SO WHAT IF OBAMA WINS?

SO WHAT IF OBAMA WINS?


Imamu Amiri Baraka called hope a delicate suffering while someone else called it tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment. No question that Ethiopia's suffering millions need hope, but then the same Ethiopians say he who lives on hope dies with desire. Very realistic you would say but it won't be correct all the way. Ethiopians, or at least her so called intellectuals, are complicated.

I hear that Ethio-Americans are alive with expectations of an Obama victory. One intellectual who has yet to fathom the evil mind of Meles Zenawi and the complicated situation in Ethiopia has vowed to address all Ethiopians on the spirit and message of Barack Obama. Another promised an Obama victory will give Ethiopians the tools and moral equipment to defeat their enemy-- the same regime of Meles that is being backed by America because it is a foot soldier in Washington's so called war on terror in the Horn of Africa. Hope springs eternal said someone else--hope is the poor man's bread. I am the first one to admit that years of close contact with Ethiopian and African politics has made my cynicism strong. To be fair, of course, I would prefer defining cynicism as sentimentalism on guard, guarded optimism. This requires no prophetic ability but just observing experience and facts. Decades of US foreign policy towards Ethiopia and the region has been cynical, cruel and often mistaken and against the interests of the people. US and Ethiopian interests have hardly ever been synonymous.

I remember many Ethio-Americans contributing money and hoping for a better understanding from America when the Clinton fellow got elected. It was not long before his wife Hilary flew to Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, to praise Isaias Afewerki as a democrat. Clinton himself went on to lable Meles, Isaias, Yoweri Museveni and Kagame of Rwanda as a new breed of democratic leaders for Africa. The Clinton administration backed the repressive Meles regime and aggravated the plight of millions of Ethiopians. Let me say right here that this has not much to do with the American people who are as generous as any other and have helped Ethiopians in their time of need but official America is another thing altogether. True believers of Obama would argue that he is different from Clinton and would chart a better deal for people suffering under dictatorships. Aside from this being a song we have heard so many times before and taking into account that our fate should not be handed over to any foreign power or leader, it is obvious that Obama is first and foremost an American. He may have had a Kenyan father but as the Kenyans themselves say "Mweri mwega umenyaagwo na ngetho" ( the good millet is known at harvest time). Come January, President Obama will first and foremost fulfill the plans and priorities of the US of America. Clinton or Bush, these priorities have not changed much in terms of Africa and are unlikely to change under Obama. The ethnic chauvinist Tigrean regime has served America well and will continue to be a pliant stooge in the coming years. Obama may be black but this would have no weight at all in determining his policy towards Ethiopia and Africa. The rogues and barracudas like Cheney and Rice may be out of power--a good sight to behold-- though the replacements may not warm our hearts in Africa. To let the cynicism ride its dark horse, for those who want more problems and chaos for America it is true that McCain is the right choice. Such people can hope, if he is elected, his adventures into Iran, Syria, more obdurate policies in the Middle East and elsewhere will aggravate the crisis of America but we cannot wish the American people that much pain while wanting our own to disappear.

A realistic appraisal of the weight of Africa in American politics is called for. Take the Congo where more than 4 million people died and American and British companies running after minerals are behind the bloody militias. Who has cared enough to raise a voice in defense of the Congolese people? Ask Kofi Anan for one. Equatorial Guinea is in America's good books because American companies are taking its oil. Ethiopians suffer under one of the most repressive regimes in Africa--does Washington care? Are they not more interested in the mercenary role of the regime? Obama may be black but American foreign policy is, so to speak, white. White in the sense that it has no heart for the suffering peoples of Africa. Those who are experts at discerning the internal political and economic situation in the USA may adequately explain how Obama would be, domestically, an improvement on Bush or McCain but I will bet all the dollars that I do not have that for Africa Obama will be more of the same, demagogy to the contrary notwithstanding. The American comedian Woody Allen said reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it. Yet, stress or not, we have to be realistic (without quotations) and much as it is historic and pleasant to see Obama in the White House his presence there would not change much for Ethiopia and Africa. Let it be said though the enthusiastic reception that Obama got in Germany (a country that wants no blacks on its soil), that he made it this far in America and may even get elected is historic indeed. America may yet surprise us positively and we hope it does.

For those of us who have a country or a continent to save, time presses and the luxury of giving time to our hope to be real is not there at all. No choice but to fight for our own liberation relying on ourselves and knowing full well that this may possibly pit us against president Obama too if he does get there.