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Obama fits US ‘straightjacket’

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THERE were great expectations especially both from blacks in America and Africa when in 2008 Barack Obama was elected the first black American President.
Surely this son of a Luo from Kenya would ensure that Africans got a much more favourable treatment from the world’s most powerful country.
So they thought.
Six years down the line, events in America, Africa and the rest of the world have made us think otherwise.
The recent cold bloodied killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, a predominantly black town in the United States, is an eye-opener.
What is most disturbing about this incident in this black town with a police force which is overwhelmingly white is the notorious history of racial bias against blacks.
Over the years blacks have always been unfairly victimised to the extent of getting even killed by the white law enforcement agents.
Six years ago when a black presidential candidate had emerged victorious, there must have been a glimmer of hope among the black population of Ferguson.
They expected the black president to take significant steps to discourage the racist atrocities not only in Ferguson, but across the United States.
Their expectations soon disappeared.
The kid gloves which were used to handle whites involved in cases of racial abuse were abandoned when an African-American, Troy Anthony Davis, was executed after being accused of killing a white police officer in 2011.
Blacks had thought the conflicting evidence about the incident was enough to persuade President Obama to at least invoke a Presidential pardon.
To their dismay this was not to be.
The demonstrators in Ferguson today are all clamouring for justice, which they believe is still in short supply six years into the rule of a black president.
They know like before the days of Obama, the white officer who shot Brown in cold blood is likely to walk scot free.
No concrete measures to redress the white racial prejudice can be expected.
The best from Obama was his appeal for calm and his expression for sympathy for the victim and the country.
But Obama’s reaction was very different when a white American journalist James Foley was beheaded by members of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq earlier this week.
The US President was furious and ordered the intensification of airstrikes against this Islamist group who, paradoxically, were supplied with weapons to kill Syrians by Americans.
“When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see justice is done,” fumed Obama.
The difference this time is that the Islamists killed a white American.
What does all this mean?
Remember a few years ago there was an outcry especially from American surrogates in Zimbabwe when then Army General Vitalis Zvinavashe declared that the post of President was a ‘straightjacket’.
In other words, to become a president is determined by one’s adherence to the principles and liberation war values of the country.
The reaction of Obama to the murder of Brown or Foley should not be expected to be any different from that of John McCain, if he had won the presidency.
This should explain why both blacks in America and Africa had misplaced their faith when America voted for a black president in the form of Obama.
That is why even with Obama as the President, America’s intervention in Africa can clearly be seen to be determined by American imperialistic values and principles.
For instance, in Libya as is in South Sudan, America is less interested in loss of human life, but more concerned with the sale of their military ware and cheap resources.
In our case it is difficult to believe that Obama comes from a country, Kenya, which fought for its land through an armed struggle called Mau Mau.
And today it is, Obama the Luo, who has joined the American bandwagon in punishing Zimbabweans for what Obama’s forefathers did in Kenya.
Clearly Obama has betrayed the black cause.

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