By Dennis Matanda

The Great Philosopher, Plato once said: ‘One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.’ For many years, this was true for Africans. As a people, they were penalized through underdevelopment, death and political stagnation by dictators such as Bokassa, Amin; and of course, Mugabe.  However, at the very beginning of the 21st Century, Plato’s words seem to have hit home through George W. Bush; the 43rd President of the United States.

There was no doubt that America could have provided the world with a better President between 2000 and 2008. Bush II’s presidency has had repercussions all around the globe. History handed the American President with the timing of the tragedy that was September 11, 2001 [9/11] and somehow, 7 years later, a relatively competent British Premier was ousted and forever tainted, an ever dodgy stability in the Middle East was pushed further away from the hopeful table and right now, the entire planet is facing the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression.

However, all this seems to come to pass as, even before he is 44th President on January 20th 2009, more than 75% of the Americans hold Barak Hussein Obama in high esteem, believing that he will govern this great nation of theirs through these extremely turbulent times of domestic, financial and international affairs. Almost all respectable publications – from The Economist, Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Jane’s Defense Weekly, The New York Times, The Washington Post et al – are heralding the dawn of a new era. The Economist’s January 17th – 23rd 2009 edition talks about the next 4 years under Obama being ‘… a possible disappointment, a triumphant renewal or something in between.’ The paper, in conclusion, hinted that the most important traits Obama has are his respectfulness and his thoughtfulness – which, in theirs and Plato’s books, are a good start if one is not to be viewed as inferior.

At this juncture, while I fully comprehend the historical ramifications of Barack Obama’s elevation into the universe’s hardest and most consequential job, I think it’s necessary to move away from Time Magazine’s Man of the Year 2008 to the overall aspects around America as a successful nation – with tenets such as their first African American president; and one who has, in his election, managed to give the United States another feather in its cap as the country many of us have immigrated to, the destination of choice. Interestingly, the vast majority of the people already here would have stayed and readjusted their livelihoods to accommodate another Republican Term of office if John McCain had won on November 4, 2008 and been sworn in as the oldest President. America would, arguably, still have been the country to be reckoned with.

Now, despite the deviation, Obama’s inauguration should be celebrated as the most recent milestone in the series of fortunate events that keep renewing this country‘s overall spirit, character and its inevitability of possibility. These different ‘timely interventions’ are, seemingly, the aspects that ensure the nation’s resilience and survival – unlike the Roman Empire which collapsed in 476 AD under the toppled Romulus Augustus from series of unfortunate events in its over 1,000 year life. Epidemics, ineffective leaders, succession struggles, brutality and corruption galore wiped the Roman Empire off the face of the earth. Historians have, from time immemorial, compared the United States of America to the Roman Empire – predicting its doom and yet, for some reason, it goes on from strength to strength.

These 200 or so years it has been in existence, America has been ‘blessed’ with events that ensure its survival. For instance, Barack Obama could not have been elevated into the most powerful office of the land at a better time. As American President, he has the opportunity to raise America off the knees that the last 8 Bush II years sentenced the country to. Because things are so bad, they can only get better. But other Presidents have been presented with excellent opportunities to make America stronger around the world and they have succeeded in their own ways.
When the Twin Towers in New York were hit on 9/11, Bush II rose to the occasion; like Ronald Reagan did in urging Mikhail Gorbachev to bring down the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War, like the opportunity Pearl Harbor presented Franklin D. Roosevelt to abandon isolationism and declare war on Japan and essentially join the Second World War. Before Mr. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington made decisions to end slavery and ensure the separation of powers as stipulated by the American Constitution respectively.

My hypothesis is that America is the most powerful nation on earth because of a series of external stimuli mixed with timing – and these make the country stronger at each interval. Firstly, circa 1776, if George Washington had not been the modest soldier that successfully attacked and won against the British in Boston, and also rejected his own enthronement as King of America, the manner of the American President, and the respect of the constitution would not have been so perverse in American politics. Then, Abraham Lincoln, the man Barack Obama is mostly compared to, famously saved the Union by going to war with the Southern States which had refused to abolish slavery and seceded into the Confederacy.

In his famous Gettysburg Address of November 1863 – two years before he was assassinated – he said ‘…we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain … and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’ These words were interpreted by people everywhere – slaves and Africans included – and have characterized American politics and the promotion of democracy around the world.

About 75 years later, while abandoning Isolationism in 1941, America joined WWII, helped design the Bretton Woods institutions [The World Bank and the IMF], the United Nations and in essence, influence losers of the war [such as Japan], allies [such as Great Britain and France] and at the same time, cajole everyone else with the Marshall Aid Plan which literally saved Europe from sinking into the depths of economic oblivion. Of course by joining WWII, the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ended WWII and started the Cold War with the then USSR. But Ronald Reagan with Mikhail Gorbachev between 1985 and 1990 [through Perestroika and Glasnost and the Berlin Wall coming down in 1991] ended the Cold War with America as the lone superpower in a unipolar world.

In the 21st Century, on September 11, 2001, aircraft hijackers/terrorists from the Middle East attacked the United States in the name of Osama bin Laden; and this led to a series of catastrophic events in Afghanistan where the Taliban were routed out of power and Saddam Hussein who, before he could bury his two sons, himself was sentenced to hung till he was dead in a court of his peers – peers who never dreamed that they would sitting in judgment of the man who run the Ba’athist nation with a bloody iron hand.

The American Military Machine, although stretched thin, is almost globally omnipresent – in Pakistan, Korea, the Sea of Japan, Yemen and patrolling the Indian Ocean waters off the coast of Kenya and Somalia looking for notorious pirates. The Africa Command, which will be the headquarters of the American Effort in Africa and probably the Middle East, will soon be set up under African skies for the first time in history; and in the meantime, the world has morphed into a multipower one with Russia, China, India, Brazil and much smaller new comers working with or against the United States to change the international order of things. Either way, as the biggest consumer and third biggest exporter, the United States is guaranteed a meal ticket at the center of the Planet Earth.

Taking a look at this 2009 Middle East crisis between Israel and Hamas, another American President has been presented with the opportunity to enter into history as the man who brought peace to an 100 year old war between peoples existing side by side; but insanely refusing to accept and acknowledge the fact that each one is there to stay. Bill Clinton in 1994 came closest to closing this deal – but fell really, really short in making this happen. Maybe his fellow Democrat, Obama, will finally push these warring factions into the peaceful abyss they both need to falling into before more people die. It helps a great deal that he shares a name with a great number of them, too – a first for an American President.

Timing and opportunity make very comfortable and compatible bedfellows. And if one wants to get overly academic about the Greatness of the United States of America, you could throw in the fact that the greatest propaganda machine known to mankind – Hollywood – is housed in the country and has, so far, been pro USA. With the movies, documentaries and stars churned out and sent around the world to promote the American way of life to everyone else, which other country – India and Nigeria with their Bollywood and Nollywood respectively included – can compete?

The Men and Women that oil the wheels turning United States seem to have been handed the essence of serendipity. Being the quintessential Christian nation, God’s own country could well be the US and not the Nation of Israel. As a praying people, they could not ask for a better country – and Barack Obama seems to be the answer to many prayers after Bush II.

All in all, almost every human being expects to benefit from this Presidency; most Americans looking for redemption from the embarrassment of their outgoing President; the African Americans hoping that their sons will not have any more excuses for fading into obscurity via prison or crime; and immigrants such as myself, hoping that somehow, Obama will wave a wand, repair our African countries’ politics so much so that we can go back to settle and develop the countries we love with these big brains and ideas of ours – countries we never give up hope for and at the end of the day, call home.

By Dennis Matanda
dmatanda@gmail.com

Popularity: 1% [?]