Dear ON,
You said it all when you opined, "Obama’s relationship with Africa is bound to be complex. While embracing him as an extraordinary politician with African ancestry, African nations ought to realize that Obama is, at core, an American. He has warned, for example, that the U.S. is going to reduce its foreign aid to poor nations. At any rate, African nations should not be asking a President Barack Obama for aid. They should be demanding a reduction, even end, to America’s meddlesomeness in Africa. They should be asking that Obama freeze the setting up of an African Command on the continent, a move that portends the re-colonization of Africa.
Obama – should he pull off his expected victory – would be assuming office as president at the worst and best of times. America faces fierce competition from the European Union as well as the emerging economic powerhouses of China and India. The U.S. is plagued by economic, military and social crises, including the gap between rich and poor that widened astronomically during the Bush years. Barack Obama has the tough task of restoring America’s waning confidence and edge in the world. He has the complex challenge of nudging the U.S. economy in the direction of job creation and an era of renewed prosperity for a larger portion of the population. And he is called to do all this without endangering the environment or jeopardizing his popularity in the world. If he succeeds at this difficult task, he will achieve the greatness that many of his supporters and fans already project for him. And he is likely to underscore the point – let’s not shy away
from it – that racist prejudice against black people was always based on ignorance."
Let our beggarly heads of government take note even as they seem incompetent in taming the butchers of Congo and Darfur. Obama has no time to waste with hypocrites and never do wells bent on killing and thiefing their people to death.
