Obama's Trash Talk

Mwenda,
I totally disagree with your argument that "Africa needs space to make mistakes and learn from them" We the African people, especially people like you Mwanda who have the opportunity to write articles for a very well reputable online tool like ForeignPolicy.com should be instrumental educating people about the challenges and failures of leadership we are witnessing in post-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa. As an African, it bothers me to hear you saying that Africa needs space to make mistakes. I am very certain you are aware that African leaders have been making mistakes for almost 4 decades now. How much space do you want to give them? When do you think they will be able to learn from these mistakes at a time they are far away from recognizing that they make mistakes in every piece of policy they make? , we need to start looking at what is going wrong with Africans? I am disappointed with your posting. This is not the way we will lift up the burdens that our people have been carrying for years.
"The solutions for Africa have to be shaped and articulated by Africans, not outsiders." I think here you agree with Obama and this contradicts everything you said about him in your article. However, my concern with what you see as African solution to African problems is real. I don't see any initiative in Africa to shape or articulate good policy for Africa by African leaders. All I see is the chorus that colonialism has been the problem for Africa development. The African leaders continue to manipulate the minds of their people in the name of the impact that colonization had in Africa. However, they fail to fix the problems because they are the ones in control now and everything which is happening in Africa now is under their watch. So stop blaming colonization and the West for our own failure. I am not denying that colonization did not affect Africa future, but I refuse to demonize it as the only problem.
I have no doubt that failed leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa has been the primary cause of political. economic and social instability in Africa. But what we see today is that African leaders play a game of accusing others and excuse themselves for mistakes they have committed.

It is still sad, that Africa, continues to wallow in despair, it is even unfortunate when we thump our chest and point fingers at the so called African leaders not only accusing them of their ills but also seeking their blood. Beware who is without hair on his body cast the first stone. African leaders are conscious, knowledgeable, educated, skilled in all manners of life, ambitious and human.

History in America, Russia, France,Germany at at every once great civilization shares similar challenges now experienced by Africa. This Nation used the democratic space and adhered to the core principles of democracy to tailor specific solution to this problem; poverty, diseases, corruption, society decay etc. I would therefore categorically state that it is ill advised to suggest that Mr Mwenda articles is non consequential, as he has exercised what a "civilized" society would advocate for - freedom of expression. Mr mwenda comment on His Excellency President of The USA , Mr Obama is an objective view open to objective criticism as well.

As to whether African leaders are making or continuing to make mistake, is an issue that need to be addressed by all stake holder in Africa policy making, policy implementation and according to public demand. I believe the worst mistake is not about being an African leader but being an accomplice of an African looter and providing safe custody of proceed of such crime and many more. If African roads would be paved with gold stolen from hell, then it is still injustice irrespective of the source being from hell.

I am proud of Mr Obama and so is the whole world, however i find it to be too soon for obama to talk about African issues blatantly. My point is that everyone is busy helping Mr Obama to extinguish his house that is on fire, so we would expect him to treat his equal partner with decorum. This would mean improving the American Image overseas, Africa included. European and event American people have united as individual and promoted economic growth in this region and this is quite commendable. However I point out that policy makers are the dividing line, because of their thirst for rumor and talking past each other. The end result is public stereotype, ideological realignment and implementation of draconian policies that divides the one nation world.

Sub-Sahara Africa weeps indeed, yes. It is the center of all adventure by all dissenting forces seeking to protect the untaxed commercial prospect that it present especially, the Somali coastlines. However I totally disagree with sentiment regarding sub-sahara Africa being a liability to Africa, yet it is a Eden of tourism, resources, rich ecosystem, and other natural and human resources.

My view is that Mr Obama should be the gentleman he has been, my worry is when he joins the gentlemen club when the world is looking for people ready to roll up their sleeves to forge, peace, unity, growth and a happy world

It's funny the way you refer to Africa because it shows you know nothing about Africa and maybe the world. You talk about African children being soldiers and leaders being Satan, but in America there are leaders taking blow jobs from their secretaries. Africa is not a pathetic continent, it's just a continent that has experienced difficulties and has not been able to use their natural resources to control the Western world. I don't think that makes Africa pathetic. It's a shame the leaders are corrupt but the fact is that every government is corrupt, I have to be optimistic and say that the wounds of corruption will heal with time. I also hope the children in your country have better morals because I believe soldiers are trained to have good morals.

I agree with the author that Africans need to ask serious questions as to why they are failing, and what they are doing wrong.

I don't at all agree that the rest of the world should butt out. The rest of the world needs to find a less condescending and more constructive way to engage with Africa, this much is true, but in order to be constructive, we actually need a massive intensification of international involvement. The reconstruction of Japan and Europe succeeded so spectacularly not only because of the political cultures of those societies, but because of the truly massive, committed, and holistic effort by the USA and WWII victors to ensure that these countries recovered and became prosperous. The problem with Western involvement in Africa is that it has been too piecemeal and intermittent. We need a strong, dedicated effort.

The idea that Africa would do much better if left alone is the calling card of dictators, all-to-easily using the trump card of racism and neo-colonialism to scare people away from excessive interest in their brutal regimes. Africans need the pride and wherewithal to believe they can better their societies and make them something more than the screaming hellholes of poverty, disease, and brutal violence that they are now.

But they also need the humility to accept that although the international community has something to contribute to their development. Singapore, South Korea and Japan didn't develop "on their own", and they didn't re-invent the wheel or pursue "Asian development". It's bad history and bad social science to think so. They developed liberal capitalist societies (albeit authoritarian in the case of Singapore), along Western lines and with an enormous amount of Western help.

In another world, Tanzania's Ujamaa might have worked, but in the near future, the prospects of Africa's beleaguered poor, mutilated, raped and diseased lies with a realistic commitment to social transformation in partnership and under the tutelage of the international community, not with a starry-eyed desire to prove oneself by "doing it on our own".

A major Ghanaian news outlet has been caught in a revealing slip-up after it reported that President Barack Obama’s recent visit to the African country was a return to his birthplace.

Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution states, “No person except a natural born citizen… shall be eligible to the office of president.”

This invalidates the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency if, as a growing number of people believe, he was in fact born in Kenya and not Hawaii as he claims. After mounting pressure, the Obama campaign released a Hawaiian birth certificate on June 13 2008, but skeptics claimed that it showed signs of being forged.

Contained in an otherwise relatively mundane account of Obama’s recent visit to Ghana in the Daily Graphic news outlet is a sentence sure to raise eyebrows amongst people like journalist Jerome Corsi, who has been at the forefront of the Obama birth certificate scandal since well before the election.

The full paragraph reads, “For Ghana, Obama’s visit will be a celebration of another milestone in African history as it hosts the first-ever African-American President on this presidential visit to the continent of his birth.”
Why the Ghanaian news outlet would report that Obama was born on the continent of Africa, when this would instantly invalidate his entire presidency, is unclear.

In April a transcript from an interview with Obama’s step-grandmother was released in which she discussed being present at Obama’s birth in Mombasa, Kenya.
“WND is in possession of an affidavit submitted by Rev. Kweli Shuhubia, an Anabaptist minister in Kenya, who is the official Swahili translator for the annual Anabaptist Conference in Kenya, and a second affidavit signed by Bishop Ron McRae, the presiding elder of the Anabaptists’ Continental Presbytery of Africa,” reported Corsi.
In his affidavit, Shuhubia asserts “it is common knowledge throughout the Christian and Muslim communities in Kenya that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born in Mombasa, Kenya.”
As Corsi reported recently, the hospital in Hawaii where Obama claims he was born has refused to produce documentation or even acknowledge the fact. Attempts to obtain Obama’s hospital-generated long-form original birth certificate have been rebuffed.
Doubts about Obama’s birth certificate are now spreading in military circles. U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook has refused to deploy to Afghanistan on the grounds that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief. Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, has filed separate lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency.

In reply to TJ0169GA

The article and discussion is about The West lecturing Africa. It's not an excuse to peddle discredited "birther" conspiracy theories.

I'm not going to waste time writing 10 paragraphs to point out that Obama was born in Hawaii. There'd be no convincing you. Disgruntled conspiracy theorists believe what they want to believe regardless of the contrary evidence staring in their face.

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Why the stories about Obama's birth certificate will never die

salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/05/birth_certificate

All he has to do is produce it just like Billabong Clinton could have produced his medical records but never did like Bush did. Strange isn't it that the military has not challenged that soldiers contention and now he does not have to serve under a false leader.

Personally I want more HopenChange to be inflicted upon the world, the bovine are slow learners and they must feel the pneumatic pin against the skull before they realize just which line they are standing in. It ain't the free health care clinic sparky. I look foward to every invasion into private life until every last nitwit that voted for him understands what a true socialist does. Clinton was all about Clinton thus the triangulation and moves to the right. The Dali Bama will never move from his socialist roots thus the lesson is assured to come full strength.

Why not go to Mombasa, then to that hospital in Hawaii, and check?

After you EXOTTOYUHR. I, like many non-Birthers of all political persuasions, have no need to go and check in Mombasa or Hawaii. I'm satisfied that thorough checks and vetting have already been done by far more resourced authorities and agencies than you or I, as would be expected for any Presidential nominee or candidate.

Would going to and seeing evidence in Hawaii really satisfy Birthers? Don't Birthers believe that Obama went to Hawaii to change the record? Would ANY evidence, short of inventing a time machine and watching Obama being born in Hawaii, ever convince a Birther?

You buy the plane tickets if you're that obsessed, and, if in true X-Files and Fox Mulder fashion you believe that there's a government conspiracy and the "truth is out there". Good luck with that.

Africa does need "working systems, and they need to change the culture of permissiveness". I hope by permissiveness, you meant corruption. I'm sure if and when Africa is governed by leaders who want to improve their democratic systems and create a system of transparency, such will be achievable. Ghana does not seem to be doing so badly, it is an example that surrounding countries can use to model themselves after.

Africa does need "working systems, and they need to change the culture of permissiveness". I hope by permissiveness, you meant corruption. I'm sure if and when Africa is governed by leaders who want to improve their democratic systems and create a system of transparency, such will be achievable. Ghana does not seem to be doing so badly, it is an example that surrounding countries can use to model themselves after.

In response to the previous comment made on Obama's legitimacy as president based on his place of birth, please learn United States law on citizenship before you try to spread damaging rumors. His place of birth has no bearing on whether or not he is a United States citizen. Because he was born to a mother who is a United States citizen, that automatically makes him a citizen of the US. I too was born overseas because my parents served in the US Air Force, however I am a US citizen because they were also. Don't profess to know something that has no bearing on trying to fix the legitimate problems plaguing all countries today.

I never said that it is impossible to develop without outside funds. It is, though, much, much easier and more realistic to expect development when you're receiving outside assistance.

It is true that Japan and Europe were wealthy, relative to the rest of the world, prior to the Marshall Plan (and McArthur's SCAP, in Japan). But the speed and effectiveness of their postwar reconstruction, and Japan's meteoric rise to economic prominence would have been impossible without enormous amounts of foreign assistance and excellent international conditions.

Africa can, possibly, maybe develop without significant outside help, but it cannot develop outside the international context, and by far its best chances at achieving any lasting development lie with the rest of the world, if it decides to start being serious about dragging Africa out of the muck, as well as depending on the determination of Africans themselves to better their condition.