Volume 1

The new world in the Americas has largely been formed by the collision of three great cultures - native American, European and African. The third African leg of this tripod has to date been like the proverbial iceberg, mostly hidden and subterranean. Cloaked in invisibility as Ralph Ellison noted, nevertheless the narrative and culture of the African in America has been the anvil on which the new civilisation was hammered out and largely defined.

The African arrived in humiliation, shackled to the hold of a ship, before disappearing under a series of shadow names - Negro, Coloured, Omni-American, and Black. Towards the end of the 20th century, two attempts (one cultural, the other political) would be made to publicly reassert the African, both would only partially succeed. Alex Haley's reimagination of the arrival of the African would end in law suits and a little disgrace, whilst Jesse Jackson would relaunch the African in America as part of a failed Rainbow nation.

Barrack Obama. The name is synonymous with an African renaissance. African, I insist. Not least because Obama's father was an African ­ a Kenyan. But the issue is much more than biological connection. After all, it was only later that Obama was to attempt a sociological understanding of his father. Obama represents what was, for a long time, suppressed in black Africans. He represents the liberating of a spirit locked in for centuries, not through the fault of Africans but through the conditions under which they were permitted to live. I use the term ‘permitted' deliberately, for black Africans ­ and that would include black Americans ­ have generally lived their lives at the beck and call of the ‘other'.

But I would be naïve, not to say unfaithful to Obama, if I went on ranting along these racial trajectories. For he would be the first one to stop me. And therein lies the enigma that Obama seems to present to many of us in Africa. Of course, Obama would say that we should not make light of the question of race in America. But he would be quicker, I believe, to outline the need for the unity of races, and that is not a bad thing. His whole campaign is based upon the theme of unity.

There is great celebration about Senator Obama becoming the Presidential candidate for the Democrats in next November elections in the US. The excitement is such that one would be forgiven to think that Obama was about to be sworn in soon. The enthusiasm ignores the fact that he is yet to be formally adopted and still has an election to fight against the Republicans. No where is this excitement more infectious than in Kenya, the homeland of Obama's father. Even Kenyans who in the closely fought Presidential elections of last year swore that Raila would never be president , not because of anything other than being Luo, without any sense of irony, are part of the Obamamania. A 100% Luo is not good enough for them as President of Kenya but they are supporting a 5O% Luo to be president of the USA!

Kenyans are not alone in these contradictory responses. I am not sure how many of the millions of Africans now jubilating about Obama's possible victory will be that enthusiastic were Obama to be standing for office in their countries. Can you imagine an Obama as a presidential candidate in Ivory Coast? Would he not be reminded that he is not African enough? How could he pass the ‘ivoirite' test when even a former Prime Minister of the country, born in the country was disqualified? If Obama had stood in a Nigerian election would he have generated the same mass adulation?

I was in Santiago, Chile when Senator Barack Obama won enough delegates to become the presumptive presidential nomination for the Democratic Party and several of my hosts and other members of the group were interested in discussing the implications of this for the country, African Americans, and the global community. His presumptive nomination means that for the first time in the United States' history, a major political party has the opportunity to nominate a person of color or an African American for president.  This serves as a history-making event on many levels.

Many African Americans never thought they would live to see the day that someone like Obama would win enough primaries and the corresponding delegates to secure the nomination from either the Democratic or Republican Party.  There are several reasons why this mind-set was hard to break.  First, African American males received the right to vote in 1870 and this was achieved by adding an amendment to the constitution.  They were citizens and should have been entitled to vote for that mere fact, but to wrestle this political right from state and local officials, especially in southern states, an amendment was necessary.  Moreover, for the majority of African American males, especially those who lived in southern states and most of them did at this time, the ability to exercise their right to vote was simply too costly in terms of the physical dangers (lynching in particular) it posed and it literally cost money in the form of poll taxes.  In 1920, when women were granted the right to vote, it obviously meant white women or women who did not live in southern states because African American women still could not exercise their right to vote unless they lived outside the south.

Two months after senator Barack Obama effectively secured the Democratic Party nomination for president  of the United States, it is gratifying to note that the pan-Africanist intellectual world has not for the most part, been lulled to sleep by the Obama "moment."  Instead, as demonstrated by most contributors on this eSymposium, serious guestions are being raised as to the meaning of this "moment" and whether we are about to enter a new phase of politics in the United States, and how developments in the United States will impact the broader pan- African world, and  especially US policy towards Africa.

The discussions provided in this eSymposium range from the importance of recognizing the symbolic importance of the "moment" especially in the critical fact that for the first time in US history, a black man stands a better that even chance to become president of the United States, to the skepticism that a US president, let alone a black one, would fundamentally change the thrust of US policy towards Africa and the pan-African world.  In other words, Barack Obama, with all of his goodwill and determination, is effectively a prisoner of the structural realities of the American political economy.  As the US tries to weave its way through the challenges of globalization, and the indeterminate nature of what it may mean to be the lone super-power, any US president will be under tremendous pressure from domestic constituencies to be narrowly focused on "American national interests."