By Steve Ogah
While Donald Trump, America’s 45th and current president; doesn’t engender much excitement on the African continent as a result of some of his immigration policies, which seek to enclose America with a border wall, and purported ingrained derogatory linguistic capabilities for some countries, it is in Joe Biden and the democratic party that most Africans are looking up to for some measure of political and economic solace, and even immigration latitude. Regardless of the fact that Joe Biden doesn’t exude Africa in his genes, it is in Kamala Harris, his biracial and female running mate and Biden’s public travel history that one can locate the Africa in him. But is there any real reason to hope and believe that America’s former vice president will be favorably disposed to Africa should he end up at the Oval office?
The interrogation of the Africa in Barack Obama was fitting, when he sought to become America’s president after his Chicago declaration for the presidency on 10th February, 2007. He was biracial but there was a sense in which some assumed that he hadn’t properly aligned himself with the mother continent of Africa. Consequent upon this, analysts and intellectuals searched his records to see if he knew Africa well enough and had any sort of interest in her turbulent affairs, political traumas and developmental projections.
This writer recollects an essay by Prof. Ropo Sekoni on page 10 of the Nigerian paper, The Nation of 9th November, 2008 which was titled “How Much Of Africa Is In Barack Obama?” It was in this piece that the columnist examined Obama vis a vis his connection to Africa. And at the end of it, one came off with the sentiment that there was indeed a strain of Africa in Barack Obama, whether in his genes or in his politics. His engagement with issues that related to the place of the black man in some of Chicago’s economically-challenged neighborhood was an indication that he had an ingrained liking for blacks and people of African descent. But that wasn’t the only interrogation of Africa during the Obama euphoria.
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The British Broadcasting Corporation aired the Obama in Africa program on 11th July, 2009. Guests on the show included one ambassador Hayford, and world renowned fashion designer, Oswald Boateng. Here again, we were able to behold the African elements in the former American president who was rightly seen as half white and half black, a human hybrid which could be claimed by any of the races. Beyond his race, one could see a huge grade of Africa in Obama, in the sense that he spoke of his ancestral roots with a sense of pride and referenced his father and grandfather’s dreams whenever he could. Africa accepted him because he too had embraced Africa with a gigantic measure of delight and eloquence.
One is hoping that Biden will be generous in his approach to Africa because Donald Trump doesn’t cause as much exciting stirs on the continent as one would have expected. Not much has been seen from Trump, which seems to say that there is a huge liking for the continent by way of his carriage or campaign evocations. One can’t hold Trump guilty for not liking what he has no appetite for. It is this often alleged display of bigotry from Trump that has seen some Africans rooting for Joe Biden in the in-coming November elections in America, just perhaps. But are there congenital qualities or political antecedents in Joe Biden and his history-making duo with Kamala Harris, to give us hope that his administration would impact positively on the continent?
Joe Biden has always loved Africa. He first visited the motherland as a 34-year-old senator. To be sure, Joe Biden has exhibited the possibility that he loves Africa and some of her heroes in his public records which seems to suggest that he admired the heroism of Nelson Mandela. He was in South Africa in 1977 when it was not stylish to identify with the communist-inclined Africa National Congress with sought to dismantle the apartheid system of white supremacists. That historic visit was a demonstration of courage and love for the disenfranchised in apartheid South Africa. His sympathy towards blacks in general, and Nelson Mandela in particular, perhaps, emboldened the struggles of the ANC which culminated in the eventual release of Nelson Mandela from Victor Vester prison on 11th February 1990 and the enthronement of multiparty democracy in 1994.
To further identify with Africa, Biden visited Kenya in 2010 and went on to make a distinguished appearance at the opening ceremony of the 2010 world cup in South Africa, where he sat as a representative of the United States of America. And when Mandela died on 5 December 2013, he was among those eminent personalities who signed their respect for the iconic freedom fighter at the south African embassy in America.
After a thoughtful consideration of her electoral and political merit, among other things; one may surmise that it is an emotional attachment for Africa and her peoples which propelled Joe Biden to choose Kamala Harris as his running mate. As a result of that celebrated action, one is now able to locate Harris as the personification of that love for Africa which dwells in Biden. He identifies with the achievements of blacks and people of color and his past engagements with the continent seems to point that he will show admiration and concern for activists, democracy and genuine heroes on the side of the masses. Joe Biden seems poised to help Africa out of her seemingly unending troubles and favors those with a deep understanding of the continent as advisers. This is exemplified in some of his advisers which include people from the Clinton and Obama era such as, Michelle Gavin, Susan Rice, Nicholas Burns and Anthony Blinken; as reported in The Africa Report of 10th August, 2020.
He once sort to show support for Nelson Mandela. That is a pointer that Joe Biden, if he eventually becomes the 46th president of the most powerful country on earth, will perhaps give courage and backing to genuine concerns of the peoples of Africa and her visionary leaders.
If as president, Joe Biden doesn’t reckon with Africa, then all his campaign grandstanding and evocation of one of Africa’s greatest struggle icons, will become of no admirable value to his history and place in Africa, by the time that account is finally written by those who are watching his politics with interest.
P:S: Steve Ogah is a fellow of the British Council/Lancaster University Crossing Borders Online writing program. He is the author of The Pretty Butterfly and The African New Yorker, and Voicesnet(USA) poet of the month(Feb.2002).
