African Leaders, Take Lessons from Obama

Looking at President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech and policies, this becomes quite clear: He has not forgotten about Africa.

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

In this part of Obama’s inaugural speech, it seems like he is thinking of Africa, the continent of his father’s birth. What comes to my mind is a place that I visited: Zimbabwe. It is under a tyrannical dictatorship, and its people are destitute. This country’s leaders and all of Africa’s leaders should now earnestly listen to Obama’s words.

In the midst of the American presidential election, I twice visited the place where Obama’s father was born in western Kenya. At a mud-walled, tin-roofed relative’s house, I was shown the dirt floor where Obama once spread a cloth and spent the night. The house had no electricity, and was dim even in the daytime; I touched the floor and sat down. It was hard and cold. I could see the red-brown earth from the entrance.

“Barack, in order to better understand Africa, listened intently to his relatives’ many stories. He might be busy now, but he remembers his experience here,” his relatives say. Hearing these words, I thought that Obama would not just feel nostalgic about the dirt floor here. Africa’s racial conflict and political decay would have hurt him, also.

During its presidential election in late 2007, a feud between ethnic groups caused more than a thousand deaths in Kenya, in spite of its being considered a “stable” country. The coalition government established by the ruling and opposition parties devised a plan to control the damage, but the violence has shaken faith in the government. As burned buildings and destroyed homes are left in disrepair and ethnic groups remain segregated in refugee camps, bitterness remains.

During the U.S. presidential election, Obama made the Kenyan people consider the differences between their country’s political and electoral system, even if it was an unpalatable comparison. “Africa is where race and religion are mixed. That is exactly why Africa needs a leader like Obama. We want him to be our president,” said Jaret (50), who is from the hometown of Obama’s father. He prayed all night for Obama’s election.

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history,” said Obama in his inauguration speech.

This must have been directed at Zimbabwe’s president, who has clung to his dictatorship. He has forcibly seized farmland from white families and redistributed them to black farmers, inviting economic sanctions from the West. Under his rule, the wealthy agricultural nation had become a destitute land of widespread hunger and cholera.

There seems to be no end to the flow of people leaving for neighboring countries. In the northeast region of the Republic of South Africa, Musina is a town bordering Zimbabwe that is overflowing with refugees. Tinotinda (36) escaped Zimbabwe with only a little change. “The Western sanctions were meant to punish the president, but it is the people who are suffering. I want Obama to come up with a plan that will remake the system,” he said, as he lay on a piece of cardboard on the ground.

But hope is not lost for Africa. Take Ghana for example. On January 3, Vice President Mills (64) of the main opposition party was elected president in a run-off ballot. Supporters campaigned using slogans like “winds of change,” using pictures of Obama and Mills in their promotional material. From independence up to the 1980s, there had been many coups, but after establishing a new constitution in 1992, five democratic presidential elections have now been successfully carried out. Ghana is looked upon as the future of Africa, a source of pride for African leaders.

Africa’s identification with Obama reaches across national boundaries. Wearing T-shirts printed with his face and name, most of the townsfolk celebrating his victory at bars consider him an African brother. This is not just because they disapprove of the previous Bush administration’s Iraq war or its one-sided measures against AIDS that oppose the use of contraception. It is also because they hope that “a black president of African lineage can reform Africa’s leaders.”

Obama has said, “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Although his manner of speaking was a little high-handed, placing Africa expert Susan Rice in the cabinet-level position of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is a concrete symbol of this plan.

South Africa’s President Mandela (90) sent Obama a letter regarding his inauguration: “People, not only in our country, but around the world, were inspired to believe that through common human effort injustice can be overcome and that together a better life for all can be achieved.”

The African people’s dreams and Obama’s words act in concert towards the democratization of the African continent.

People expect reform from Africa’s leaders. Using the arrival of the Obama Era as an opportunity, African leaders should encourage political transparency. They should stop making excuses like “We have our own African political style” and come to their senses.

(Johannesburg Branch Office)