When President Obama made a measured dash in and out of Africa during his first year in office, it was clear that the ‘dreams’ he wrote about were also very much an African dream, even if played out in two separate, distant continents.
For the regular guy beyond the US and across the racial divide, Obama represents one of us, someone who is of the real world, someone well able to relate with the lived experience of the common man and the politics of struggle, exclusion and apprehension.
But more than that, his early sojourn to Africa and experiences in working-class Chicago mean he has a good grasp of the African development challenge, an understanding of the complexity of change and the entrenched resistance that surrounds it.
President Obama is also well aware that an inspirational speech makes very little difference in breaking the mental trap of patriarchy in governance.
This is why Africans, and particularly the diaspora community, are still waiting with much anticipation that President Obama unveils a master stroke beyond the clarion call on the African leadership to embrace change; perhaps a recall of that shared dream that was interrupted as Obama stepped up to continue his journey with destiny.
But that dream still remains with many Africans in the diaspora. Even if occasionally disrupted by everyday challenges, it has never really died.
We see a continent with such potential in its people and resources, the fuel that powered the wealth of many distant nations, and one where nature still abound in its purity, yet under siege by the collective failure of its leadership to rise above the legacies of its darker history.
What we have here is leadership unable to organise its people to explore and compete with the world, but perfecting the art of patronage in engaging the instrument of the ‘modern state’. But can we wait and hope that change happens by providence? That ain’t gonna happen!
Exploitation is systemic and firmly integrated into the so-called ‘transparent economies’ that remain complacent in providing a safe haven for the spoils of human rights abuses. This needs to stop.
Just like President Obama’s early experience with the community in Altgeld Gardens on the south side of Chicago, the people of Africa see the political elite as the ‘other’, yet are bound by culture and blood ties that hold them hostage. Like no other ‘most powerful presi-dent’, Obama knows that the African development challenge is wrongly framed by the global development mission in Africa that now sustains a highly organised charity aid industry well integrated into the global corporate world.
But there is certainly a third way yet to be explored, one in which the diaspora community is now a major stakeholder (their annual remittances are widely believed to surpass charity contributions). There is a need for a framework that links organised intervention efforts to alliances with expertise from the African diaspora community, and a deliberate mechanism that aims at sustainable impact on institutional development and civil society partnerships that build the capacity for change and viable enterprise.
There is a basis for such a model in the current UNDP joint migration and development initiative (JMDI) that needs to be strengthened as a good practice model for ownership in development intervention.
The dream still endures, even if interrupted or incoherent. Africans still live in hope that the US President will roll out some measures that reflect his knowledge and connection with lived experience that alter the current framing of responses to Africa development challenge.
Son Gyoh is a doctoral scholar in global development education based in Galway. His research interest is in new approaches to knowledge and learning on global development issues.
