Barack Obama: Africa has unreasonable expectations of the man

Barack Obama’s presidency of the United States ushers a new beginning for America; a new beginning for cordial relations with other nations. His is to dispense hope to millions of Americans whose confidence has been abruptly shattered and altered into despair; whose hopes for the American dream came crushing with pitiless haste, subjecting them to an immediate nightmare. The presidency of Barack Obama is expected to bridge the great divide between America and the rest of the world; to heal the rift between American conservatism and the relation with the Islam world; and to improve our impression about the nature of America and its intentions towards the rest of the world.

The magnitude of zeal and ardour with which people across the world have expressed their approbation of the presidency of this African son, imposing upon him unfairly the arduous duty of steering with caution the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world; the world contending with the throes and convulsions of the financial crisis, the world whose people suffer the agonising spasms from the credit crunch; have reached fervour pitch. Perhaps in the midst of these pleasing ideas and unreasonable expectations, we are being unfaithful to ourselves as we lose sight of the danger of irrational exuberance. Our unrestrained passion may just be trespassing on dues of the American people as we cultivate for ourselves certain entitlements of his presidency.

For Obama, the vastness of his duty is first to the Americans; and our hope to gain directly from his occupation of the Oval Office may be a bit extreme. Nevertheless, nothing should encroach on our enthusiasm for change that we see happening in America. Dr King may not have gotten here with his fellow Americans; but the dream he fought for has been realised; that dream that his children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 declared the freedom of all slaves; and the Change We Need campaign of 2008 affirms the brotherhood between sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners.

Indeed, the winds of change are sweeping in their full might across America. From West to East, from South to North; from the curvaceous peaks of California to the heightening Allegheny Mountain ranges of Pennsylvania, from desert dunes of Texas to lakes and rivers of North Dakota; the soul of America has reached out for change. Black and white America, Hispanic and Jewish America now see the Promised Land!

Never before has a presidential hopeful captured the imagination of the world as Barack Obama has!

“Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, America is free at last!”