By the Barack Obama Group in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
When the greatest of all civil rights activists the United States has ever produced, Martin Luther King Jr. pushed for racial equality in the 1950’s and the 1960’s through non-violent protest, little did the world know that King’s symbolic prediction of “...and if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania...” will be translated into a grim reality 45 years later by the Illinois Senator, Barack Obama.
Nominated presidential flag bearer of the Democratic Party, the first of its kind in the political history of the United States, Obama has come to disprove all stereotypes associated with the Blackman; violent, stupid, aggressive, unserious and the petty belligerent thief, in a country that experienced racism in its crudest form in human history.
As such, his nomination has gone a long way in reshaping the racial political divide to the frustration of some white supremacists still struggling to accept the hard reality that indeed an African-American of Kenyan origin is swiftly destined to become Commander-in-Chief of the greatest nation on earth.
And this is where I wholeheartedly agree with Harvard professor Lawrence Bobo who poignantly and succinctly indicated that “Critically, we as a people have arrived at a point where a whole new style of intervention and treatment is likely to be needed. The politics of the perpetual outsiders demanding inclusion will finally end...we’ve come too far over too many years for shrill protest to still be our main political posture today, no matter how necessary and relevant in the past.”
This means what these so-called White supremacists have failed to reckon with the fact that Obama is just too likable to Black as well as white voters to the dismay of so many white people mesmerizing onto his campaign for eventual victory in the slated November polls.
With the greatest economy on earth facing some gruesome recession, in spite of the sordid denial of the Bush administration, majority of Americans see John McCain as the personification of the economic failure of the world’s greatest nation due to some off-centered United States foreign policy.
Thus, the likeness for Barack Obama does not only emanate from his humility and astuteness, but from his candor to speak for the marginalized and downtrodden in a country that is so rich but paradoxically poor. Obama’s message for his bid to become the next president of the United States was plain and simple: “This is not about class nor color, race nor creeds...make no mistake, it’s the changes, what all the people them need...” he said amidst thunderous applauses. He continued, “...for eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past...Change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time", he told an ecstatic, cheering crowd of Democratic Party elites, delegates, civil rights leaders during his acceptance speech.
What added to the political glamour was when Texas State Representative and delegate Mike Villarreal, with tears dropping from his eyes, said: "I want to be able to tell my kids I was here when a black man and a white man got elected to lead our party...and I’m part of that for them." What a fine optimism!
This then is where the election of Barack Obama into the White House would not only compensate for the horrendous discrimination people of color suffered in the hands of their oppressors, but Africa will also celebrate that victory (history) with pomp and pageantry by virtue of the fact that one of their kin is poised to become the most powerful person in the world.
Indeed, the ominous challenge an Obama presidency will mean for Africa and Sierra Leone in particular is for some of the continent’s notorious politicians to shirk tribal and regional cleavages of self political aggrandizement for genuine democracy, the rule of law, good governance and the respect of human rights at all times. Once this is achieved, it will then be the symbolic gift to be given to Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of “...when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Comments