Obamania Catches Malawians

Malawi though so far away from the US and economically poor, has its citizens following the US elections closely as if it something happening in their own backyard. For some, the US elections offer an interesting parallel as Malawi is holding its presidential and parliamentary elections next year. But the most important reason is probably the close race between Senators Hillary Clinton, a woman, and Barack Obama, who has race links to Africa.

A political scientist and Malawian blogger, Boniface Dulani looks at the US elections in light of Malawi’s politics and elections. After highlighting lessons for Malawi, Dulani openly says if he were to vote, he would go for Obama though either Hillary or Barack would make history in the US if elected.

Either of the two candidates will make history: if elected, Obama will be the first Black President in the United States, while Clinton would be the first woman President. While both candidates have more or less identical policies on most major issues, I am reluctant to lend my support to Hilary Clinton on one count and one count alone: in a country of nearly 300 million people, I cannot be convinced that there are only two households that can produce Presidents: the Bushes and the Clintons. While Clinton has campaigned on a platform of long years of public service, I have to say I am not persuaded to think that simply because one was a First lady, then they are prepared for the presidency.

He explains that his choice for Obama is because Obama would bring new breath to the foreign policy of the US.

Of the two democrats, only Obama has the potential to bring about real change in American politics as well as to change the negative image of the United States elsewhere. Judging by his foreign policy statements, I am convinced this is a man who will not only bring in a new era of international politics that is less confrontational, but would also move us away from the unilateralism that has marked US foreign policy in the last couple of years.

In post titled Say no to Politics on Weekends, Lilongwe-based female blogger Thandi Soko seems to cautiously support Dulani’s choice by simply hoping that Obama would win but adds:

Obama is not a clear winner yet. So what else is new?

Mlauzi, who blogs about the rebirth of Africa, supports Obama’s attempt in the presidential nomination describing this as an opportune moment for the global solidarity as it relates to race. Writing under the title Beneath Obama’s rebuke of Jeremiah Wright: Is a new global consciousness afoot? he says:

More than a Pan-Africanist, Obama also carries sharp Third World instincts, aware of and in tune with the global solidarity that unites peoples of the world colonized and exploited by Europe and America.

Mlauzi adds that as a black presidential hopeful in the US, Obama should expect many burdens yet at the same time seems to be the right candidate to take them on.

Obama appears to have the capacity to shoulder these burdens, although he must pretend to represent a parting of ways with such expectations. It is a balancing act tough enough to tire out the most seasoned athlete. For some, this parting of ways warrants little more than subdued ambivalence that an Obama presidency would do anything for black America, Pan-Africa and the Third World.

The presidential aspirants are also being heavily debated amongst listservs and race and religion seem to bring the debate closer to most Malawians.

3 comments

  • It the page of history turning…

    John McCain is emblematic of the Euro-centric First World seeking any way by force or coercion, financial or otherwise, to control the geologic and human resources of the world.

    Hillary Clinton represents the Second World aspirations of those connected to Euro-origins who were left out and excluded from the bounty and privileges who are making the reformist moral argument of the Revisonist Euro-ethos.

    Barack Obama is genetically and life history the outgrowth of the aspirtions of Third World peoples who have been the politically and economically abused by the treachery and dissemblings of the former two. Barack Obama has been given the keys of history by the Spirits of our forebearers who live in our passion of the moment and history. In reverence to the Dreams of our forebearers, Obama can bring the world to a better threshhold that neither the First or Second Worlders could empathetically conceive or operationally deliver.

    Bugsy Heretic
    Job 1: 6-11

    http://www.paypal.com account, [email protected]

  • Rufusd

    It is not only the Malawians.The whole of Africa, Asia and most of the Europeans. We are watching the coming of age of the so called democracy of the most powerful nation on earth with awe.

  • BROW4692

    AMERICANS WANT “ELECTED” — NOT “SELECTED”. WE NEED TO REPLACE THOSE DEMS IN CONGRESS WHO DID NOT LISTEN TO US.

    I do not understand why all the pundits are so certain that Clinton supporters will fall in line and support Obama. We have been told for months now that he would be the candidate and still not voted for him.

    You need to understand that a we have gotten to know him, we have found little to like and less to trust.

    In my opinion McCain has at least earned our trust, he also has been around long enough for us to know who he really is.

    Thus far we have heard from Obama that he didn’t know about the church, then that he did but that it was not representative of the church.

    Then he spoke out against Reverend Wright when Wright went public, but still supported the church.

    Finally a guest priest speaks to a rollicking crowd saying hateful racist comments and Obama finally quits the church.

    Still he claims to beleive that is what many churches are like.

    The guy does not have a clue OR he is still lying. A candidate with poor judgment does not belong in our white house.

    He is wrong on the church.

    He is wrong on foreign policy and he is also wrong on the war.

    I do not think we did the right thing by going into Iraq, but now that we have broken it, it is our job to help the people of that country get to where they can fix it and run it on their own.

    I do not agree with him on medical insurance, universal for kids, but once they are adults it is every man for himself.

    I will vote for the devil I know and not the one that is slowly being revealed to be the real racist in the room.

    OBAMA IS A DANGEROUS MAN — HIS ENTIRE CAMPAIGN HAS BEEN BASED ON LIES! — DON’T FORGET 9/11.

    McCAIN 2008 — HILLARY 2012.

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