Roots

In Chicago, Obama can say he comes from the Midwest. In Accra, he can speak as an African. In Cairo, he displayed a real affinity for the Muslim world where he had grown up as a kid.

For many people in many places, these multiple identities are synonymous with conflict and resentment but Barack Obama is comfortable with all these facets of his past. He does not reject any of them. The president openly embraces the complex and harmonious blend that makes up his roots.

That is one of the primary reasons that young Africans consider Barack Obama to be “one of them.” Obama’s popularity on his father’s continent is emotional and profound; it is also positive for both the American leader and his African admirers.

It is no coincidence that President Obama chose Ghana as the first step in his journey to his past. The first African country to free itself from colonialism, Ghana is both an African and a democratic state. Western leaders have praised the nation as a symbol that will encourage all Africans to defy the stereotypes of the Dark Continent and break the “African curse” Sarkozy meditated on in his recent speech in Dakar. Ghana has managed to fight against corruption and tribalism; it is one of the few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to be in reach of the economic and social objectives of the so-called “millennium goals”.

If Ghana can become a model African nation, is there not hope for the rest of Africa? The exceptional but authentic life-journey of Barack Obama provides an example for all those who doubt Africa and her people-there is no inevitability of failure, corruption, disease or war. As Bono nicely said, “Africa is not only the country of Obama. It is also ours. This is where humanity was born”. We are all Africans.