thought there was no way lily-white Iowa would vote for a Black man whose very name betrays his non-Outhouse roots (no floor marks on his ancestors’ kneecaps,) I was wrong; I thought there was no way Negroes (not Black Americans) will rally around a Blackman without “My-dad-is-the-man-in-the-x-shirt-in-the-picture-with-Dr. King-on- the-bridge-to-Selma” credibility, I was wrong; I was sure he would eventually be intimidated and taken down by the Clinton political machine, I was wrong; I thought he was crazy to select gaffe-prone Joe Biden as Veep, I was wrong; I was sure the party of race-baiters and self-acclaimed phony Average Joe representatives with their crazy-as-a-Fox Channel propaganda medium will come up with something that would convince enough dull-witted people in crucial States to deny him the presidency (the last time they found enough out-of-work Bubbas in Ohio who defied basic commonsense to vote for the now-manifestly failed George Bush because John Kerry didn’t have the “where wit-tall” to lead the country,) I was wrong. I just didn’t get this Barrack fellow. I did not see his coming -honestly. He is on a different plane.
To me, to predict Obama’s emergence is to except, or anticipate a litany of seemingly improbable scenarios –caveats, longer than I can list on a single piece of paper: a clueless and incompetent white president who ascended to the office solely because of his privileged background; a nation scared straight by evidence of the profound damage eight years of obtuse leadership can wreak; a nation weary of wars and the lies that sold them; a young generation disconnected from their parents’ ethnic-tinged mentality; an ineffably arrogant party that “doesn’t get it”; a changing-faster-than-realized demography hungry for something different; an impatient and mobile world looking elsewhere for global leadership… These are just a start because as I said, the permutation is long.
What I did recognize midway through this remarkable phenomenon is the hand of destiny. Now, this might be my superstitious African mind, but I believe the man Barrack is unlike anything we have seen before. He is a real-life Passpartout and scarlet Pimpernel. He is a man on his way to a meeting with forces bigger than us mortals. That - in my view, explains why anytime one thought his train would be derailed by what seemed like an impenetrable jam: - Rev. Wright; “bitter” Coyote country Bubbas clinging to gun and religion; “He’s an anti-Christ Moslem” Internet smear campaign; a never-die Clinton Woman; divisive Chicken Crazy Negro hero OJ Simpson; photogenic Barracuda Sarah, - a guardian angel intervened to clear his way effortlessly as one would a shopping trolley in a grocery store aisle. Nothing can stop a man sent on a mission by the gods. Do not take my word for it, look at what happened to all those that tried!
For those god intend to crown king, he makes their enemies look and act like fools. A man named Ryan tried to stop him from reaching the Senate in 2004, he ended up being the butt of jokes as a sex deviant in Chicago. Long after all her colleagues had thrown in the towel, a stubborn Hillary Clinton, incredulous that an out-of-nowhere “uppity” Blackman had upstaged her, vowed to “go all the way to the convention because he cannot win” the general election (note the Coded subtext.) Or so she believed. However, within weeks, no one was more relieved than she that the Primary season was over. The once adorable Clinton veered from looking desperate to looking pathetic, as she teetered on the brink of complete political disaster. It seemed that each time she opened her mouth; she chopped off a part of her foot. An SOS went out among her friends as to who would save the woman – from herself and her sulking husband!
Then the real contest began. Old Pa McCain, candidate of the Privileged People’s Party - himself fittingly, a son of privilege, whose inconsequential military record is blurred by his five years residency at the Hanoi Hilton, thought he had a one-upper in Sarah the mannequin-like Ice Queen from Alaska. Going by a well-rehearsed Politics-as-a-Con Game book authored by a pudgy, goofy, and odd-looking character named Karl Rove, Sarah played the part of Joe-Six-Pack’s buddy. In reality, she has more in common with Joe-Six-Figures. But bespectacled, know-nothing, anti-intellectual, can-see-Russia-from-an-island-in-AK-so-I-have-foreign-experience, modern-day Mrs. Malaprop Sarah, who actually makes GW look informed, did serve a purpose. As shamelessly attested to by several Conservative voices, the Ice Queen became their real life Viagra. All they require is her sight on TV and a couch, and they are well on their way to getting relieved of sexual tension. Now we know why some regard Anglo-Saxon conservatism to be a step on the way to perversion. Thank god, they are an ever-dwindling minority in this country. However, as it turned out, they needed more than a winking, and purposefully seductive Sarah to match Obama magic.
In what became metaphors for Old Pa McCain’s campaign, he turned into his own worst enemy. He stepped on a dais at a political rally in Ohio, and became dazed. He looked into the sea of faces in front of him, and saw his “fellow prisoners.” At another location, he veered left, then right on stage, not sure which way he came – in the klieg lights! When he heard of a loud economic tornado approaching, he had the wonderful idea that they should stop the clock on everything else, as that is “putting the country first.” This, while seeking an office whose occupant assumes the self-anointed role of caretaker of planet earth. The gimmick flopped. As did his literal interpretation of Obama’s use of fine language -“putting lipstick on a pig” for instance. Even his selection of pretty Sarah that was herald as a hit initially became a huge liability when the woman’s utter barrenness could no longer be masked. There is more to folksy astuteness than the robot-like mouthing of “Doggone It” and “You Bet Ya!” And enough people knew the difference. Consequently, Old Pa McCain became a caricature of his old self. I say Obama magic did him in!
On a personal front, Obama probably didn’t need me to put myself through three weeks of self-censorship. Don’t ask me why, but I found myself consciously watching what I say, how I behave, even how I drive on the highway, for the last three weeks before the election. All that, because I didn’t want to jinx it for him – like I can. Silly, silly me.
Therefore, as we count the hours to Obama’s inauguration, one can only wonder what his rule will be like. One of the pleasant certainties is that he is no Bush-man. Someone asked me what Obama can do for Africa. I told him, and I repeat here: Obama should keep it simple! He should not try anything sophisticated. All of Africa’s problems center on failures on basic issues: lack of genuine elections, motorable roads, functioning hospitals, clean drinking water, unharnessed fertile agricultural lands. It is now apparent to anyone with eyes to see that money is not the issue. Otherwise, Africa would have long surpassed the stage it is at. The problem is leadership!
First, Obama should break with tradition by letting patriotic African leaders be. A fact hardly ever mentioned in the Western press (and derided where it is,) is that Africa – and indeed the so-called Third World, has lost a long list of locally-beloved patriotic leaders through American CIA-sponsored terrorism: Mosaddeq in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo, Suleyman Demirel in Turkey, Omar Torrijos in Panama, Ali Bhuto in Pakistan, Salvador Allende in Chile, Nkrumah in Ghana. Even the annulment of Moshood Abiola’s election as Nigeria’s president in 1993 by military autocrat Ibrahim Babangida had CIA written all over it (Abiola is an avowed advocate for Trans-Atlantic slavery Reparations.) The list goes on. Obama should desist from killing or overthrowing other people’s leaders because they refuse to hand their countries over to greedy American business interests. The current financial crisis that the US is experiencing is the type that so many countries live under permanently thanks in part to American policies. Refusing to be an American puppet should cease to be a death sentence for Third World leaders with resources America needs. (Obama might find it useful to read John Perkins’ Confessions of a Economic Hitman.)
Second, Obama should once again break with tradition by refusing to continue the usual shameless hypocritical American foreign policy: supporting criminals masquerading as leaders because they do America’s bidding in one country (like Egypt,) while condemning others for the same things (like in Zimbabwe.) He would not fool the world if he keeps up the status quo, and it is NOT a Change We Can Believe In. Obama has to muster the courage to not only talk different, but also walk that talk!
Third, Obama should resist the temptation of giving generalized, patronizing, and shallow Drive-By lectures to African leaders that will accomplish nothing other than endearing him to Right Wing elements in Western societies whose main goal is to squelch the admission of any notion of Western responsibility for the African condition. He has in fact engaged in such in the past. Fact is, the Congo –for example, would not be in the state it is in, if the US did not help depose and kill Lumumba to impose a thinking-challenged autocratic idiot named Mobutu on the people. In any case, African leaders today are as diverse as the countries they represent. They range from top-notch international savvy technocrats like Boni Yayi in Benin, and Atta Mills in Ghana; to focused pragmatists like Mbeki-Motlanthe in South Africa, and Ian Khama in Botswana; to educated-but-hapless and ineffective “gentlemen” like Umar Yar’Adua in Nigeria and Mwai Kibaki in Kenya; to outright clinically-mad, god-playing murderous criminals like Yaya Jammeh in my native Gambia, Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea, and the once-admired Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe who have turned their countries into their personal property literally letting their goons loose to beat, harass, and kill their opponents with impunity. Therefore, addressing African leaders as if they are the same, is simply an injustice.
If Obama really wants to help, he should go over the leaders’ heads and connect with the common African as he has done at home especially in the key regional Big Brother countries: Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa. Most African countries now have their own YouTube-like online communities that are an invaluable resource for authentic and unfiltered news on what is actually going on in the respective countries. There is no excuse for Obama’s team not to tap this resource. What passes for Official News in many African countries is nothing but blatant fabrications concocted by corrupt governments to evade public accountability.
For instance, as Nigeria goes, so does West Africa. Yet Nigeria is at the mercy of an unelected and physically sick man, imposed on the polity by a fraudulent predecessor. The man -Yar’Adua, now seems to be held hostage by an even worse cabal of thieving murderers – mainly former State Governors and military autocrats, determined to scuttle any prospect of their reckoning. With Yar’Adua’s apparent indifference or connivance, these notorious crooks continue to gallivant on Nigeria’s political stage openly handpicking their lackeys to head key law enforcement, and other Federal offices. In short, the inmates are now fully in charge of the Mental Asylum in Nigeria! (Doubters only need to look at Yar’Adua’s delegation of the ever-ambitious and shamelessly filthy corrupt former autocrat Ibrahim Babangida as his representative to Guinea’s new military rulers. Of all the two hundred million West Africans, why in the world would Yar’Adua select the one man who has no business being invited to any gathering where Decency is the subject? Babangida as an emissary for integrity? Some people know how to rub it in.)
Obama should not choke on “oil interests” to say what every engaged literate African knows about our mainly imposed leaders. The most obvious clue that an African leader should be shunned is the length of time he has been in office. Without exception, every single one of the over-ten-years rulers is either corrupt, incompetent, murderous, ineffective, or a combination of these. Obama should not fete such people because of Dollar diplomacy. The only language they understand – because that is how they maintain their oppression, is hardball. Charles Taylor did not leave Liberia because of diplomacy. As was done him, so it should be for the other members of his dishonorable club even if in less dramatic ways.
If Obama fails to break with tradition, he would become –in the eyes of many of us Africans, just another irritating American bully that we tolerate only because we do not have a choice. He is after-all, truly one of us. He is a man whose father’s remains lie in a shallow grave in tiny Kogelo in Western Kenya, a life cut short partly by the accident of him being born on the wrong tracks of an invisible ethnic divide that crisscrosses his country. Obama should use his late father’s bitter experience to side with helpless Africans against their oppressors – whether local, national, or international. American Oil Majors are part of the problem in Africa. It is about time they are forced to change their ways. It would be a real loss if Obama, a real African-American president with the power to effect enduring change, fails to do so. Like America, a hopeful Africa is watching and waiting!
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