cc. Tonight, after Barack Obama was confirmed as the nation's president-elect, I looked in on my children, as they lay sleeping. Though they are about as politically astute as kids can be, having reached only the ages of seven and five, and there is no way they will be able to truly appreciate what has just happened in the land they call home. They do not possess the sense of history, or indeed, even a clear understanding of what history means, so as to adequately process what happened this evening, as they slumbered. Even as our oldest cast her first grade vote for Obama in school today, and even as our youngest has become somewhat notorious for pointing to pictures of Sarah Palin on magazines and saying ‘There's that crazy lady who hates polar bears’, they remain, still, naive as to the nation they have inherited. They do not really understand the tortured history of this place, especially as regards race. Oh they know more than most – to live as my children makes it hard not to – but still, the magnitude of this occasion will likely not catch up to them until Barack Obama is finishing at least his first, if not his second term as president.

But that's okay. Because I know what it means, and will make sure to tell them.

And before detailing what I perceive that meaning to be (both its expansiveness and limitations) let me say this, to some of those on the Left – some of my friends and long-time compatriots in the struggle for social justice – who insist that there is no difference between Obama and McCain, between Democrats and Republicans, between Biden and Palin: Screw you.

If you are incapable of mustering pride in this moment, and if you cannot appreciate how meaningful this day is for millions of black folks who stood in lines for up to seven hours to vote, then your cynicism has become such an encumbrance as to render you all but useless to the liberation movement. Indeed, those who cannot appreciate what has just transpired are so eaten up with nihilistic rage and hopelessness that I cannot but think that they are a waste of carbon, and actively thieving oxygen that could be put to better use by others.

This election does indeed matter. No, it is not the same as victory against the forces of injustice, and yes, Obama is a heavily compromised candidate, and yes, we will have to work hard to hold him accountable. But it matters nonetheless that he, and not the bloodthirsty bomber McCain, or the Christo-fascist, Palin, managed to emerge victorious.

Those who say it doesn't matter weren't with me on the south side of Chicago this past week, surrounded by a collection of amazing community organisers who go out and do the hard work every day of trying to help create a way out of no way for the marginalised. All of them know that an election is but a part of the solution, a tactic really, in a larger struggle of which they are a daily part, and none of them are so naive as to think that their jobs are now to become a cakewalk because of the election of Barack Obama. But all of them were looking forward to this moment. They haven't the luxury of believing in the quixotic campaigns of Dennis Kucinich, or waiting around for the Green Party to get its act together and become something other than a pathetic caricature, symbolised by the utterly irrelevant and increasingly narcissistic presence of Ralph Nader on the electoral scene. And while Cynthia McKinney remains a pivotal figure in the struggle, the party to which she was tethered this year shows no more ability to sustain movement activity than it did eight years ago, and most everyone working in oppressed communities in this nation knows it.

It's like this y'all: Jesse Jackson was weeping openly on national television. This is a man who was with Dr King when he was murdered and he was bawling like a baby. So don't tell me this doesn't matter.

John Lewis – who had his head cracked open, has been arrested more times, and has probably spilled far more blood for the cause of justice than all the white, dreadlocked, self-proclaimed anarchists in this country combined – couldn't be more thrilled at what has happened. If he can see it, then frankly, who the hell are we not to?

Those who say this election means nothing, who insist that Obama, because he cozied up to Wall Street, or big business, is just another kind of evil no different than any other, are in serious risk of political self-immolation, and it is a burning they will richly deserve. That the victorious presidential candidate is actually a capitalist (contrary to the fevered imaginations of the right) is no more newsworthy than the fact that rain falls down and grass grows skyward. It is to be properly placed in the ‘no shit Sherlock’ file. That anyone would think it possible for someone who didn't raise hundreds of millions of dollars to win – at this time in our history at least – only suggests that some on the Left would prefer to engage in politics from a place of aspirational innocence, rather than in the real world, where battles are won or lost.

So let us be clear as to what tonight meant: It was a defeat for the right-wing echo chamber and its rhetorical storm troopers, foremost among them Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

It was a defeat for the crazed mobs ever-present at McCain-Palin rallies, what with their venomous libels against Obama, their hate-addled brains spewing forth one after another racist and religiously chauvinistic calumny upon his head and those of his supporters.

It was a defeat for the Internet rumour-pimps who insisted to all they could reach with a functioning email address that Obama was not really a citizen. Or perhaps he was, but he was a Muslim, or perhaps not a Muslim, but probably a black supremacist, or maybe not that either, but surely the anti-Christ, and most definitely a baby-killer.

It was a defeat for those who believed McCain and Palin would be delivered the victory by the hand of almighty God, because their theological and eschatological vacuity so regularly gets in the way of their ability to think. As such, it was a setback for the religious fascists in the far-Right Christian community whose belief that God is on their side has always made them especially dangerous. Now, having lost, perhaps at least some of these will be forced to ponder what went wrong. If we're lucky, perhaps some will suffer the kind of crisis of faith that often prefaces a complete nervous breakdown. Either way, it's nice just to ruin their young-earth-creationist-I-have-an-angel-on-my-shoulder day.

It was a defeat for the demagogues who tried in so many ways to push the buttons of white racism – the old-fashioned kind, or what I call Racism 1.0 – by using thinly-veiled racialised language throughout the campaign. Appeals to Joe Six-Pack, ‘values voters’, blue-collar voters, or hockey moms, though never explicitly racialised, were transparent to all but the most obtuse, as were terms like ‘terrorist’ when used to describe Obama. Likewise, the attempt to race-bait the economic crisis by blaming it on loans to poor folks of colour through the Community Reinvestment Act, or community activists like the folks at ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), failed, and this matters. No, it doesn't mean that white America has rejected racism. Indeed, I have been quite deliberate for months about pointing out the way that Racism 1.0 may be traded in, only to be replaced by Racism 2.0 (which allows whites to still view most folks of colour negatively but carve out exceptions for those few who make us feel comfortable and who we see as ‘different’). And yet, that tonight was a drubbing for that 1.0 version of racism still matters.

And tonight was a victory for a few things too.

It was a victory for youth, and their social and political sensibilities. It was the young, casting away the politics of their parents and even grandparents, and turning the corner to a new day, perhaps naively, and too optimistic about the road from here, but nonetheless in a way that has historically almost always been good for the country. Much as youth were inspired by a relatively moderate John F. Kennedy (who was, on balance, far less progressive than Obama in many ways), and much as they then formed the frontline troops for so much of the social justice activism of the following fifteen years, so too can such a thing be foreseen now. That Kennedy may have been quite restrained in his social justice sensibilities did not matter; the young people whose energy he helped unleash took things in their own direction and outgrew him rather quickly in their progression to the Left.

Tonight was also a victory for the possibility of greater cross-racial alliance building. Although Obama failed to win most white votes, and although it is no doubt true that many of the whites who did vote for him nonetheless hold onto any number of negative and racist stereotypes about the larger black and brown communities of this nation, it is still the case that black, brown and white worked together in this effort as they have rarely done before. And many whites who worked for Obama, precisely because they got to see, and hear, and feel the racist vitriol still animating far too many of our nation's people, will now be wiser for the experience when it comes to understanding how much more work remains to be done on the racial justice front. Let us build on that newfound knowledge, and that newfound energy, and create real white ally-ship with community-based leaders of colour as we move forward in the years to come.

But now for the other side of things.

First and foremost, please know that none of these victories will amount to much unless we do that which needs to be done so as to turn a singular event about one man, into a true social movement (which, despite what some claim, it is not yet and has never been).

And so it is back to work. Oh yes, we can savour the moment for a while, for a few days, perhaps a week. But well before inauguration day we will need to be back on the job, in the community, in the streets, where democracy is made, demanding equity and justice in places where it hasn't been seen in decades, if ever. Because for all the talk of hope and change, there is nothing – absolutely, positively nothing – about real change that is inevitable. And hope, absent real pressure and forward motion to actualise one's dreams, is sterile and even dangerous. Hope, absent commitment is the enemy of change, capable of translating to a giving away of one's agency, to a relinquishing of the need to do more than just show up every few years and push a button or pull a lever.

This means hooking up now with the grass roots organisations in the communities where we live, prioritising their struggles, joining and serving with their constituents, following leaders grounded in the community who are accountable not to Barack Obama, but the people who helped elect him. Let Obama follow, while the people lead, in other words.

For we who are white it means going back into our white spaces and challenging our brothers and sisters, parents, neighbours, colleagues and friends – and ourselves – on the racial biases that still too often permeate their and our lives, and making sure they know that the success of one man of colour does not equate to the eradication of systemic racial inequity.

So are we ready for the heavy lifting? This was, after all, merely the warm-up exercise, somewhat akin to stretching before a really long run. Or perhaps it was the first lap, but either way, now the baton has been handed to you, to us. We must not, cannot, afford to drop it. There is too much at stake.

The worst thing that could happen now would be for us to go back to sleep, to allow the cool poise of Obama's prose to lull us into slumber like the cool on the underside of the pillow. For in the light of day, when fully awake, it becomes impossible not to see the incompleteness of the task so far.

So let us begin.

* Tim Wise is the 2008 Oliver L. Brown Distinguished Visiting Scholar for Diversity Issues at Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas. He is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White. This article originally appeared at www.racialicious.com and can be found here.

Alarmed with Barack Obama’s choosing of one of most conservative Democratic figures as his chief of staff in the shape of Rahm Emanuel, Stephen Zunes asks whether the new president-elect will see the influence of his progressive base blocked from the White House. While the author underlines that the appointment will scarcely lead to a Clinton-esque centre-right agenda, the promise of change to have featured so prominently throughout Obama’s campaign will only be realised through revitalised efforts on the part of civil society to stem any potential conservative co-opting of the new administration.

Miriam makeba was an icon who used music to serve Africa and the cause of humanity. The ancestors would be pleased to receive her as a worthy daughter who gave her best. She lived through apartheid, fought it and survived to see a liberated multiracial dsemocratic state, was part of the liberation wars against colonialism across Africa and civil rights in America and she dies after the election of the first Black person to be president of the USA. She will have a lot to report to the ancestors. And how proud they will be that she was on the right side of all these struggles. Go well, Mama Afrika, your memory is forever green and your music everlasting.

Members of Parliament have done it again. For the third time last night, they arm-twisted acting Finance minister John Michuki into dropping the proposal to tax their hefty allowances. Michuki told Parliament that he would withdraw the proposal to tax members’ allowances alongside those of constitutional office holders such as judges.

Mariatu Kamara is 22, pays close attention to fashion, makeup and hairstyles, and, like many young women in Canada, is starting college. But, unlike others at her downtown campus, Kamara is doing it all without hands. Hers were hacked off in a machete attack in her native Sierra Leone a decade ago.

Reflecting on the media attention given to Barack Obama’s illegally resident auntie Zeituni in the run-up to his election victory, Steve Sharra explores what Obama’s presidential campaign has revealed about American politics. Identifying a noticeable shift in the way the now president-elect approached the issue of ‘Africa’ from his first and second autobiographies, the author argues that while a marked change may have occurred in civil rights in the US, much of the country retains established assumptions about the African continent. While Obama may personally understand the importance of changing the image of Africa and Africans in the eyes of Americans, change in this regard will prove a slow and deliberate process if it is not to antagonise sectors of US society thoroughly resistant to the idea of person of African ancestry leading their nation.

Yes, we can because
It is written in blood
In history
On your hand
We will because
The time has come
and cannot be held back
by old
greedy
men
so passé
We can
because
we owe it
to us
and we are many
we are bold
and bolder still
and our time too has come
and we will
we will
god knows
we will

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

In its ongoing effort to bridge the digital divide, Nokia has introduced a range of affordable mobile devices and innovative new services specifically for people in emerging markets. In addition to Nokia's lowest cost handset to date, as well as its first handset for emerging markets with an integrated digital music player,
Nokia unveiled a range of services that leverage the power of the Internet.

Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu have been granted bail by Justice Ndou in the Bulawayo High Court this afternoon. The two were instructed to pay bail of $200,000 each (roughly USD 1.50). Other conditions include reporting to their closest police station twice a week and not travelling outside of a 40km radius of Bulawayo Post Office without written permission from a Magistrate.

WCoZ has always advocated for peace and nonviolence in the country. However realizing the grave crisis that faces the country now WCoZ launched the “Conclude the Talks - We are Dying of Hunger Campaign”. On the 27th of October 2008, about 1000 women gathered near the venue of the SADC Troika Talks to demand a resolution of the crisis and send a message to the three political leaders and SADC Troika that the talks should be concluded urgently and efforts to restore Zimbabwe should begin henceforth.

In a case that looks set to again highlight the legal and reputational risks associated with environmental damage arising from alleged corporate negligence, oil giant Shell will this week be served with a summons compelling representatives from the company's Dutch HQ to respond to accusations that its operations have caused environmental damage in Nigeria. Four Nigerian citizens, together with campaigners from Friends of the Earth Netherlands and Nigeria will file the lawsuit in the The Hague on Friday.

This panel responds to the recent efforts of tracing the historical roots of current divergence of incomes and occurrences of poverty in the world. It has been argued that the fundamental cause of current income levels is the lack of pro-growth institutions which originated under the colonial system. This session welcomes new research that suggests new evidence and methods to explain
long term economic and social change in African countries.

A West African regional court ruled Monday that the government of Niger had failed to protect a young woman sold into slavery at the age of 12. The landmark ruling, the first of its kind by a regional tribunal now sitting in Niamey, Niger’s capital, ordered the government to pay about $19,000 in damages to the woman, Hadijatou Mani, who is now 24.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has accused UN peacekeepers of failing to stop rebel troops killing civilians in the east of the country. "People are being slaughtered and [UN peacekeepers] did nothing," a spokesman for President Joseph Kabila said. The comments came as regional leaders met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in Kenya for crisis talks.

British police will not investigate a construction company accused of corruption in Lesotho, they have said. British firm Mott Macdonald were implicated in an audit of a dam project in the southern African kingdom. But the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said it will not be looking into the accusations, two years after they received them.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s forces and government-backed Mai Mai militias deliberately killed civilians in Kiwanja, North Kivu province, on November 4-5, 2008, Human Rights Watch has said. UN peacekeepers based in the area were apparently unable to protect civilians from attack. Nkunda’s forces battled pro-government Mai Mai militias on November 4 and 5 in Kiwanja, killing a number of civilians trapped in the zone of conflict.

The detention of political activist Alexis Sinduhije and 36 others by Burundian police on November 3, 2008, highlights the growing obstacles to the free exercise of civil and political rights in Burundi, Human Rights Watch said today. Sinduhije, well-known as a former radio journalist, has been trying since February to form an opposition political party, the Movement for Security and Democracy (MSD).

The World Bank, acting as administrator for the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA), has signed a grant agreement for US$6.02 million with the Health Insurance Fund (HIF), a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, to establish a community health scheme for low-income families in Lagos, Nigeria. The scheme will provide affordable pre-paid health insurance plans for up to 22,500 beneficiaries.

Significant improvements in the security situation in northern Uganda have allowed about half of the more than 1.8 million people who had been internally displaced by the conflict to return to their villages, while another quarter have moved to transit sites nearer to their homes.

Honorata Kizende looked out at the audience and began with a simple, declarative sentence. “There was no dinner,” she said. “It was me who was dinner. Me, because they kicked me roughly to the ground, and they ripped off all my clothes, and between the two of them, they held my feet. One took my left foot, one took my right, and the same with my arms, and between the two of them they proceeded to rape me. Then all five of them raped me.”

The number of people illegally crossing the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean Sea is on the rise, the United Nations refugee agency reported today, as it confirmed that 12 people fleeing Somalia in the past week have been found dead on a beach in Yemen and 28 others remain missing.

With regard to what is going on in Eastern DRCongo, it seems that most people, both inside and outside of the country, have come to accept the most horrendous crimes as part of normality. It is difficult not to ask the following question: if these rapes were occurring in G8 countries, wouldn't there be emergency measure to put an end to it? Questions must be addressed to the leadership in the DRC, the African Union leadership: why is everyone waiting for someone else to do something?

Robert Mugabe’s government has effectively been placed on the Global Fund blacklist, after the state’s central bank failed to account for more than US$7 million worth of Global Fund grant money. Global Fund executive director Michel Kazatchkine announced on Monday that the donor group had ordered that funds under its administration in Zimbabwe be placed under the Additional Safeguards Policy (ASP), which aims to ensure that funding is used for its intended purpose and not to benefit the government.

In the latest edition of the World Health Organisation Bulletin health economists explore the extent of fragmentation within the health systems of three African countries. Fragmentation is when there are a large number of separate funding mechanisms (e.g. many small insurance schemes) and a wide range of health-care providers paid from different funding pools which leads to an inequitable system.

With the failure of the South African National AIDS Committee (SANAC)’s 1.1-billion Rand (round 8) application to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) and the ongoing political uncertainty with a “caretaker” government until the 2009 elections, South African delegates attending the World Lung Health conference in Paris last week expressed fears that many long awaited activities to scale-up TB and TB/HIV services will be placed on hold for some time to come.

Organizations representing Caribbean civil society organizations and social movements have written to G8 finance ministers, the World Bank, and the IMF, to demand an immediate and unconditional cancellation of Haiti's external debt.

Portuguese banks that received transfers of money to Angolan politicians implicated in illegal arms sales have kept mum after the Lisbon paper Público reported their involvement. The Banco de Portugal, the country’s central bank, has remained silent, and the banks mentioned by the newspaper declined to comment in response to queries from IPS Monday, invoking the law on bank secrecy.

It has become increasingly common in Namibian society for children to head their own households and take care of other relatives, due to the death or illness of their parents and guardians, or because their parents live far away. This handbook provides guidance on how to run a child headed household. It is intended for children and youth who shoulder the responsibility of managing a home and caring for others as well as community caregivers, volunteers and relatives who provide some form of support to these households.

Following the disappointing results of the Good Governance agenda, this paper explores the idea of working "with the grain" of African societies. It identifies a core set of beliefs and values – concerning power, accountability and social morality – that are widely observed across sub-Saharan Africa, have proven extremely durable and remain powerful drivers of behaviour.

Michael Sata, leader of Zambia's opposition Patriotic Front party, said he will launch legal proceedings challenging the result of the country's presidential election held last week. Sata alleges vote-rigging and voter intimidation and on Tuesday demanded a recount after losing to centrist politician Rupiah Banda, who was sworn in as president on Sunday.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrest of online journalist Emmanuel Emeka Asiwe, a US national, at the Muritala Muhammed international airport on his arrival from the United States on 28 October to visit his sick mother and attend to family matters. He is currently being held at the headquarters of the internal intelligence service, the State Security Service (SSS) in the capital Aubuja. He is the second blogger to be arrested in Nigeria within a week.

Global TV studio manager Daudet Lukombo was acquitted by a local magistrate’s court in Kinshasa/Gombe and was released from Kinshasa penitentiary at around 4 p.m., ending 41 days in detention. He was arrested during a police raid on the privately-owned TV station on the night of 11 September, after it broadcast a news conference by opposition legislator Ne Muanda Semi, the head of the controversial Bundu dia Kongo movement.

Following the initial rush of Information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects in rural Africa, many did not yield the anticipated outcomes, and interest has been dying down. People then began talking about “sustainable ICT” projects, in which it was understood that projects would become self-sufficient after their initial donor-led investment and set-up period.

Egyptian protestors have torched headquarters of most prominent opposition politician in clashes between rival factions, eyewitnesses and police said. Police official said seven people sustained minor injuries as rival groups threw stones and bottles at each other at downtown Cairo headquarters of al-Ghad party.

In one of the many backyard taverns selling chang'aa (illicit brew) in the Korogocho informal settlement of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, two women desperately try to get patrons to listen to their lecture about HIV; many are too drunk to care, but others are more attentive.

An estimated 100 million to 140 million girls and women worldwide have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and more than 3 million girls are at risk for cutting each year on the African continent alone. FGM/C is generally performed on girls between ages 4 and 12, although it is practiced in some cultures as early as a few days after birth or as late as just prior to marriage.

Mozambique's government will drive the development of four 'science parks' across the country to encourage scientists to find solutions for its social, health and infrastructural problems. António Leão, national director of Mozambique's Ministry of Science and Technology, says the initiative is aimed at taking science and technology to the people.

Engender is a registered NGO focused on strategic interventions in the intersecting areas of Genders & Sexualities, Human Rights, Justice & Peace. We are currently seeking to fill the contract position of Coordinator of an exciting project focused on Intersexuality. Please send CV with detailed covering letter, highlighting competencies in the required areas above, by Wednesday 19 November.

Struggling to make an impact on your target audience? Are issues unresolved despite your best efforts? Are you excited about the advocacy potential of the Internet, mobile phones or information design, but uncertain about how you can take advantage of them? The Info Activism camp, to be held in Bangalore, India from February 19th to 25th, helps rights advocates to make the best use of information, communication and digital technologies to achieve their objectives.

Sokari Erkine reviews the following from the African blogoshphere:

Dulce Camer
Koluki
African Loft
Jonathan Elendu
Nigerian Curiosity
Gorilla CD
Black Looks

It is so ironic that being given such a context of human rights abuse in Angola, this year's global World Habitat Day under the theme'Harmonious Cities' was commemorated in Angola -

What kind of a society are we creating if we continue to condone demolitions of people's markets? Surely, this year's World Urban Forum should address human rights violations where people's livelihoods and homes continue to be affected by demolitions , which affect negatively on women and children.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, after failing to break the deadlock over the formation of a new Zimbabwean government at a meeting in Swaziland, referred the matter to a full emergency summit of SADC heads of state. The government of South Africa announced that it would host that 15 nation summit aimed at bringing together SADC leaders ‘to save the power-sharing deal, seen as the best hope for ending months of political turmoil and halting Zimbabwe’s stunning economic collapse’. Meanwhile, President Jakaya Kikwete and Chairperson Jean Ping, acknowledging that there was need for immediate action to prevent further escalation of the humanitarian crisis in the North Kivu Province, announced that the AU was ready to restore peace in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). An AU special envoy has been sent to DRC and to its neighbouring countries to promote ‘a holistic approach to the current crisis, building on existing instruments and mechanisms whose implementation already enjoys the strong support of the international community’.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the regional integration division of the Economic Commission for Africa has launched an Observatory to assist policy makers, member States, regional economic communities and all stakeholders with timely and relevant information on current progress, challenges and issues related to regional integration in Africa. Member States of the East Africa Community have asked experts to identify possible complications to free movement of services as negotiations for the region’s common market focus on transport policy, competition and consumer welfare, approximation of laws and various commercial policies. The first session of the AU conference of ministers in charge of social development held in Namibia was intended to develop a comprehensive social policy framework that reflects countries’ commitment towards the Millennium Development Goals.

In other news, South Africa minister of trade and industry, in his acceptance speech as incoming chairperson of the conference of African Ministers of Trade (CAMI) bureau, called for the full use African intellectual, human, historical and natural resources to realise Africa’s potential. The AU Commissioner for economic affairs announced that the commission, in collaboration with the African Development Bank, was organising a conference of ministers of finance and central bank governors to discuss the impact of the global crisis on African economies, its impact on the Bank and also examine its impact on aid to Africa. The secretary general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) said that the proposed free trade area between COMESA, the East Africa Community and Southern African Development Community would reduce the costs of doing business and give way to an Africa-wide economic community. Finally, an analyst comments on the recently concluded extraordinary session of the African Peer Review Mechanism.

cc. With Barack Obama safely elected to his country’s highest seat of power, Bill Fletcher Jr. discusses the sense of fear and anticipation to have gripped him as the votes came in. As the wave of post-election excitement inspires the world, the author reviews the key issues revealed by the electoral process requiring attention in the immediate future, and argues that the tide of expectation around the Obama presidency will only be sustained by the regenerative role of grassroots organisational structures capable of educating and mobilising the millions of people seeking a new political direction.

I found myself facing a peculiar choice. Because I was taking election day off to do election work, I could have submitted an absentee ballot. In fact, that would probably have been the most logical thing to do. It would have saved me a lot of time. I kept procrastinating in filing for such a ballot until it was too late.

On election day I realised why I did not file the absentee ballot. Like millions of other voters, and particularly African-Americans, I had to physically touch the voting machine. In my case, it was a touch-screen computer, but it would not have mattered whether it was that or an old-style lever that I had to push. 4 November 2008 was a moment when I had to make physical contact with the voting machine and actually see my vote counted. I had to know that it was actually happening. And I needed to stand in line – in our case for two and a half hours – with hundreds of other African-Americans and wait patiently for a moment to influence history.

Irrespective of any reservations one might have regarding the proposed policies of President-Elect Obama (yeah, I get a kick out of writing and saying ‘President-Elect’) there is no question but that the election victory had a profound emotional impact on black America specifically, as well as this country generally. I can honestly say that I never expected to see a liberal black person elected president of the USA, and I was not sure that a conservative black person would be elected either. As the election returns were coming in my stomach was tied up in knots unlike anything that I have experienced since my daughter was born. I did not make predictions and I do not trust polls. More importantly, I did not trust the white electorate.

WHAT TO MAKE OF THE ELECTION?

In reviewing the stats from the election, the results are quite interesting. Obama won the popular vote by 52% compared with McCain's 46%. This is extremely significant and has not been replicated by a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson won the presidency in 1964. Nevertheless, what it also shows is that the USA is quite divided. That 46% of the vote that McCain won represented more than 55 million people. What is noteworthy is that while Obama won only 43% of the white vote, whites under the age of 30 backed him by a 66-32% margin. Latinos voted with Obama at a rate of 67% (an important increase over those who went with Kerry in 2004). Women voted with Obama at a rate of 55%, though he lost white women by 5% points (though this was better than Senator Kerry in 2004). It is also noteworthy that though Obama only received 45% of the veterans’ vote, compared with McCain's 54%, this remains significant in light of the red-baiting and terrorist-baiting that was being targeted at him. Additionally, union voters went with Obama at 60% compared with McCain’s 38%, a lower percentage than should have sided with Obama in light of the current economic crisis but which probably reflects racial divisions within the house of labour.

In my view, the election reflected several important concerns and tendencies:

- The economy: there is no question that the economic crisis had a significant impact on the electorate. 63% of voters indicated that the economy was a priority issue. McCain was never successful in crafting a message on the economy that resonated with the public
- Concern about the perception of the USA overseas: there was a sense among Obama supporters that there needed to be a change in the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world. This was, however, very unfocused
- A decline in the importance that voters attached to both the Iraq war and terrorism: with regard to Iraq this probably reflects a growing sense that the war is coming to an end and that the occupation is not a critical issue
- The next Supreme Court appointments: for 47% of the electorate this was a critical issue. This was a hot-button issue with liberals and progressives who have been watching the Supreme Court make increasingly indefensible decisions that reflect its right-wing course
- Race matters…sort of: particularly among younger voters, race was a less significant factor in influencing voter behaviour than among older voters. It is also apparently the case that the economic meltdown led many white voters to put racial concerns on the back burner. That said, the ‘racial neutrality’ of the Obama campaign took matters of racist oppression largely off the table for any significant discussion, a fact that may return to haunt the incoming administration.

Without question the Obama victory needs to be understood as a tribute to exceptionally good organisation, the initial positioning of Obama as, at least in the primaries, an anti-war candidate, the onset of the economic crisis, the candidate's continuous message of optimism, and Obama's ability to remain cool under fire.

ACT II: BEGINNING RIGHT NOW

The implications of the Obama victory will need to be unpacked over the coming weeks and months. That said, there are a few points worth noting because they will have strategic implications:

Obama's mandate is vague yet identifiable: the mandate he has received is to address the economic crisis immediately in a manner that favours regular working people. This is evident from the polls and from plenty of anecdotal information. In addition, the mandate involves changing the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world. This particular point is very unfocused but it is evident that the US voters are increasingly concerned about the perception of the USA overseas and what that means for matters of national security.

Most people were unfamiliar with the actual programmatic steps Obama is advocating on the economy, yet they were unwilling to be swayed by the red-baiting rhetoric of McCain and Palin. This may offer an opportunity for progressives to advance one or another variant of a redistributionist approach toward the crisis.

With regard to foreign policy, this is extremely complicated and quite troubling. While Obama has emphasised the need for negotiations as a first step in international relations, when confronted by forces to his right, he has tended to back down and often suggest highly questionable military and crypto-military options in handling crises, e.g., unilateral attacks on al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan. Some people around Obama seem to be advocating a get-tough approach towards Iran which itself could lead to hostilities. While the people of the USA, by and large, are not looking for more war, the ability of the political Right to manufacture the ever-present threat from right-wing Islamists (including but not limited to targeting Iran) has successfully promoted a climate of fear. This will, more than likely, be a weak point for the president-elect and a place where pressure must be placed by anti-war forces.

The world is expecting a great deal from an Obama administration: all corners of the earth erupted in glee upon news of the Obama victory. Obama will more than likely reach out to traditional US allies in order to repair the damage done by the eight years of the Bush administration. There will more than likely be outreach to Africa, though the character of that outreach is as yet to be determined. Obama, while Senator, expressed a great deal of interest and concern with Africa, and developed legislation focussing on the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He will probably try to alter the relationship of the US to Africa, though it is not entirely clear how thorough such an alteration will be. One should expect outreach to the African Union to offer support in cases of humanitarian disasters and crises, but unless Obama is prepared to break with the whole ‘war against terrorism framework’ there may be continued militarisation of the continent (through vehicles such as AFRICOM and the Trans-Sahel Military Initiative).

Progressives will need to perfect an approach of ‘critical support’ towards the Obama administration: the corporate backers of President-Elect Obama have no interest in a transformative agenda. They are interested in stabilising capitalism generally, but especially stabilising the financial sector. They are open to selective nationalisations as long as such nationalisations do not bring with them significant popular accountability. In light of this, progressive forces will need to be organised in such a way to mount a challenge from the left side of the aisle. President Obama will need to be pushed on many areas, including foreign policy, healthcare, housing, jobs, and in general, the need for a pro-people approach to addressing the economic crisis. Taking this approach of critical support means, tactically, pointing out what has not been accomplished in the Obama agenda on the one hand, and, on the other, challenging the new administration when it advances policies that are regressive, e.g., threatening Iran or Cuba, or compromising with the insurance companies on healthcare.

Critical support also means raising issues that the Obama administration may tend to shy away from or avoid altogether, such as race and racism. Race is fused into the US system. Racist oppression and the differential in treatment between people of colour and whites remains a major part of the US reality. For that reason, progressives must push the Obama administration to address the continuing impact of racist oppression. This may lead to clashes that at one and the same time appear to be tactical, i.e., matters of timing, but are actually quite fundamental, that is, about whether there needs to be a systemic challenge to racist oppression.

None of this happens in the absence of organisation. Those who rallied to the Obama campaign came from various political tendencies and experiences, and many of them will seek to return to their ‘everyday life.’ At the same time, there are those who mobilised that are looking to be part of implementing the ‘dream’ and they will be unable to do this as individuals operating alone. If one really wants to advance an approach of critical support for the incoming administration, it will mean creating the grassroots organisational structures around the country that are capable of educating and mobilising the millions of people who are seeking a new direction. This approach, what I have described elsewhere as a neo-rainbow approach, can be used to exert pressure to ensure that the incoming Obama administration lives up to its full potential.

So many of us cried with joy and amazement on the evening of 4 November with this historic breakthrough. Our excitement cannot rest with the electoral success but must be fused with a genuine effort to create a new politics.

* Bill Fletcher Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com and a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the immediate former president of the TransAfrica Forum and the co-author of ‘Solidarity Divided’ which analyses the crisis in organized labour in the USA.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

cc. August saw a fresh outbreak of conflict in the DRC. Since then, approximately 250,000 have been displaced in the eastern part of the country. Following a brief cease-fire declared by the forces under the command of General Laurent Nkunda, fighting again erupted on the 4th of November. Ever since the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, and the subsequent wars that raged between 1996 and 2002, the country has hardly seen a moment's respite. The Kivu region has been the epicentre of the latest round of fighting. In an interview with Firoze Manji, Ernest Wamba Dia Wamba outlines the conditions necessary for a lasting peace in the DRC

Pambazuka News: After many years of silence about the killings in the DRC, the world's attention has suddenly turned to the current sweeping of Laurent Nkunda's forces around Goma. What's brought about this kind of attention?

Wamba dia Wamba: I think that the change of the balance of forces on the terrain is part of the reason. The scope of the humanitarian catastrophe forces many western people connected with media, with humanitarian organisations and also the rising interest in the situation of the DRC around the US elections. One hears that the incumbent regime would like to create hot situations either to help the Republican candidate or to create faits accomplis for the new regime to deal with. Around certain universities in the US, for example, for the first time a trend has developed to take up the issue of the silence on killings in the DRC. And, we have to add also the need for Western capitalists, after the Chinese contract with the DRC government, to re-assume their control over the Congolese resources. We hear that the idea of a Kosovo is being played, but, if it materialises it will be not for Congolese peoples’ interest but to have control over very important mineral and agriculture potential resources of the area.

Pambazuka News: The mass media in the West predictably seeks to portray the conflict as tribal. But what is this conflict about? What are the political and economic factors behind the conflict?

Wamba dia Wamba: Tribal differences have never been a cause of conflict; other conditions must prevail to transform differences into discriminations and these to lead to conflicts. There are of course many unresolved issues since the Rwandese genocide took place and many, including genocidaires, moved massively to the DRC as recommended by the international community. Nkunda, for example does use the presence of the FDLR [Forces Démocratiques de Liberation du Rwanda], still committed to retake power in Rwanda and perhaps carry out genocide, as one reason for his war. The truth of the matter is that we have to distinguish between the main objective, access and control over the resources, and the conditions facilitating that objective, the existence of genocidaires creating havoc on innocent people, the sentiments of exclusion still felt by the Tutsi Congolese, the involvement of the DRC government with those genocidaires – used as the government's marines, according to some – and the possible alliances between business people aligned with government officials of states in the region. Most of our regional governments are actually led by security officers allied to businessmen. It is said that Rwandese businessmen, among others, have been financing Nkunda to keep control of the mines and continue exploit minerals – coltan, niobium, etc – very much sought by transnational enterprises producing or distributing mobile phones, satellites, etc.

The subsoil of the whole of the DRC has almost been sold out with contracts to so-called partners. Quite a few family members of people in power, from the summit on, find themselves on those contracts. One suspects that in zones where there is no firm control by any state, weapons decide everything. In a sense, Kivu is now the weakest link of the globalisation’s chain. We need to identify the different contradictions converging there. The absence of a real state authority, apparently willed by some who are in the State, facilitates the agents of the world economy of crime.

Pambazuka News: What are the roles of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Angola in this conflict? What's in it for them?

Wamba dia Wamba: After having experienced the destabilisation of a Mobutist gendarme state, many neighbouring countries would rather prefer having a weak Congo around, especially if they can even benefit from that weakness by engaging also in the looting of resources of the Congo. The invisible alliances in business facilitate that kind of pursuit. Certain officials in Uganda and in Kinshasa at some point did have joint business going on. Rwanda has an interest it uses contradictorily: the presence of the genocidaires to claim that its security is threatened and to keep a situation of anarchy to have access to resources on which its businessmen have been enriching themselves. Their participation in the last two rebellions made them taste the resources available in Congo and in fact want to continue enjoying them in one way or another. The task of organised government in Kinshasa would have been to find ways of legalising participation in the common exploitation of resources. This process has been very slow and one feels that the anarchy is found more profitable in the short run.

Pambazuka News: The European Union and other countries are deeply engaged in exploitation of the DRC's resources. To what extent are they culpable in the current crisis?

Wamba dia Wamba: Certain transnational enterprises were identified by the UN panel some time back: Anglo-America, Standard Chartered Bank, De Beers, etc. The nature of the minerals being exploited in the area can only be used by advanced enterprises and Africans are just intermediaries. The campaign against the DRC-China contract by the West is an indication of their willingness to control the Congo resources. The sad part is that profitability through bloody coltan being higher, they do not really care about the life of the innocent Congolese, only to reduce the miseries through so-called humanitarian punctual aid and not to eradicate violence altogether.

Pambazuka News: Are we witnessing the 'Balkanisation' of the DRC?

Wamba dia Wamba: The rebels are occupying an area of about 3 territories. It is not clear whether in negotiations they will accept to give it up. If the DRC government does not succeed in getting that territory back and if external forces support the keeping of the territory by the rebels, a small but very rich country will be formed and the impact on the rest of the country may lead to a real balkanisation. The government is being asked not to give up to that demand if formulated. Congolese people are firm for their territorial integrity.

Pambazuka News: Does the Kinshasa government have any control of the situation?

Wamba dia Wamba: Not really, that is why it has being criticising the MONUC for its own failure to arrest the war. Because of the nature of leadership we have, mostly interested in looting resources and staying in power, condoning impunity, etc.; institutions hardly function. Most of what it promised to do is not being done, including national reconciliation and building of a real national army. Even the new government being sworn in does not seem to inspire confidence in the population. Many useless dead-woods have been but behaving as if the republic is their private propriety – the so-called the parallel government have been re-included.

Pambazuka News: What should be the response of pan-Africans to the present situation?

Wamba dia Wamba: Call for a regional African Peoples’ conference, if there is a way to make this happen. What is needed even for democracy to be built in the area is that people agitate to really build a post-neoliberalist developmentalist State. In the short run, we should agitate against any possible Balkanisation, for the application of the Nairobi agreements, for the exchange of embassies between the DRC and its neighbours, Rwanda and Uganda, and for an urgent humanitarian intervention.

* Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is honorary senator and vice-president of the Organizing Power of the Kongo University.
* Firoze Manji is editor in chief of Pambazuka News and director of Fahamu – Networks for social justice.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

With the DR Congo crisis presenting a complex mosaic of conflict, war, violence, rivalries, alliances, and competing interests, Jacques Depelchin reviews the background behind the country’s ongoing troubles and explores broader areas of responsibility. As the DRC seemingly destructs and self-destructs, the author asks whether people’s willingness to continue consuming mineral resources extracted from the country should more properly be situated in a tradition of Western peoples’ enjoying comforts at the expense of African populations dating at least as far back as the triangular Atlantic trade and subsequent colonial period. A fuller, more comprehensive understanding of the DRC’s history and Western history at large would reveal, Depelchin contends, an established practice of ‘doing away’ with figures deemed threatening to those in power, a practice of marginalisation that will ultimately have to be effectively tackled if future crimes against humanity are to be averted.

Following Barack Obama’s historic electoral victory, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reviews the new president-elect’s global appeal and comments on prospects for the future. Cautioning against any notion that Obama’s presidency will automatically reverse the fortunes of the poor and downtrodden, the author nevertheless celebrates the historic ascendancy of an individual whose own path will serve as a potent example for others around the world.

A Cairo Administrative Court rescinded the government’s decision to dissolve the Association for Human rights and Legal Aid (AHRLA) on 26 October 2008. This followed an appeal by the association. The court ruling found the government’s decision to be legally groundless and reinstated AHRLA.