Could Obama Have Become a Candidate in an African Country?
June 12th, 2008here is a carnivalesque celebration across Africa about Senator Barrack Obama becoming the Presidential candidate for the Democrats in next November’s elections in the US. The excitement is such that one would be forgiven for thinking that Obama was about to be sworn in. The enthusiasm ignores the fact that he is yet to be formally adopted and still has an election to fight against the Republicans. Nowhere is this excitement more infectious than in Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s father. Even Kenyans who, in the closely fought Presidential elections of last year, swore that Raila would never be president (not because of anything other than being Luo) without any sense of irony, are part of the Obamania. A 100% Luo is not good enough for them as President of Kenya, but they support a 5O% Luo for president of the USA!
Kenyans are not alone in these contradictory responses. I am not sure how many of the millions of Africans now jubilating about Obama’s possible victory, would be that enthusiastic were Obama to be standing for office in their own countries. Can you imagine an Obama as a presidential candidate in Ivory Coast? Would he not be reminded that he is not African enough? How could he pass the ‘ivoirite’ test when even a former Prime Minister of the country, born in the country was disqualified? If Obama had stood in a Nigerian election would he have generated the same mass adulation?
This is a continent in which a former President (Kenneth Kaunda), founding father of Zambia and a man who served as President for 25 years, had his citizenship stripped by his successor Chiluba (a small-minded small man) because his parents allegedly came from a neighbouring country (not even another continent)! The former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, had the citizenship of a number of Tanzanians annulled because they (or he suspected that they) disagreed with him politically. One of these was a serving High Commissioner and another a former MP and leading member of the ruling party. As part of his campaign of prolonging his gerontocracy, President Mugabe stripped many Zimbabweans of their citizenship. The journalist Trevor Ncube was declared a Malawian, but his siblings who were not considered sympathisers of the opposition, remained Zimbabweans. Ethiopia and Eritrea shamelessly engaged in tit for tat denationalisation of innocent citizens because of the senseless war between the two leaders. There are so many examples of routine denial of citizenship across Africa.
The ease with which political opponents are foreignised in Africa would never permit Obama to dream of becoming a local councillor, let alone aspiring to the Presidency in an African country. Even within the same country, claims of who is an indigene, a settler, a resident, and so on, are used to disempower fellow citizens. And if you are a woman who married across ethnic or national boundaries you are doubly disempowered. You may not be fully accepted by the man’s group or country and your group / country will disown you for marrying out.
Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us re-examine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation. Obama did not have to hide his African and non-African origins and heritag,e and both are not considered to be disadvantages to his political ascendancy. Instead he is celebrating them and using them as a political selling point - that the diversity of his heritage and upbringing particularly equip him to lead a multi-cultural America in an even more diverse world. Without stating it directly, he challenges the WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) hegemony with a global cosmopolitanism that makes the provincialism of the likes of Bush anti-thetical to the wider interests of the US in the world. When he says he understands the world and could make the world understand America, one believes him, rather than when his opponents say the same.
Obama’s victory should open the doors of opportunity for Africans to enjoy full citizenship rights wherever they may be, from Cape Town to Cairo, and lift the veil from the injustices that continue to surround citizenship across the continent. If we can be expectant of an Obama victory in American elections, we should equally be prepared to accept that a Muyarwanda raised in Uganda can be president of Uganda; a Nigerian or Ghanaian or Togolese extraction can be President of Nigeria; an immigrant from Zimbabwe or Mozambique who is a target of negrophobic attacks in South Africa today, and their descendants, can aspire to be president of South Africa in our life time.
If we cannot accept this, we should stop the hypocrisy of supporting Obama. If an Obama is good for America he or she should be good for Africa too. Show that you really care about Obama’s promised brave new world of tolerance and inclusion by recognising the many Obamas near you.
“Forward ever, backward never”…..Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972)
………………DON’T AGONISE! ORGANISE!!………………………………
