Ambivalent at best

For the first time in a long while, there's an occupant in the Oval Office who thinks the US-UK Special Relationship isn't all that and here's why;

• his grandfather was a cook in the KAR and there's no doubt he was subject to the indignities that were the order of day for African men in the British army.
• the British sowed the seeds of the tribalism that is prevalent in modern day Kenya by playing off one tribe against the other during their colonial rule - BO's grandfather was a member of the Luo tribe
• when Barack Obama Snr returned to a newly independent Kenya in 1965, his desire to function solely as a technocrat was thwarted by the politicians of the day - there is no doubt that tribalism played a part in this

Barack and/or Hillary

There are obvious parallels to be drawn between this and the duking that occurred as Barack and Hillary went toe-to-toe as they vied to win the Democratic Presidential nomination.

She is the first, black woman to contest the Labour party leadership and in recognition of this singularly groundbreaking achievement, I've coined the phrases, BamaTon and TonBama

Be the change that you wish to see

45 years to the day that Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to crowds that reflected the diverse cultural melting pot that is America, a similarly culturally diverse crowd thronged the Mile High Stadium in Denver to witness the dream become a reality.

His critics had accused him of being light on specifics and heavy on rhetoric, a triumph of style over substance, but in accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president, Barack Obama's outlined a detailed work plan of how he planned to change things once he was in the Oval Office. He paid a poignant tribute to his, now elderly, grandmother who "poured" what she had into him and ended by invoking The preacher.

He empowered the audience in the stadium and the million of Americans watching at home, by reminding them that the election is about them. Gandhi said "be the change that you wish to see" so here's to hoping that the American electorate, on 4th November, will do just that.

The audacity of hope is a beautiful thing to behold

SMS or email

I got an email, but if I was in the US, I would have got an SMS. BO has let us know just how down he is with technology by employing it to reach millions with minimal effort and expense. The manner of the announcement of his running mate is unprecedented and therein lies his brilliance at strategising. Conversely, the old white haired guy has fessed up to rarely using email.

The audacity of hope is beautiful thing to behold

Barack Barracked

Obviously, the people who heckled BO at a Town Hall meeting in Florida yesterday had not done their homework on the Senator for Illinois, soon to become the 44th president of the US of A. If they had, they would have known that BO's background is steeped in helping out the depressed, the oppressed, the repressed, the suppressed......All the hecklers had to do is check in with the residents of South Side, Chicago where they would have been told of the projects and initiatives that BO implemented during his time as a community organiser.

As BO pointed out, he's not running to be the president of Asian America, black America, white America, hispanic America, native-American America, gay America, straight America, rich America or poor America - he will become president of the cultural melting pot that is America.

BO diffused the situation with his customary aplomb and true to his word, once BO had said what he wanted to say, he let the heckler have his turn. All I'll say to the heckler is that a lesson in articulation wouldn't go amiss.

The audacity of hope is beautiful thing to behold.

Volte-face

Did you hear about Dubya's volte-face on talking to Iran without preconditions, something BO had proposed a few months back and which Dubya had derided and likened to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement in 1939? In fact, Dubya's administration is soon to establish diplomatic relations with Iran after a 30 year break.

Somebody else on the volte-face bandwagon is none other than Robert Gabriel Mugabe. The Zimbabwean Central Bank can no longer print money as they've run out of the requisite paper and the German company that supplies the paper won't be replenishing stock anytime soon because of pressure from the German government. If Mugabe can't pay the military and the police to continue the violence and intimidation of the MDC and its supporters, he will be in a very precarious position. So he decided to talk to Morgan Tsvangirai. However the talks are now deadlocked because Mugabe still thinks he's Top Dog and wants the winner of the March 29 elections to accept the position of THIRD vice-president. It's apparent that Mugabe shows no signs of emerging from his parallel universe anytime soon or are these the kicks of a dying horse?

He came, he spoke, he WOWED!!

The setting sun against the Victory Column provided a dramatic backdrop for the 44th US President-to-be's keynote foreign policy speech and CNN's Chief International Correspondent was there to capture the moment.


The Berlin police reckoned a crowd of 200,000 had amassed at the foot of the Victory Column, but given that I was 20m from the front of the lectern, a seemingly short distance, but the intervening space was a mass of humanity and given the time it took to the crowd to disperse after the speech was over, I would say 200,000 is a conservative estimate.

BO's speech centred around the need for global cooperation to tackle the problems of the world and he drew parallels with the Berlin airlift that saw Americans, Germans and others engage in a major collaborative effort that required countries who had recently been at war with one another to trust each other. The scale of the Berlin airlift was immense and its success is testament to what can be achieved when countries put humanity before anything else. The world needs humanity to be prioritised and in Barack Obama, the world may have found the person who can attain the required global consensus.

The audacity of hope is a beautiful thing to behold.

S-a-t-i-r-e

People, what The New Yorker did is called satire which is defined as

the use of humour, irony or exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues

There's no sign of MO & BO's cartoon on their web site. I hope the powers that be at The New Yorker did not feel compelled to take it down because of the ensuing furore and I certainly hope they won't withdraw the latest edition of their magazine from the stands. I laughed when I saw it and thought MO would look good with a 'fro.

BO shrugged when asked about it, I would really like to know what MO thinks of it - I'm guessing she just laughed it off.

The Guv'nor

It's certainly shaping up to be a momentous year for those of dark pigmentation, BHO is blazing a trail in politics in the good ol' US of A and now in good ol' Blighty, Paul "The Guv'nor" Ince is set to be named manager of Blackburn, making him the first black manager in the EPL. He has paid his dues (and no doubt learnt a lot) as he staved off relegation at Macclesfield Town and won the League II title with MK Dons. It will be very interesting to see how he does in comparison to his erstwhile team mates , Roy Keane and Mark Hughes, of Sunderland and Mancester City respectively.

Apparently, Inter Milan is his ultimate managerial position so, la buona fortuna e noi lo desiderano bene.

Only in America

As BHO pointed out in that address to the DNC in 2004, only in America is his story possible a fact that this article reiterates so eloquently.

BHO personifies the virtues of America and in him we can all see that the American dream can become a reality.

The audacity of hope is a beautiful thing to behold.

Barack Obama

Gary Younge writes a very interesting article on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential bid and I would like to add my 2 cents.

The reluctance of the likes of Jesse Jackson**** and Rev Al Sharpton (always so well coiffured) to endorse Obama's presidential bid can be traced back to the tension (for want of a better word) that exists between black Americans and black Africans. Barack Obama encapsulates the term African American to a tee - his father was Kenyan, his mother American so I find it rather droll that black Americans are more than happy to prefix the African to the American and yet the reality is dem people whose ancestors were slaves look down on people from their so called motherland. One of the first things that crossed my mind when I saw the wretched faces of the victims of Hurricane Katrina was how if I closed my eyes, I could see the same faces in the refugee camps in Chad, Darfur, Goma and numerous other places across Africa.

I recall a black British woman questioning the validity of my degree in the UK (BSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Nairobi) during a mock interview and I also remember how angry I became. As if we, as black people, don't have bigger fish to fry, we allow ourselves to get caught up in internecine rivalries. I suppose this touches on our insecurities as a people, especially dem people whose ancestors were slaves - we need to keep our eyes on the real prize.

Barack Obama is charismatic, eloquent and white Americans don't perceive him as threatening (very important!). He's a masterful orator and has shown himself to be adept at gaining consensus amongst camps with widely differing views. More importantly for Africa, he feels that good governance and accountability matter. So come January 2009, after his inauguration, the so called Big Men of Africa will start sitting a little less comfortably. (Ah well, the audacity of hope allows one to dream!)

****UPDATE****
I stand corrected as it has been pointed out that the Rev Jesse Jackson has finally seen the light and endorsed Obama's presidential bid