Njuguna Mutonya
7 November 2008
Nairobi — Can the Barack Obama election victory and its ramifications restore the world's faith in America?
Growing up on the slopes of the Aberdares, my only contact with the white man was in the form of the local Italian Catholic priest whose foul language and arrogance gave me a life-long suspicion of his intentions.
It was only when I went to secondary school that I met a different kind of white man who won my friendship and with whom I shared correspondence until university.
He was an American Peace Corp volunteer from Michigan who, besides teaching me, ushered me into the world of literature by lending me a book that changed my life, The Gulag Archipellago by Alexander Solshenitzyn.
Michael Hupfer was just one of the many volunteers through whose hands I went through and whose sheer independence and inquisitiveness made them their countries' perfect ambassadors.
Ruth Wahl, a Californian physics graduate, was perfectly at ease dancing to blues with us during the weekend boogies, while her Texan colleague, Joe Caserta, a Vietnam war veteran, coached our volleyball team to the national-level tournament. My colleagues and I aspired to be like them.
Compared to the cold brutality of former British colonialists, whose horror stories were frequently told around the evening fire, the Americans were a breath of fresh air.
Later in life, when we became exposed to the unequal global relationships brought about by the Cold War, our levels of consciousness soared as the role of the US became clearer.
Despite my suspicions then, I still held my respect for the people of the country whose single-minded pursuit of individual rights and freedoms had given birth to the civil rights movement.In 1993 , I got a fellowship to study in America, and my hopes of reinforcing my optimism were quickly dashed despite some uplifting moments. For instance, pleas by my colleagues and I to visit the native Americans in their habitat were not honoured, and I had to do with a secret meeting with a native poet, the famous Gregory Grey Hawk, in my Denver hotel for a tutorial that chilled me to the bones.
My escapades in black neighbourhood clubs, which we were warned were extremely dangerous, allowed me a peek into the ugly face of racism that the US glossed over.
A weekend's stay with a middle-aged African-American family in Indianapolis exposed the silent fears of many black families despite their pet comforts and denials.
One night in Jackson, Mississippi, a bunch of Red-Necks stormed out of a bar my feisty African group had invaded to show their disapproval of our presence.
An innocent question by a white, middle-aged civil servant at Girogio's Bar in Washington on if I had ever killed an elephant shocked me about the ignorance which helps to fuel racism.
The young, internet-bred, outside-looking generation need not suffer from the earlier Jim Crow anxieties, and this is why I guess Obama does not pose a threat to them.
The ogre of racism which has been used successfully by different administrations may have suffered a fatal body blow, and the message America sends to the world will yet see transformations that will bust other useless "isms" that still litter the world.
Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Obama's victory is more sacred for its symbolism than for its real practical effects when it starts working.
The new hope that it gives his global supporters will for sure see the collapse of some of those forcibly upheld beliefs and stereotypes whose sell-by dates have long gone.
It could well shake the foundations of international relations and possibly make the United Nations a more relevant organ of international diplomacy, not a conduit for graft and bureaucracy.
Ethnicists in Kenya and D.R. Congo as well as budding dictators in South Africa might as well start cleaning up their act because what happened in the US on Tuesday night will affect us for a long time to come.
With the advent of Obama-ism, the ugly American image might be forgiven and a new role in a peaceful world acquired afresh.
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