Ghana: Is the World Ready for Obama?

Etse Sikanku
Accra

Much has been written and said about whether America is ready for a Black President or not. The topic has generated multiple, diverse and sometimes strong sentiments from different sides of the political and racial spectrum. Perhaps an equally relevant question to ask is: Is the world ready for Obama? There is no argument about America's status and by effect its president on global politics. Some may deny the existence of an American hegemony even in the post cold war era and like the reputed political scientist Samuel Huntington argue that what exists is rather a "uni-multipolar system with one superpower and several major powers." However the influence of whoever occupies the White House in international politics as chief executive of the American people is unquestioned.

Even before Obama announced his candidature for election, he had already attracted attention not only from America but indeed from all over the world. Africa saw a connection to him through his father and Kenyans claimed him as their own. Obama himself called the people of Kibera his "brothers and sisters". He is a political hero in Indonesia where he spent his early child hood. The media across Europe have covered Obama extensively. Indeed it is thought that foreign media have never covered American elections with such intensity and so early in the race as is the case presently. At the rally in Springfield to announce his candidature, it was not only Americans who braved the cold to catch a glimpse of the man Delaware senator Joe Biden called "the first mainstream African-American who is bright and clean". Among the crowd of Obama supporters and party faithful were journalists from elsewhere in the world who listened as the 'junior senator from Illinois invoked memories of Abraham Lincoln'. Crews from Japan, England, Australia and other parts of the world were part of the 600 journalists (more than twice the number that covered Romney's announcement) at the Old State Capitol. Writing under the heading The Legend of Barrack Obama Garrett Graff said of him: "his charisma seems effortless, his charm an afterthought."

What does Africa and countries like Ghana stand to benefit from a black presidency? It will be naïve to assume that a black president will automatically ease US policy with Africa. Even among the black population here, there is still some distrust over Obama's identity as an African American. Till date none of the civil rights paragons have endorsed Obama and there are suggestions that some like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will not easily be cajoled. Others even say Obama's taking the black population for granted. However all these are still to date musings of the 'smear politics' hungry media. For all the whining over Obama's identity, the question to ponder is; will a non black president be more favorable towards Africa? Remember we've had them for all of America's history. How much did they do? Ghana and other African countries will be looking forward to benefiting under the African growth and opportunities act. Government will be eagerly waiting to get more from the Millennium Challenge Account and many peasants across the green fields of Africa will be looking forward to better agricultural policies that will ease their plight and bring about substantial gains. For the many kids who have benefited from the free school feeding programme which the US has supported many more will be looking forward to higher enrolments. Will it see the end of African marginalization? Colonial apologists for instance will be looking forward to reparations to the continent. Generally it will be expected that a black president will introduce far more favorable trade and bilateral policies with Africa. It will certainly take a lot of audacity to change the status quo. From Obama's rhetoric and actions, and from the group of presidential hopefuls, he certainly stands out as the best bet for Africa. But maybe there's something about Washington that we don't know. Will a seat in the white house change the lens with which its occupants view the world and Africa for that matter?

Nevertheless, it clear that Americans are not the only people disappointed in Bush. The president may be suffering from unpopularity both at home and abroad. His recent visit to Latin America has only been a crude reminder even if he didn't need it, of how loathed and hated not only him but his country is viewed abroad. The visit only served as a sumptuous occasion for modern day leftist prognosticators such as Chavez to stir up biting criticism of the administration in Washington and by implication America. The dividends will not excite the republican establishment. Chavez is gradually living up to his dreams: an over bloated crusader of 21st century socialism and a totem of anti Americanism. These may not be the best times to be an American president but Bush has not helped matters any better by his unilateral and broadly neophyte foreign policy actions which have only stoked resentment towards the United States.

Obama has none of such baggage. Instead there is a world out there that will for very different reasons(even if far fetched)-, his middle name, his parental origin, his early religious beliefs and childhood, his mixed race and personal charm, warm up to him. Will an Obama presidency see the end of hatred towards America or will it compromise the nation's foreign and domestic policy goals? Obama may be a slick idealist but he is also a brazen progressive. By putting him in the white house, the United States may very well produce its most liked president since reconstruction. That will in itself limit substantially the one thing that has informed all the foreign policy actions of the Bush administration- vulnerability. This is what gave birth to theory of 'preventive action' leading to the loss of American lives in a war many now question. Robert Jay Lifton writing in The Nation hits the point when he says that "at the core of superpower syndrome lies a powerful fear of vulnerability."

Military might will not win wars for America. Neither will a less threatening, more compromising or bridge building administration. However a leadership that is willing to reach out to the rest of the world may eradiate the factors that cause terror in the first place- the hatred of America. Robert Lifton lays greater emphasis on this when he writes that "stepping off the superpower treadmill would also enable us to cease being a nation ruled by fear. Renouncing omnipotence would make our leaders themselves less fearful of weakness, and diminish their inclination to instill fear in their people as a means of enlisting them for illusory military efforts at world hegemony. Without the need for invulnerability, everyone would have much less to be afraid of".

And no one knows this better than George Bush who admitted in his state of the nation address earlier this year that "Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology".

In the new international world order where the only thing that binds leftists in Latin America, religious zealots in the Middle East and Arabian extremists together is anti Americanism, it may be hard to tell how a candidate with Hussein as his middle name will be received by the world. Nevertheless an American president with a more favorable outlook and appreciation of the ever fluid and transient nature of global politics may just be the political jujitsu that could salvage the United States better than the most complex military artillery.

But what exactly does Obama's foreign policy orientation look like? We may take a clue from his foreign-policy adviser Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard expert on human rights and another close associate, elder statesman Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. Powell is world class in her field. She's a foreign policy scholar who has worked on human rights, HIV and helped in solving some of the world's global crisis including the unrest in Darfur. Lugar is known to have "along with then-senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, devised the cooperative threat reduction program under which the United States has spent $5.7 billion to buy up and dispose of former Soviet nuclear warheads and other weapons. Otherwise they might be sold to, or fall into the hands of al Qaeda". Obama himself it is known was against the war in Iraq as far back as 2002. He sponsored a bill requesting for the phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. He has said that "nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons within the borders of the former Soviet Union are the greatest threat to the security of the United States." Barack Obama may only be a first term senator with little Washington experience (which he admits) but he understands that realism in American policy can be achieved without the risk of power politics.

In his book Audacity of Hope he is honest to admit that military might alone would not be able to not ensure America's long-term prosperity. And he goes on to emphasize that "American policies have been misguided, based on false assumptions that ignore the legitimate aspirations of other peoples, undermine our own credibility, and make for a more dangerous world." He acknowledges that the willingness of America to work with international institutions/community was not a 'naïve assumption' but believed that "the more America signaled a willingness to show restraint in the exercise of its power, the fewer the number of conflicts- and the more legitimate our actions would be in the eyes of the world when we did have to move militarily." Obama never mentions the United Nations but it is not difficult to extrapolate that he believes in building alliances. This then brings to mind the existential question regarding the powers of the United Nations whose charter Truman signed on behalf of the US. Bush did all he could to discredit Kofi Annan and the United Nations- an organization that the United States helped to establish. When Annan was leaving office he couldn't help but lament: "You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?"

Despite the tense relationship that existed between the republican administration and Annan, events in Iraq may have justified Annan's opposition to the war and raises legitimate questions as to the role of the UN as a world governing body. In acknowledging that the power of the United States was finite Barack Obama carves out as a foreign policy pragmatist, much different from neo conservatists who have a more straight jacketed view of the world. Obama may not be a 'foreign policy wonk' but will he be up to the task of providing the far sighted leadership that Kofi Annan had called for from America when he said "The system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership?"

Charisma and Charm may not win wars but it is only a matter of time that Americans will again come to terms with what Abe Lincoln once said that "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time".

Nope

Ah I don't see what people see in Obama. I won't want to put him on a pedestal because he is black. Seriously he hasna't swayed me yet. He might be good for America, I'm not totally discounting him....

ghanalady wrote:

Ah I don't see what people see in Obama. I won't want to put him on a pedestal because he is black. Seriously he hasna't swayed me yet. He might be good for America, I'm not totally discounting him....

You know it is not only the fact that he is "Black", well half at least, it is also the fact that he is Muslim, I just cannot see how America can put this guy into office. He may be the smartest politician in the world, I can't see how they will ever allow it.

I don't think it's the world as much as is America , a nation that whites feel is by and for them ready to call a black man Mr. President.

Cocktailmixa wrote:

ghanalady wrote:

Ah I don't see what people see in Obama. I won't want to put him on a pedestal because he is black. Seriously he hasna't swayed me yet. He might be good for America, I'm not totally discounting him....

You know it is not only the fact that he is "Black", well half at least, it is also the fact that he is Muslim, I just cannot see how America can put this guy into office. He may be the smartest politician in the world, I can't see how they will ever allow it.

Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim. He belongs to THIS Christian Church in Chicago. http://www.tucc.org/home.htm
disinformation isn't condusive to anyones enlightenment.

ICEMAN wrote:

Cocktailmixa wrote:

ghanalady wrote:

Ah I don't see what people see in Obama. I won't want to put him on a pedestal because he is black. Seriously he hasna't swayed me yet. He might be good for America, I'm not totally discounting him....

You know it is not only the fact that he is "Black", well half at least, it is also the fact that he is Muslim, I just cannot see how America can put this guy into office. He may be the smartest politician in the world, I can't see how they will ever allow it.

Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim. He belongs to THIS Christian Church in Chicago. http://www.tucc.org/home.htm
disinformation isn't condusive to anyones enlightenment.

His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama’s grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended.

That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.

The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. “We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque,” Zulfin Adi said. “But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played.”

Once a Muslim always a Muslim.

Cocktailmixa wrote:

ICEMAN wrote:

Cocktailmixa wrote:

ghanalady wrote:

Ah I don't see what people see in Obama. I won't want to put him on a pedestal because he is black. Seriously he hasna't swayed me yet. He might be good for America, I'm not totally discounting him....

You know it is not only the fact that he is "Black", well half at least, it is also the fact that he is Muslim, I just cannot see how America can put this guy into office. He may be the smartest politician in the world, I can't see how they will ever allow it.

.
Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim. He belongs to THIS Christian Church in Chicago. http://www.tucc.org/home.htm
disinformation isn't condusive to anyones enlightenment.

His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama’s grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended.

That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.

The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. “We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque,” Zulfin Adi said. “But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played.”

Once a Muslim always a Muslim.

he is not a muslim and
I suggest you read a likkle bit more about him....

I stand by my original post of Obama not being a Muslim , were he a Muslim , he would have had a Fatwa placed upon his head for abandoning Islam. Now back to the post , it as a well written summary of the current situation , and having done a lot of international travel in the past few years , I can understand how people feel about America at present. Can you blame them ? The world needs that bridge builder and I don't think that a angry white neoconservative male has the skills nor the inclination to reach out to the nations and people that America has either ignored or stepped on. Obama seems to have a charm unlike any Presidential candidate since JFK , and that can carry over to international diplomacy if he is allowed to be the President.

I would like to see him win , to prove that the black man can be on equal footing with everyone else in America , however , there are those who feel that exclusionist America is not ready for a black man to be the leader , and there are those who will resort to violent measures to keep it from being so. I am praying that he is not harmed and goes on to be the greatest American President since Abraham Lincoln.

The black man has finally arrived.

This is not about race, Obama is not full black but white people take him as blackman but if, he were be in Africa he will be call whiteman.

Its very sad for blacks to wait 200year for a person near them to make a change or wish to make a change in their lifes or prove that Blackman can be good, What do we see, blacks, some of them are truning their backs on Obama. What do, black people want? Blacks are their own enemy, someone said this and i, totally agree with hime. Let the man try before we judge him.