Give Us Hope Barack Obama

Left of What’s Right
By Marlan Padayachee
Marlan Padayachee is a freelance journalist and a media communications strategist and he writes in his personal capacity. (marlan.padayachee@gmail.com)


IN what has clearly been one of the most challenging six months of 2008, the ANC’s post-Polokwane tensions with President Thabo Mbeki, the Kenyan election violence, the perennial problems in Zimbabwe, the xenophobic explosion at home and food riots in some parts of the world, comes a spectre of hope. His name is Barack Obama who fascinated the world with his political savvy, elegance and style, particularly his dress sense with well cut suits and matching shirt and ties, and of course his boyish smiles.
The Africans would now start proudly proclaiming ownership of the first black President-elect (I am hedging my bets here) to serve the more than 200-million American people: “He’s one of us, he’s from home.”
The Democratic Party’s Presidential hopeful stole the world headlines this week, outflanking his closest rival Hillary Clinton, despite her 16-year experience in US politics and stunning stints at the White House as First Lady to law college sweetheart and charismatic former President Bill Clinton and her popularity as a New York senator.
Obama, backed by the powerful TV talk show queen and billionaire Oprah Winfrey, and accompanied by a stylish First Lady in waiting, and some of the finest aides on the Washington’s political and electioneering landscape, flashed past the winning past like a breath of fresh air on a global stage polluted by more wars, internal strifes and racial and ethnic conflicts in the past decades.
His roots are in a tiny village near Nairobi and as the son of Kenyan father and American mother, Obama’s winning campaign trail threw a lifeline to the struggling Third World, and South Africa in particular, last week.
How does the hurly-burly world of a greenback election affect a country that’s still trying to find its transitional bearings in the wake of the racist and ethnic cleansing of foreigners and illegal immigrants? How will Africa, still in the post-colonial throes of poverty, corruption, dictatorships, ethnic and racial politics, benefit from BO at the White House when GWB could not come to grips with our homegrown blues, let alone pouring cold water over the flaming Middle East conflicts?
Firstly, from segregation to nomination, Obama has given new hope to long struggling African-Americans and Hispanics, provided he delivers smartly to the marginalized minorities battling to make headway in a super-capitalist continent. He is locked in the history of this chequered nation and his work will be cut out when he takes the Oval Office after the big polls in November.
South Africa, ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and the rest of Africa will become his biggest policy poser. His foreign policy in the Middle East and rest of the world has to be ratcheted towards world peace. What he is going to do with Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be interesting.
At least Africa will benefit not just from the HIV-AIDS dollar endowment, but relations will improve significantly from Cape to Cairo.
Maybe, he will inspire Kenyans to stop killing each other when polls go wrong or are rigged. Maybe, he will give Harare a call from his red phone and tell Robert Mugabe that he sullying the “I Am an African” vision created by our quiet-diplomat Thabo Mbeki.
At least the second half of the year will be exciting with the razzmatazz of the American elections in which change-agent Obama may pummel his Republican rival into voting for McCain’s as a profitable business in the oven- fried chips and snacks industry rather than running for President.
With SA’s leadership crisis taking its toll with the Zimbabwe refugee crisis exercabating our domestic problems of joblessness, homelessness and the shrinking Rand, the clarion call should go out to the young blood to come to the fore and replace the sleepy MPs and Cabinet Ministers ahead of the 2009 elections.
Imagine what Lenny Naidu and his ANC cadres, who were ambushed by the apartheid army, be thinking today, in the wake of how the Beloved Country has gone from darling of democracy to a controversial country beset with corruption, nepotism, inside-trading and the economic elbowing of the proletariat et al?
In a rapid-fire 24-hour consumer society, well done to the Lenny Naidu Development Institute – including Professor Kovin Naidoo of the International Centre for Eyecare Education – for pulling together the 20th death anniversary commemoration at the city hall at which SARS Big Chief Pravin Gordhan will pay homage to the fallen heroes.
A few significant breaking news events caught my attention. DStv-backed e-tv turned broadcast journalism on its head with its 24-hour e-news channel, albeit the repetitive and canned stuff, but its baptism of fire was a far cry from SABC’s black-and-white TV debut in the 1960s. The death of fashion guru Yves Saint Laurent was splashed on all the major networks, so was the fire that gutted a Hollywood’s studio, with a British tabloid taking the bun with this headline: King gone! – a reference to the giant King Kong’s fiery death.
Until next week, a print-out of an email with the breathtaking face of Bolllywood screen goddess Aishwariya Rai read: “Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.”
Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica – God Bless Africa.
Footnote: Marlan Padayachee’s International Visitor’s Award from the Clinton Administration enabled him to observe the run-up to the 1996 American elections, visit the White House and interact with political, social and media communications institutions in major cities.
Durban Dateline: Published in six newspapers in the Tabloid Group (http://www.tabloidmedia.co.z/) with a readership base of 2million readers in Greater Durban Region, South Africa.