Hope in Africa?

I could not let this day pass without noting U.S. President Barack H. Obama's visit to Ghana.

Described as the first visit by an African-American President to sub-Saharan Africa, there were only minor controversies. One involved the supposed North Africa vs. sub-Saharan African divide (Obama had visited Egypt since becoming U.S. President and many Africans do not recognize a socio-political division of the continent in this way). Another debate involved which country the President should visit first (his father is from Kenya, which Obama visited as a young man and as U.S. Senator; Nigeria was competitive as a large, politically and economically powerful state actor in West Africa). It seems the White House chose Ghana to signal support for its relative political and economic stability and democracy.

Obama spoke of hopeful prospects for greater agricultural and economic development and self-reliance in Africa despite the global economic crisis. Although often described as "poor," the region is extraordinarily rich in social, educational, and cultural traditions as well as agricultural, mineral, and biodiversity resources. At the same time, many countries in the region are beset by the ravages of a colonial legacy (including contemporary political corruption), the violence that accompanies the international trade in small arms, and the lack of well-maintained local healthcare and trade infrastructure.

Nevertheless. this enormously complex continent is filled with potential for its own peoples and for the world. Thousands throughout the continent celebrated the visit, and there was hope for the realization of plans to reorient thinking on African development. Such new approaches must involve a people-centered, sustainable, and self-directed development that meets the needs of local peoples first.

Perhaps no aspect of the Obama visit was more moving for African-American observers than the First Family's tour of Ghana's Cape Coast Castle, a 17th century dungeon in which thousands of African slaves were held in horrendous conditions prior to boarding slave ships (above, photo credit). A shaken Obama compared the impact of the visit to a previous stop at Buchenwald, the World War II Nazi slave labor and death camp, noting the human capacity for evil in every generation. He also spoke of the human capacity for resilience and for overcoming such evil. The latter is the hope of peoples all over the world; let's ensure that both U.S. and regional African policies help fulfill those dreams at home and abroad.

On June 29

On this day in ...
… 1974 (35 years ago today), Isabel Martínez de Perón (right) was sworn in as the 1st woman President of Argentina. (photo credit) The previous President, her husband, Juan Perón, had delegated responsibility to her due to weak health; he died 2 days later. At 43 the youngest Latin American head of state at the time, she inherited a political and economic crisis. Her presidency lasted until 1976, when she was overthrown in a bloodless coup by a military junta. In January 2007, she was arrested under suspicion of having links to right-wing death squads that had abducted and murdered political opponents during her rule.
… 1861, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (left), among the most prominent poets of the Victorian era, died in Florence, Italy, 55 years after her birth in England. (image credit) During the 19th century no women poet was held in higher esteem in both the United States and England than she. Her poetry had an immense impact on the work of the American poet Emily Dickinson. American poet Edgar Allan Poe similarly was inspired by the Briton's poem Lady Geraldine's Courtship (1844), borrowing its meter for his own The Raven (1845). Barrett Browning's loathing of social injustices -- such as the slave trade in America, the oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, child labor in the mines and mills of England, and the restrictions placed upon women -- is manifested in many of her poems, including Casa Guidi Windows (1851) and Aurora Leigh (1857).

Prior June 29 posts are here and here.)

On September 22, ...

... 1927 (80 years ago today), Britain's "colonial government declared the abolishment of slavery in Sierra Leone," where for a century the capital, Freetown, had been a hub for British anti-slave-trading activities. (For an analysis of how the recent, relatively trouble-free election and inauguration of Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma may augur a "splash of good news" about Africa, see here.)
... 1868, Louise Crummy McKinney (right) was born in Frankville, Ontario. Trained as a teacher, in 1903 she became a Canada-based organizer of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Elected to the Albert legislature in 1917, she became the 1st woman legislator in the British Empire. She took part in an appeal to the Privy Council through which women won the right to become Senators. McKinney died in Claresholm, Alberta, in 1931. "Her gravestone reads only 'Mother.'"