Obama delivered an unsentimental account of squandered opportunities in postcolonial Africa.
America's first black president spoke with a bluntness that perhaps could only come from a member of Africa's extended family.
"No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers," he said.
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."
He added: "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions."
I think that we can say with confidence that if black Africans were organizing suicide bombing runs on Western targets, there would have been more sucking up and less challenge.
That's why the other speech on the continent of Africa--at Cairo--was so different.
Bottom line of the speech: it's been a long time since colonial powers were Africa's worst problem, and it is time to throw off that convenient excuse. And yes, if a white president had given the same speech, it would have been condemned as arrogant white-man's burden type preaching. So if only Nixon could go to China, only Obama could go to Africa.
Of course, some who should have been paying attention weren't:
Mugabe told mourners at a state funeral of an ally and top commander during the liberation struggle that the West had humiliated Tsvangirai for calling for reforms before aid.
"Let's not humiliate ourselves any further. We go to those friends who are prepared to work with us and work with us on the basis of partnerships on equal terms," Mugabe said.
Mugabe has wrecked Zimbabwe even as he's claimed he's standing up to Europe and the other colonial powers (even if they were never colonial powers in Africa) and excused his country's decent into hell as all the fault of those colonial powers. The sad fact is that Zimbabwe has committed suicide far more effectively than any secret plot of Western racists could have killed the country.
It would help if other African countries didn't go along with this claim. I hope our president's speech hits a nerve among Africans.
