Jonathan Zimmerman: Of peace and ethnic blending
[Jonathan Zimmerman is a New York University professor teaching in Ghana this semester. E-mail him at jlzimm@aol.com.]
'Ghana Loves Obama."
I saw that on a bumper sticker last month during President Bush's brief visit here. Wherever Bush went on his five-nation African tour, talk of Obama followed him. "It seemed like there was a lot of excitement for me - wait a minute, maybe you missed it!" Bush quipped, when Tanzanian reporters asked about Obama.
There was indeed a lot of excitement for President Bush, a popular figure across most of the continent. Yet it was dwarfed by the enthusiasm for Obama, who would become the first American president of African descent.
"Bush is yesterday's man," the Ghanaian Chronicle editorialized, on the eve of the president's visit. "Ghanaians find the prospect of a black man in the Oval Office so exciting that we are willing for him to win."
But Obama's race isn't the only reason for his widespread support over here, as the same editorial noted. He symbolizes the need for people everywhere - especially Africans - to unite across their differences.
"For Obama to take a 52 percent victory in white Virginia is comparable to the second coming of Christ!" the Chronicle exulted. "And Ghana, a nation riven with ethnic flashes, cannot be more impressed and excited with developments in America, and draw important lessons."
Lesson No. 1, of course, is the danger of ethnic politics. The most recent example comes from Kenya, where an estimated 1,000 people died and 300,000 were displaced following a disputed national election.
And with their own national elections coming up in December, Ghanaians are taking heed. Although the country has been fairly stable in recent years, Ghana has its own history of ethnic violence. In 1994, 1,000 people died and an additional 150,000 had to flee a spate of tribal warfare.
Just last month, about a dozen Ghanaians were killed in ethnic fighting in the northern region of Bawku. President J.A. Kufour had to delay his peace mission to Kenya to address the violence on his own doorstep.
On a visit to Kenya in 2006, Obama, whose father was Kenyan, urged Africans to put aside their ethnic differences. "Ethnic-based tribal politics have to stop," he told an audience in Nairobi.
That message of peace helps explain his remarkable popularity in Africa, with its 2,000 ethnic groups and 3,000 language dialects. To Africans, Barack Obama is more than just a member of the family. He's also an emblem of the harmony that has eluded it for too long.
And so is Obama's homeland, the United States. As recent surveys indicate, Africans have remarkably favorable views of America. Around the world, when people are asked whether they like the United States, the three most positive countries are all in Africa: Ivory Coast, Kenya and Ghana. In fourth place? America itself, where roughly 80 percent of respondents have favorable views of their own nation.
To many African countries, of course, America symbolizes economic opportunity. But it also represents ethnic blending and unity, just as Obama does.
"America's first president ought to have looked like Barack Obama," Ghanaian columnist E. Ablorh-Odjidja recently wrote, noting that Obama's mother was white and his father black. "After all, what is to be expected of a nation that builds itself on the principle that all men are created equal, then goes on to claim the proverbial 'melting pot' as the American condition?"
America has its own tortured history of racial violence, as Africans well-realize. But it has also made huge strides, as it struggles to achieve its founding principles. And Africans realize that, too.
"Some call Obama's political rise a phenomenon," Ablorh-Odjidja observed, "but in reality, it is a transformative moment that was meant to happen since the creation of America."
Maybe he's right. And maybe, just maybe, Obama can also become a model for Africa.
Read entire article at Philadelphia Inquirer
'Ghana Loves Obama."
I saw that on a bumper sticker last month during President Bush's brief visit here. Wherever Bush went on his five-nation African tour, talk of Obama followed him. "It seemed like there was a lot of excitement for me - wait a minute, maybe you missed it!" Bush quipped, when Tanzanian reporters asked about Obama.
There was indeed a lot of excitement for President Bush, a popular figure across most of the continent. Yet it was dwarfed by the enthusiasm for Obama, who would become the first American president of African descent.
"Bush is yesterday's man," the Ghanaian Chronicle editorialized, on the eve of the president's visit. "Ghanaians find the prospect of a black man in the Oval Office so exciting that we are willing for him to win."
But Obama's race isn't the only reason for his widespread support over here, as the same editorial noted. He symbolizes the need for people everywhere - especially Africans - to unite across their differences.
"For Obama to take a 52 percent victory in white Virginia is comparable to the second coming of Christ!" the Chronicle exulted. "And Ghana, a nation riven with ethnic flashes, cannot be more impressed and excited with developments in America, and draw important lessons."
Lesson No. 1, of course, is the danger of ethnic politics. The most recent example comes from Kenya, where an estimated 1,000 people died and 300,000 were displaced following a disputed national election.
And with their own national elections coming up in December, Ghanaians are taking heed. Although the country has been fairly stable in recent years, Ghana has its own history of ethnic violence. In 1994, 1,000 people died and an additional 150,000 had to flee a spate of tribal warfare.
Just last month, about a dozen Ghanaians were killed in ethnic fighting in the northern region of Bawku. President J.A. Kufour had to delay his peace mission to Kenya to address the violence on his own doorstep.
On a visit to Kenya in 2006, Obama, whose father was Kenyan, urged Africans to put aside their ethnic differences. "Ethnic-based tribal politics have to stop," he told an audience in Nairobi.
That message of peace helps explain his remarkable popularity in Africa, with its 2,000 ethnic groups and 3,000 language dialects. To Africans, Barack Obama is more than just a member of the family. He's also an emblem of the harmony that has eluded it for too long.
And so is Obama's homeland, the United States. As recent surveys indicate, Africans have remarkably favorable views of America. Around the world, when people are asked whether they like the United States, the three most positive countries are all in Africa: Ivory Coast, Kenya and Ghana. In fourth place? America itself, where roughly 80 percent of respondents have favorable views of their own nation.
To many African countries, of course, America symbolizes economic opportunity. But it also represents ethnic blending and unity, just as Obama does.
"America's first president ought to have looked like Barack Obama," Ghanaian columnist E. Ablorh-Odjidja recently wrote, noting that Obama's mother was white and his father black. "After all, what is to be expected of a nation that builds itself on the principle that all men are created equal, then goes on to claim the proverbial 'melting pot' as the American condition?"
America has its own tortured history of racial violence, as Africans well-realize. But it has also made huge strides, as it struggles to achieve its founding principles. And Africans realize that, too.
"Some call Obama's political rise a phenomenon," Ablorh-Odjidja observed, "but in reality, it is a transformative moment that was meant to happen since the creation of America."
Maybe he's right. And maybe, just maybe, Obama can also become a model for Africa.