Acknowledge America's role in African affairs
cc Disappointed by Barack Obama's Ghana speech, Tendai Marima says the US president's failure to acknowledge the role America has played in African affairs reflects its 'political historical aphasia'. By glossing over 'how African wars and dictatorships are made', Obama reinforces the image of Africa as the 'black hole of war and corruption', Marima argues. The US media may have hailed the speech as a turning point in US–Africa relations, but says Marima, so far 'Obama's foreign policy has not reflected a politics of change but more of the same'.
Barack Obama's recent overnight visit to Ghana is one, as media coverage has shown, that generated enormous excitement for Africans across the world. However for me, as an African, his message of hope and imagined possibility of change in US-Africa relations did not live up to the expectations I had for a man who on 4 November 2008, as President-elect, promised a new way of doing things. His [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.
NOTES
[1] Pilger, John BBC, 5 August 2008