This is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable. Until now both the United States and Western Europe have tried to reinforce this unequal international nuclear bargain by threatening developing countries and what they perceive as ‘rogue states’ either through sanctions or isolation. But they themselves have not only continued to retain, but also to modernize their nuclear arsenal. This systemic hypocrisy has undermined their credibility and the legitimacy of the NNPT, so much so that even South Africa, the only power to have voluntarily relinquished nuclear weapons, has begun to distance itself from the big five nuclear powers.

The most dramatic example of this systemic hypocrisy in recent years emerged in American and European actions taken against Iran. The latter, as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), while being denied the right to develop nuclear military capacities, is nevertheless entitled to develop a civilian nuclear industry. The big five and other European powers, distrustful of Iran’s intentions, have objected suggesting that its civilian nuclear program is merely a pretext to develop military nuclear capability. Initially South Africa defended Iran citing its rights under the NNPT. Subsequently when Iran’s military intentions became more evident, South Africa tried to serve as a bridge between Iran and other powers in the hope of facilitating a political solution.

South Africa’s behavior in this regard betrays disillusionment with the big five’s track record on nuclear disarmament. It should be noted that the country played a crucial role in brokering developing world support for the extension of the NNPT in 1995. But the big five, South Africa believes, did not fulfill their end of this bargain which required of them the reduction of their nuclear stockpiles and the beginning of a phased disarmament. Indeed, South Africa has, together with its IBSA partners, expressed concern about the failure of the Conference on Disarmament, and has demanded the progressive elimination of nuclear weapons in a non-discriminatory manner. Instead, however, the spirit if not the legal precepts of the NNPT were violated when the United States, France, and China tested nuclear weapons, and almost all of them, including Britain have or are modernizing their nuclear arsenal.

This kind of systemic hypocrisy has not only imperiled the nuclear nonproliferation regime, but it has also alienated countries like South Africa and undergirds its international engagement on the Iran nuclear case. South Africa believes that as long as this pattern of behavior prevails the inequities and inconsistencies of the multilateral system will continue to be reinforced.

If Obama is serious about the elimination of the nuclear threat, including its proliferation into the hands of terrorists, then, he has to be willing to address the systemic hypocrisy that has prevailed until now in the international nuclear bargain. A good starting point are the suggestions he himself made in Prague: ratify the treaty that bans the testing of nuclear weapons, begin a program of decommissioning such weapons, non-nuclear powers refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons, and all countries are guaranteed access to civilian nuclear technology through the creation of an international nuclear bank. But given the failures of the nuclear powers (including the informal ones like Israel) to meet their end of the bargain, it is imperative that they be willing to submit to an internationally agreed timetable and agenda, and a globally supervised monitoring regime. This is the central message that South Africa should take to the conference that Obama has promised to host in the United States this year.

Adam Habib is Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Advancement at the University of Johannesburg. This article was first published in Business Day.

Following Kennedy’s assassination, his popularity in Africa escaped all boundaries; Africa felt the presumed dream of Kennedy commitment to uplift Africa unrealized is partially reflected in the response to his assassination by elite rulers. For example, Liberia’s William Tubman cabled that the “urn of grief has been opened and our tears are pouring in”. The diminutive but regal Haile Selassie showed in his appearance in the Capitol Rotunda, his irretrievable loss.

In contrast, African youth demonstrated their affection for Kennedy and the presumed, short-lived promise of his administration by copying the ‘real’ behavior of the ‘beautiful’ American, portrayed by Peace Corps personnel. It therefore became Kennedy’s most enduring legacy. Unlike the “ugly” Americans (diplomats and officials) who were barricaded in fortresses even before 9/11 to imbibe wine and eat cake with the uncaring ruling elites, villagers got to know youthful, energetic and caring humans who, although mainly white, shared their discomforts in isolated villages. The peace corps did not patronize nor condescend, not even to villagers

It seems obvious that, as Steinberg has observed, “Nowhere in the world is Barack Obama’s entry into the White House more anticipated than in Africa. Throughout the continent, the elevation of a son of Africa to the world’s most powerful position is a source of pride and validation, and a promise of a more mature, robust, and sympathetic relationship between Africa and America.” Will Obama’s Africa policy uplift Africa? There is evidence that since Jimmy Carter at least, Republican administrations provide more aid to Africa than their Democrat counterparts, although American among G7 remains the lowest aid givers relative to national output. For Obama’s Africa policy to uplift Africa, it needs to develop a framework committed to enshrining democratic governance, the rule of law and equality of persons before the law—the indispensable contours of the relationship with Africa.

Whether it was Kennedy’s early death or the flaws of “A New American Policy Toward Africa” that killed the dream, the sustained failure of African leadership is arguably due to many factors. It seems that since those promising days, the failure of elite keeps a continent that is far being resource poor undeveloped and marginalized. That “…American policymakers empowered African ‘big men’ who talked the talk but did not walk the walk” is a major obstacle requiring removal if Africa is to be uplifted.

An Obama Africa policy needs to understand the many forces which explain Africa’s interminable conflicts. The forces include prevalent elite rulers’ disavowal of the presumption that elections are necessary, but not sufficient, for democratic governance. When elites who are our fellow alumni win possibly manipulated elections, America ought not to consider the election or the winner a contributor to better governance. “Democratic elections” in Africa, largely bought by elites with stolen wealth and tend to become caricatures of tenets of democratic governance; they usually tend to create conditions to abuse the doctrine of separation of powers.

Obama’s Africa policy would wisely reject what even the dictator Ahmed Sekou Toure described circa 1979 as a “trade union of heads of state”. What else, if not the Toure observation, explains the consistent unwillingness of fellow elite rulers to condemn Uganda’s Musseveni, Cameroon/s Biya and Gabon’s Omar Bongo undeclared, “life presidents”, but even eyesores such as Mugabe? What rational explanation toward improving governance can one find for Mbeki’s disgraceful mediation in Zimbabwe? What explains Liberian support for Libya’s call for United States of Africa?

A desirable policy framework would emphasize the problems of citizens over those of rulers. Obama would do well to carefully weigh elite adulation of African elite rulers. By their praise, African elite rulers acknowledge Obama as the chief of all chiefs. African rulers, minor chiefs in Obama’s firmament, wish to be allowed to do as they wish constitutions and statues notwithstanding. The cost to international peace and security of continuing elite domination is the persistent undermining of respect or rule of law arising from inequality of persons before the law. That is what keeps the Mano River Basin unstable. Excluding from among acceptable policy contours those issues that eternally degrade democracy and replace respect for legitimate governments with cynicism is a cost and a risk not worth taking. Pre-occupation with elite concerns expresses the view that Eurocentric ideas are always superior. Imperial presidents continue the forte colonial Europeans created; the tug of war between traditionalist and modern elites; it is a zero sum game with no possibility of resolution if root causes of conflict are merely terminated.

The Obama Administration must remind itself constantly that America acts when it elects to sit on the sidelines, as was the case during the Liberian civil war. Inaction expresses solidarity with the elite.

A desirable Obama policy would de-emphasize poverty reduction as a missionary adventure, and embrace the call for wealth creation instead. This means transforming the policy of the World Bank and IMF to less experimentation in Africa. It means, in William Easterly terminology, defrocking the planners or at least allowing the searchers a place around the sacristy. It also means effectively giving concepts such as commitment to partnership and treaties such as the Paris Declaration a boost.

An Obama policy blueprint, unlike Kennedy’s, would desist from undervaluing then patronizing African expertise and opinions on how to develop the continent. Traditional—patronizing; assumes inequality, no partnership: superior technology; governance differentiated. American leadership under Obama discontinue the tyranny of low expectation from African governments, for it is a restatement of black incapacity for self rule.

If it were to see 21st-century Africa through postcolonial lenses, and to rehabilitate the “colonial library” as a surrogate for on-the-spot assessment and direct engagement with Africans, Europe’s capitals might very well be over flown. One may even concede that Donald Rumsfeld’s “old Europe” barb struck a chord in the vicinity of truth. But then, why should the renewal of U.S. policy in Africa under President Obama pass through Europe? For essentially three reasons, each proper to a continent but all three complementary: America’s geopolitical “overstretch”, Europe’s postcolonial “fatigue” and Africa’s “need for allies in democracy”. The argument is laid out here, more specifically, for France, the European country most heavily invested – politically, militarily, economically and culturally – in Africa and, until the end of the Cold War, the continent’s “gendarme” (at least “in the desert sands where the Gaulish cockerel may well whet his spurs”, as stated by Bismarck).

The Cold War is a useful reminder but the parallel misleading. Subcontracting francophone Africa again to Paris, in order to restore under post-9/11 conditions the geopolitical division of labor that obtained prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, would definitely not renew U.S. policy in Africa. Nor would it be at all possible to cram French-speaking Africa back into the neocolonial box. Moreover, France doesn’t put her money any longer where her mouth is: indeed, French direct investment in non-francophone Africa (notably Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, and Kenya) by far exceeds the stakes still held in sub-Saharan countries where Molière is read in the original. Therefore, synergy – from the Greek synergos, “working together” – and not condominium is the order of the day.

Take the example of military cooperation and Africa’s security architecture. Great Britain, France and the US (the latter with special emphasis on “global war on terrorism”) each run their own separate assistance program destined to foster Africa’s capacity to unite its collective security efforts – not precisely leadership through good example! And there is no end in sight: the African Standby Force, conceived to rest on five brigades (with 5,000 troops each) as its regional pillars, will not be operational, as planned, by 2010 – and most likely not anywhere near that date. Yet, in the meantime, the French are pulling out, ending a military presence which had been maintained since, and despite, the independence of its former colonies in 1960. Good riddance to postcolonial rubbish? It would be easier to jubilate, if the withdrawal of French “pre-positioned” troops (they are still 6.500, down from twice as many) did not jeopardize already existing peace-keeping operations in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone or Darfur, and prompt new deployments of UN blue helmets in Chad and the Central African Republic.

By no stretch of “Obamania”, Africa will want the United States to fill the gap – nor, of course, is Washington at all tempted to step in. With wars on its hands in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new administration will already pain to redefine the mission of its Africa Command (AFRICOM), set up autonomously by Donald Rumsfeld to “punish” a not entirely subservient Central Command (CENTCOM). Since, AFRICOM has turned into a Super-NGO of the Pentagon, with ill-defined military as well as civilian attributes. Its headquarters are unwelcome in Africa, where suspicion looms large. The farewell to unilateral thaumaturgy and the acknowledgment of “overstretch” call for burden-sharing on the continent of lesser but growing strategic importance. For obvious geographical and political reasons, Europe is America’s natural ally south of the Mediterranean: by joining forces, the Old Continent and the New World may prevent “young Africa” – half of its still rapidly growing population of 900 million is less than 20 years old – to fall into the hands of a “new breed of dictators” much worse than their infamous predecessors during the Cold War.

Twenty years ago, Africa was considered an unlikely place for democracy. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy “broke out” across the continent despite structural impediments, such as educational standards and a modicum of wealth for a middle class to emerge. Political freedom and civil liberties are a good in and for themselves, and they are “out there” in a globalizing world – not only desirable but available. However, is the victory of the “causers” over the “causes” for democracy sustainable in Africa? Precisely because the continent is no longer Europe’s backyard, African rulers, namely in subsoil-rich countries, have options to choose. Not all roads lead to democracy. This is not about a new “mission to civilize”: India might as well foster democratic rule in Africa as, so far, China has not. Yet, to constitute a critical mass for constructive engagement, President Obama would be well advised to join forces with Europe.

Because Africa is so young, the journey will inevitably be long. Enthusiasm helps but may run out of breath. Europe can be a precious victualing station for the genius of realism: experience.

The sins fall into (at least) three categories: omission, commission, and intersecting them at times, militarization.  Here are three.  First, “democratic” elections in Nigeria and, relatedly, Kenya; this could also be called non-regime-change.  Second, fear and loathing of “Islamist” regimes, as in Somalia; thus, regime change.   Finally, the rushed creation of AFRICOM, with a mission that looks likely to ingest functions of the State Department and USAID.

In Nigeria missed opportunities and worse have led to pervasive pessimism as Nigerians face the future.  Key in this was President Olusegun Obasanjo, fresh from political imprisonment, who became president in May 1999 through an only slightly flawed election.  Nigerians and Americans alike rejoiced at the departure of the military; Obasanjo had more goodwill at home and abroad than any head of state before him.  The relief in Washington was palpable, and largely set the tone for the next nine years:  Washington could rely on Obasanjo’s help on African and other global issues  and wouldn’t have to worry about Nigeria’s stability.

In 2003 elections were due again.  Washington didn’t want to know about political assassinations, intimidation and looming fraud.  The elections themselves, taking rigging and violence to new depths, bore out Nigerians’ and observers’ worst fears.  But from official Washington, only silence.  Further, just weeks after Obasanjo’s second swearing-in, President Bush paid his only visit to Abuja, signaling to Nigerians U.S. approval of  what had happened.

Months later rumors began circulating that Obasanjo wanted to change the constitution to secure a third term, a project he denied but Nigerians gradually knew to be his priority.  The embassy in Abuja, with a new ambassador, sent ample warning to Washington, producing no effort to dissuade him.

Nigerians managed to mobilize and defeat the constitutional change in May 2006, and a period of uncertainty and anxiety followed.   It was clear that the electoral commission, whose chairman was nominated by the president, was unable or unwilling to conduct free and fair elections.  This time, the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and professionals in Washington were reporting and analyzing fully.

But from Washington came no pressure to remedy the impending election disaster.  On the contrary, when the issue that had been Obasanjo’s policy priority from the start-debt forgiveness for Nigeria-was coming to fruition, the Treasury Department helped out; no one asked for anything in return.

When the 2007 election of Obasanjo’s hand-picked successor proved to be another travesty, as reported by Nigerian and international observers alike, Washington withheld congratulations briefly, and then recognized “reality.”  Other problems were more pressing.

Such as Kenya’s upcoming elections.  Two points here: first, that President Mwai Kibaki is known to have said that Nigeria’s elections showed that the U.S. didn’t care, as long as the result was a seemingly stable government and reliable ally.  The tragic consequences of that assumption are well known.  The New York Times has just reported  the suppression by the Nairobi embassy-on whose instructions from Washington it doesn’t say-of exit polling, done by the International Republican Institute, that showed initial results favoring the challenger, Raila Odinga.  This echoes the Abuja Embassy’s attitude towards Obasanjo’s reelection in 2003.

The harm done in Nigeria and Kenya is obvious.

Meanwhile, proactive, regime-change policy is evident in Somalia, where American attempts at engagement since 1991 have had far-reaching consequences for the region and U.S. policy alike.    After 9/11, Jendayi Frazier, first at the NSC and then as Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, focused, along with the Pentagon, on fighting Islamist terrorism in the Horn.  In Somalia in 2006, an alliance called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) finally brought peace to Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia.  But it was “Islamist,” and the Bush administration reacted by urging the Ethiopian army to invade and seize control of the country.  It installed an alternative government, which could never function beyond Baidoa and eventually, not even there.

No one who knows the history of the Horn could imagine the Somalis welcoming an Ethiopian force.  In the fighting that followed, thousands of Somali civilians died, and now the Ethiopian soldiers are gone.  The Somali parliament, which was able to meet only in Djibouti, has just elected a new president: Sheik Sharif Ahmed, now heading the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, is the moderate Islamist who, in 2006, headed the ICU.  Somalis in Mogadishu cheer!   Somalia “has come nearly full circle.”

The “nearly” part is that now there is a strong  Al Shabaab, a more radical breakaway group from the ICU, whose fighters control much of south-central Somalia, including key towns.    And there is escalating piracy, fueled by the lack of effective government on shore, but which, ironically, had been controlled by the ICU in 2006.

The harm-to Somalis and to how they view the United States-is obvious.

And finally, AFRICOM. Presented first as a simple reorganization, unifying previously divided U.S. military activities in Africa under one command, AFRICOM has grown into something new.  Highly unpopular among African governments, which have denied it a base on the continent, it now will undertake development projects and engage with African governments through civilian deputy leadership-apparently assuming aspects of the State Department’s and USAID’s traditional roles.

This is happening in part because far greater resources are available to the military than to the State Department, a fact recently deplored, notably, by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  In Africa the harm has not yet been done, but the potential can easily be imagined, from the Horn of Africa, to the Sahel, to the Niger Delta and elsewhere.   The hope is that the new Africa team in Washington may reexamine the structure now being elaborated at AFRICOM’s headquarters-in Stuttgart.

With this, as with all of Africa’s challenges, remembering Hippocrates is a place to begin.

Good news so far, then. Yet the world is not just dealing with a financial crisis, but with a recession as well. Here, Africans are affected like everyone else. The continent still depends largely on exporting primary products. Because of a fall in demand, the prices of most commodities have fallen sharply, with exceptions only for a couple of items, including gold and cocoa. The consequence is a decline in foreign exchange earnings for most African countries, compounded by difficulties in obtaining loans, as funds are sucked into the developed world, and by a likely drying-up of donor aid, as rich governments worry about problems closer to home. We are likely to see more cash-strapped African governments, with some of them buckling under the pressure.

Now would actually be a good time for all concerned to make a brutally honest assessment of the whole development and aid business, with a view to seeing what makes sense in the twenty-first century. But it is unlikely that that will happen, as leading players will have so much more on their minds. Thinking in the development business remains rooted in mid-twentieth century notions that are pretty much obsolete.

In the longer term, strategic calculations about Africa are increasingly likely to turn on the question of access to commodities. The huge demand of recent years has fallen off as a result of the world recession, but China’s industrialization is now unstoppable. The Chinese government clearly thinks long-term and is highly pragmatic. It does not entirely trust world markets. Therefore, even if China goes slow on the implementation of the mining and infrastructure agreements to which it is already committed, we can expect to see China continue to take the necessary steps to maintain its rights to resume these projects at some future date, when conditions are more conducive. The important thing for China is to maintain a firm hold on African commodities until the day when the mines start working and the trucks start rolling again.

A key question for the Obama administration in this context will be what strategy it adopts towards Africa’s oil. Thinkers within the US Department of Defense in particular see access to oil from the Gulf of Guinea—broadly defined as the swathe from Mauritania to Angola—as a major strategic concern for the US. The neo-conservatives who wielded such influence under President Bush believed that this was best done by the projection of military power. In short, they believed that the US should plan to deploy its armed forces in such a way that it could secure Africa’s oil for the next generation, putting it into not merely a commercial competition with China, but a militarized one. This was some of the thinking behind the creation of an autonomous Africa Command, Africom. China, however, has shown no enthusiasm for supporting its commercial aspirations in Africa with military power. On the contrary, in recent years it has shown every sign of playing a greater role in some of the complex multilateral arrangements by which Africa is bound into global systems of governance. For the first time, China has committed troops to United Nations missions in Africa, for example.

How will the games of great powers affect Africa itself? There is no foreseeable future for industrialization in Africa. Some African countries were earning serious money in recent years, before the collapse of commodity prices, but there was little sign of any of them using it in the service of a serious development strategy while conditions were propitious. Now, that option has gone. In principle, a shortage of foreign exchange plus high food prices could spark a revival of African agriculture, but there is no serious evidence of that happening as yet, despite encouraging signs here and there. What we are likely to witness is a situation that is in some ways rather reminiscent of the period immediately before the colonization of Africa, during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, with few centres of power in Africa being able to guarantee the rule of law in the Western manner, and external interests investigating local permutations with a view to identifying viable local collaborators. An interesting and rather ominous twist is that sovereign states with little effective rule of law are proving to have a comparative advantage in the world of global rule-breaking. Colombian and Venezualan cocaine-traders are flocking to West Africa, most recently to Conakry since the coup of December 2008. Illegal fishing, dumping of toxic waste, and a host of other practices that are formally outlawed take place most easily in those places where sovereignty is ineffectual.

But beyond the symbolism and the historical proportions of Obama’s remarkable ascendancy to the Presidency of the USA, there are many challenges. One’s disappointments are usually directly proportional to one’s expectations. Obama is not a messiah, even though that is what many expect him to be. He cannot solve all the problems of the world. He cannot even solve all the problems of America. However, potentially his election gives both Americans and the rest of us a chance to look at things afresh and probably find a solution that we can all live with, even if it may not be perfect.

During a Presidency replete with all kinds of havoc both internally and internationally, one of the worst things that George W. Bush did to America and the world, was to make unilateralism on all issues his default position. Even where other countries may have agreed with him, he made it difficult by insisting that he would have his way whatever others thought. The world was very simple to him: ‘You are either for us or against us’. But even the powerful need friends. The expectation of many peoples across the world is that Obama will listen more and lecture or hector less. America cannot bomb all its enemies, real or imagined. Military might alone cannot win hearts and minds. That strategy made George Bush the effective Organising Secretary for Al Qaeda, winning it many converts. Countries that did not have terrorists quickly become breeding grounds for them the moment Bush came along. Obama has to ask himself why so-called ‘terrorists’ come predominantly from countries whose leaders are allies of America.

There are other areas where Obama has to pursue a policy change that we can believe in. The illusions of many in the Middle East are already dampened by the loud silence of the President-Elect over Gaza. When terrorist bombings were inflicted on Mumbai residents he was quick to condemn it but when it came to Gaza, he claimed there was only one President at a time. For a candidate and President elect that had opinion on everything, maintaining silence over Gaza merely showed the heavyweight of Zionist influence in American Middle East policy. If he really wants to make a difference he needs to redress the balance in favour of a just lasting solution. For now America is not an honest broker because it is on the side of Israel, right or wrong. His campaign declaration that ‘the security of the state of Israel is sacrosanct’ means a continuation of the Israelisation or Zionisation of US Policy, and more conflict. He needs to use his leverage to convince Israel, that like America, it cannot bomb all its enemies into submission.

Finally, Africa may be more disappointed than most regions because our expectations spread from government houses down to the streets. Markets, beer parlours, matatu or Danfo drivers to street hawkers; hopes are just too high. Obama is not our saviour. Our capacity to leverage anything from Washington beyond good intentions will depend on how clear we are in terms of our own interests. We should deal on a Pan African multilateral level instead of lining up as Obama’s ‘bestest’ country or ally. Maybe the biggest disappointment will be in Kenya. One other area we can benefit from is Obama’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. Multilateralism is better than bilateralism which often shores up our dictators.

One thing may change with Obama: African leaders who guilt-trip western leaders for being interfering colonialists may have to find other default responses. Many of them who acted as Bush’s henchmen in Africa are worried about Obama. Therefore he has to avoid the well-meaning liberal patronage offered by the Clinton Administration in Africa. Many of Clinton’s friends in our State Houses graduated to becoming even closer allies of Bush. If Obama chooses the easy option of relying on Clinton’s men and women for his Africa policy, as many of his key appointments have indicated so far, then Africa should be prepared for an early rude shock in Africa-US relations.

Meanwhile, enjoy the honeymoon and celebrations. If nothing changes under Obama, we cannot take one thing away from him: he has made hope and the possibility of change more desirable. The Obamas of America may be inspiration for other Obamas in Africa and across the world. Change is no longer a dirty word and those who say ‘No change’, had better be on notice.

The veteran American civil rights activist Bill Sutherland has described how Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta “were visibly impressed when, on that fateful night in 1957, the British flag was lowered, and the flag of Ghana was raised. Nkrumah, dressed in traditional kente cloth, his fists waving in the air, tears streaming down his face, shouted over and over again, ‘Free at last! Free at last!’” King used those same words himself at his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial, attributing them to a Negro spiritual. Sutherland wonders whether, perhaps, “those thunderous words in Washington DC had not come from King’s memory of that historic evening in Ghana.”

Tragically, by the time of King’s triumph, Nkrumah had been deposed and humiliated. The mountain he had set himself to climb was too steep, and his enemies were too many. Perhaps most fatefully, Nkrumah’s embrace of violence as the means of liberation—albeit under extreme duress—scarred the previously civic and peaceable tradition of Africa’s emancipation. The addiction to armed struggle and the coup d’état disfigured the African left for a long generation and also estranged African liberation from its erstwhile broad base of sympathy in America.

Nelson Mandela was the inspiring exception, for both Africans and Americans. In May 1994, President-elect Mandela spoke at the African National Congress’s victory celebration. He wrote later, “Mrs Coretta Scott-King … was on the podium that night, and I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband’s immortal words. ‘This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand before you filled with deep pride and joy – pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops – Free at last! Free at last!’”

Mandela’s triumph was the last echo of the civic tradition of African independence struggle, achieved—against the odds—peaceably in the continent’s most fractured country. During those long years in which African liberation had lost its way, swamped in repeated disappointment, Mandela was an icon of principled resistance and hope—not just to South Africans, but to Africans and Americans too.

On a balmy November night just ten weeks ago, Senator Barack Obama made only passing reference to the civil rights struggle and never mentioned his own identity save as an American. He did not need to. The picture of an African American family on the podium, about to enter the White House, said it all. Across America, the night of November 4/5 was a liberation day, celebrated with astonishing euphoria. A peaceful revolution. African Americans walked inches taller. In Harvard Square—not, admittedly, characteristic of the U.S.—where I joined the revelry with my wife and small son, there was total jubilation. Among the Obama stickers was a Kenyan flag.

Today outside the Capitol, as President Barack Hussein Obama stumbled through the oath of office—an uncharacteristic verbal infelicity in someone so skilled in oratory—the dream came true. Again, Obama made only glancing reference to the village in which his father was born and his own racial identity, and again, he did not need to do so. More telling was his insistence in his inaugural address that American principles and American power were one and the same, that the country would once again lead the world. Perhaps most telling of all was the ceremony itself and the seamless way in which the entire apparatus of government transferred from loyalty to the outgoing President George W. Bush—symbol of American militaristic hegemonic ambitions—to President Barack H. Obama, who symbolizes so many opposite ideals.

There’s no doubt that Obama’s victory restores the world’s—and America’s—faith in American democracy and the American promise of equality and boundless possibility. There’s no question that this resonates particularly deeply in Africa, where young people cannot fail to draw the contrast between what has just happened in America, and their own leaders who possess a less-than-total commitment to democracy and human rights. Whatever policies the Obama Administration pursues towards Africa, the simple fact that he has been elected and taken office transforms America’s standing. The gracious concession speech by John McCain on that fateful November night should also be studied by African leaders. America’s political system has shown itself more principled and robust than many could have imagined. It challenges Africa’s leaders to take democracy and human rights with the commensurate seriousness.

An earlier version of this posting was published in “Making Sense of Darfur” on November 5.

The election of a man of African descent to the most powerful position in the world is immeasurably symbolic for Africa. It was a precious moment at which Africans walked tall. Young Africans projected their own aspirations onto Obama. They suddenly believed that they too could overcome all odds, rise above a humble background, and achieve greatness without betraying their identity. They see Obama’s electoral triumph as a vindication of their own, thwarted dreams of democracy and opportunity for all. The inauguration is a consummation of that.

President-elect Obama has become an icon for the future, a symbol of emancipation and possibility, of the stature and significance of Nelson Mandela. His is a story that every young African can identify with, including his struggle to work out where he fitted in, what his identity should be. His leadership has six huge lessons for Africa.

First, Obama focused on what unites people rather than what divides them. He stressed the unity that arises from being comfortable with multiple identities. He didn’t try to impose any monolithic version of identity but made a virtue — an organizing principle — out of diversity. These are approaches that resonate deeply in Africa, and especially with the young.

Second, Obama didn’t dwell on the bitterness and division of the past. We did not see him fighting old battles or calculating the carve-up of power and wealth according to a zero-sum game. Instead, he resolutely looked to the future, to the possibilities of everyone becoming a winner in a shared future. The issues that helped Obama win were the challenges of the coming century, such as climate change and a positive attitude towards globalization. For Africa, a continent that has lost a sense of its future, and has even less of a feeling of controlling the direction in which it is heading, Obama was inspiring. He exuded the confidence that the future can be shaped, and nothing need be written off as lost.

Third, Obama ran a campaign of the young. The 2008 election was a generational turning point, a new leadership for America. Across the country, the youth had become politically dormant, turned off politics by its outdated procedures, its introversion and its sheer nastiness. Obama brought young people back into political life, mobilizing them through new methods that are simply invisible to an older generation of politicians, such as the internet. The codes of sociability, civility and enthusiasm that mark out the gathering places of the young — actual and virtual — were echoed in Obama’s own cool and affable demeanor. His whole campaign was a performance that resonated among the young — and he won two thirds of the votes of those aged under thirty.

Africa is a young continent, with half the population under eighteen and half of the electorate under thirty-five. Yet it is ruled by a gerontocracy, all of them born in the colonial era. Obama’s victory will remind young Africans that, at the time of independence half a century ago, it was men in their thirties and forties — and sometimes younger — who lead their countries at liberation, and that the time for another turning of the generations is upon us.

Obama’s leadership is also generous in spirit. He rose above the acrimony of party attacks and counterattacks. He did not assume the worst in his opponent, but rather challenged the best in him — and was rewarded on election night by a remarkably gracious concession speech by John McCain. Any African politician who wins an election would weep for joy if his opponent was as honorable in defeat — but that generosity needs to be earned by sticking with civil political principles. Obama was disciplined in brushing off some peculiarly nasty slurs, and courageous in sticking with his liberal and cosmopolitan messages even when most pundits saw these as dangerous for a country that has long been centre-right. That’s also an important lesson for Africa — African citizens are also far more cosmopolitan and liberal than is often assumed.

A fifth lesson from Obama’s triumph is the importance of re-learning the art of peaceful revolutionary change. Fifty years ago, Africa’s liberation was mostly achieved by non-violent civic protest. Kwame Nkrumah and Martin Luther King saw themselves as comrades in a non-violent struggle for civic rights. It is Africa’s tragedy that the continent’s visionaries turned to armed struggle and embraced the coup d’etat as a supposed short cut to achieving their goals. Africa’s leaders turned to violence because their enemies did so — but the outcome has been Africa’s loss. A leader who pursues the path of violence has no control over the outcome, but any effort to achieve peaceful change is an investment for the future. Africa, which was once the beacon of peaceful liberation, needs to achieve that status once again, and Obama’s example can provide the inspiration.

Lastly, the message of Obama’s triumph is: those who want to make a change must do it themselves. The Obama campaign did not rely on any established political machine. It did not call on figures from the establishment to represent it. It was a genuine grassroots mass mobilization. This is a tremendous example for Africa’s young people: they too can enact momentous political change, if they become involved. Already we can see that Obama’s example is motivating young people to become community organizers and political aspirants. Whatever the Obama administration delivers for Africa, this will be its greatest legacy: the power to inspire by example, to make a new generation believe that, yes we can change our world, by our own actions.

For American decision-makers, the process of African independence in the early 1960s represented a series of crises, the most politically motivated of which was the conflict in the Congo. With the Africa Bureau only two years old and with a policymaking bureaucracy with few African specialists, Kennedy, well aware of his administration’s limited capacity to understand and respond to the rapidly changing events in Africa, turned to an external community of professionals with experience in Africa for policy advice.

This community of Africanists established parameters within which political bargaining over policy priorities could take place. In other words, it framed the debate within as well as outside the policymaking bureaucracies by providing competitive ideas. It provided alternative roadmaps to existing roadmaps and offered a more liberal ontology than had its predecessors. It set standards for American involvement in Africa, and helped build domestic and international coalitions in support of American policies in Africa by drawing on its established domestic and international constituencies and its networks of information in the US, Europe, and Africa. And it served as a mediating force between American and African national interests.

Kennedy’s ascent to power at the apex of the African struggle for independence stirred the hope of change in U.S.-Africa policy not only in the hearts of American intellectuals, but also in the hearts of African nationalist leaders who saw in the United States’ own revolutionary struggle against colonialism a kindred spirit in the global fight for self-rule. Kennedy’s earlier pronouncements on colonialism and especially France in Algeria had already stirred the pot and raised expectations on both sides of the Atlantic of what a young American president could do right in Africa and what Africa could achieve unencumbered by external occupation. So certain were some that the winds of change extended to Washington, that the populist Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, would be assassinated by his political rivals in Katanga province on 17 January 1961—just three days before Americans inaugurated their youngest president.

How little Americans understood African societies then and how powerfully Eurocentric the official American lexicon on Africa was, is illustrated by the frustration in the account Chester Bowles’, President Kennedy’s Special Representative and Advisor on African, Asian, and Latin American Affairs gives of preparations for his first official trip to the region:

[I]n preparing for my trip [to Africa] I had occasion to visit the Library of Congress where I looked in vain for an African division that would tell me something about then current developments in the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Kenya and the Rhodesias. When I turned in desperation to the librarian, she remarked with some impatience, “You will find those colonies listed under Europe. Look up Belgium, Great Britain, Portugal and France.” “But where,” I asked, “can I find information on such free countries as Liberia and Ethiopia?” “Oh, they come under ‘miscellaneous,’” she answered.(1)

President Kennedy came to the White House with his own ideas and advisers on Africa, and brought with him a long-standing, personal conviction on colonialism and the need for self-determination. He established an Advisory Council on Africa comprised of the top scholars on Africa of his time and adopted a different vernacular from his predecessors. The recommendations of that 1958 policy paper, echoed again in the so-called Herskovits Study on Africa commissioned of the American anthropologist later that year by the Senate Foreign Relations committee—of which Senator Kennedy was a member—profoundly changed the discourse on U.S.-Africa relations in the United States. Emphasis shifted from a more NATO-driven narrative that privileged bilateral relations with European capitals to one emphasizing greater and more direct engagement with African nationalist movements. This was bold at the height of the Cold War.

It also raised great expectations among young Africans that Kennedy ultimately proved unable to fulfill. While the narratives of nationalism and self-determination were historic forces in 1961, these were up against the dominant paradigm of the Cold War. Ultimately, we have come to appreciate President Kennedy as a cautious leader who sought a difficult and at times impossible compromise between the exigencies of Western unity and African aspirations.

It is fitting then, that on the inauguration of another young American president so oft compared to John F. Kennedy and whose message of change and hope and African heritage has raised enormous pride and expectations in Africa and in the U.S., that we pose the question, what should President Obama do in Africa? In his inaugural speech today he announced that “The world has changed and we must change with it.” Kennedy came into office with a similar message. He was prepared to work with Africa on its terms and tried to show a greater sensitivity to the needs and demands of the emerging African leadership; but could not transcend the meta-narrative of his day. Let us hope that Barack Obama can.

(1) Address by The Honorable Chester Bowles, President’s Special Representative and Advisor on African, Asian and Latin American Affairs, at the Fiftieth Anniversary Dinner of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, Hotel Commodore, NY, Friday, December 14, 1962. Department of State Press Release, no. 730, December 14, 1962.

Ray Copson is the author of the book The United States in Africa: Bush Policy and Beyond, which can be ordered from Zed books (UK) or Palgrave Macmillan (USA).

In the George W. Bush Administration, few people in top positions had shown any prior interest in Africa, and many saw the region as one of peripheral importance at best. The fact that the Obama Administration will have Africa advocates in the highest positions bodes well for the future of U.S. Africa policy.  The newly expanded Democratic ranks in Congress also include many who have taken an interest in Africa over many years, and this will also tend to strengthen Africa policy as well.

American media commentators are insisting that all issues on the policy agenda are going to have to “take a back seat” to the economic crisis in the Obama Administration, and surely great attention and immense resources are going to be devoted to meeting that crisis.  In foreign affairs, many perceive, correctly, that the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, Iran, and other issues are going to outrank Africa in the scale of priorities.

Nonetheless, the foreign policy machinery of the U.S. Government is vast and fully capable of an active and positive engagement with Africa, even while dealing with other issues, especially when Africa has the support of those at the top.  During her January 15 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,  Secretary-designate Clinton insisted that the State Department “will be firing on all cylinders to provide forward-thinking, sustained diplomacy in every part of the world.…”  With respect to Africa, she specifically mentioned Darfur, natural resource conservation, the war in Congo, “autocracy in Zimbabwe,” African democracy, and working to reach the Millennium Development Goals as issues that would receive attention.  Clinton spoke forcefully of the incoming Administration’s commitment to continuing the fight against AIDS, combating climate change, and promoting economic development – mentioning microfinance as a special interest of hers.  Clinton supports the appointment of special envoys for dealing with particular crises and problems.  Darfur, southern Sudan, eastern Congo and possibly other situations in Africa are ripe for such appointments.  Clinton, like the President-elect, supports a stronger United Nations and stronger international institutions generally – support which could also prove highly beneficial to Africa.

While a higher priority for Africa seems inevitable in the Obama Administration, the level of U.S. commitment to the region, and the quality of that commitment, remains uncertain.  Where the resources for a larger effort in support of African development are going to come from in the current economic environment is far from clear, and this is a major concern.  Another is that during the Bush years, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was brought firmly under the control of the Department of State, with an inevitable elevation of political considerations in what ought to have been development policy decisions.  Will the agency now be permitted greater autonomy and allowed to re-priortize a development agenda?  A powerful Secretary of State, as Mrs. Clinton promises to be, may not be willing to let USAID slip from her control.  On the other hand, as a development advocate and a friend of USAID, she may choose to spend some of her formidable political capital on reinvigorating the agency.

In the Bush Administration, development assistance became heavily focused on spending to combat AIDS, at the expense of programs in other areas essential to economic growth.  AIDS spending, moreover, was controlled by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which is under the Department of State rather than USAID.  No one advocates a reduction in AIDS spending – quite the contrary.  But perhaps the time has come to merge PEPFAR into USAID to insure that AIDS policy and development policy are better coordinated.  Through increased development spending overall, the imbalance between AIDS spending and other forms of development assistance could be redressed.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is an independent agency providing U.S. funds to countries undertaking economic and political reforms, but it too ought to be under USAID for the sake of better policy coordination and the more effective use of scarce resources.  Ideally, USAID itself would be headed by a Secretary for International Development with cabinet status – but all such changes, even if the Obama Administration should pursue them, would involve turf battles as well as complicated changes in laws that could take years to achieve.  Some expect that Jacob Lew, nominated to be one of two Deputy Secretaries of State, may take on the development coordination function as an interim measure, with further reforms occurring later.  Lew has impressive credentials in the areas of management and budget.  Any effort to reduce U.S. farm subsidies, which tend to discourage agricultural production in Africa, would probably also occur later in the Obama Administration in view of the issue’s political sensitivity.

There may be more reason to hope that the rising influence of the Department of Defense and U.S. armed forces in Africa and Africa policy may soon begin to level off or perhaps decline.  As Secretary-designate Clinton has pointed out, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who will remain in office under President Obama, has himself said that the “institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.”  Clinton, with her forceful personality and political skills, may be able to win added resources for her Department, allowing the military to reduce or end its involvement in development work.   At the same time, she has said that the United States must continue to combat “al Qaeda’s efforts to seek safe havens in failed states in the Horn of Africa” as well as piracy off the Somali coast – heralding a continued role for U.S. armed forces in that part of the continent.

U.S. policy toward Africa is changing, and changing in a positive direction, but overcoming resource constraints and rebuilding the institutions of economic development will likely pose challenges for years to come.