Why Africa should not ask anything more of Obama

I loved it so much because it spoke to the hopes that an Obama victory brings, but also the responsibility it places on us. Africa is a tough place and will still need a lot of work to fix it.

Now the easy prop we used to have, of blaming our individual and collective failures on white racism, has been chiselled away.

Similar sentiments came from the words of a senior executive at Nation Media Group more than a month back. One gloomy evening, the newsroom floor was quiet when he came to my desk.

The Nation Media Group was working on sending a team of journalists to cover the US elections. We discussed why Obama, even if he didn’t move on to win the presidency, was important.

We speculated about the “big” but, at the end of the day, obscure issues: The possibilities of strategic realignment between the US and Africa, and whether a President Obama might enable America to get a better footing on the continent in the race against growing Chinese influence.

We wondered how the politics of aid might play out, with Africa losing the ability to play the “Western guilt” card against a US administration led by an African-American.

Also the disappointments that waited the Africans who expected special treatment from a black president, when they find out that, at the end of the day, he is, and will always remain, an American leader whose primary business is to take care of his people first.

He got up to leave, turned back and said: “All these things we’re talking about are really not important for me. All he has to do is win this for our children. He’s almost the last man left standing who, by his example, will teach our children that they can be anything they want to be.”

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 must have been a very good day for the children at our daughter’s very multicultural school — and for millions other young people like them in the world.