Barack Obama delivererd his speech to Ghana's Parliament this past Saturday (full text of the speech may be found here) in what was his first presidential trip to sub-Saharan Africa. A collection of opinions on the speech may be found at the BBC's fantastic 'Africa Have Your Say' program.
What I have to say is this: While there is little denying the significance of Obama's trip or the importance of his now oft-repeated statement that "Africa's future is up to Africans," the content of his speech was altogether unsurprising and contained nothing that hasn't already been said. Like other Western leaders who have addressed African nations in the past, Obama came touting the need for Africans to embrace democracy and market capitalism; to battle corruption, cease the ongoing violence, work with the West to combat disease and - in short - embrace the 21st century. This is all well and good, but such catch-phrases amount to no more than empty suits when not substantiated with specifics. Even his claim that Africa's future rests with its own people has been made numerous times in the past; most recently by the likes of Bill Easterly, President Kagame of Rwanda, and Dambisa Moyo in her ever-controversial book Dead Aid.
There was a welcomed shift in tone when Obama promised to cut down on funding American consultants and administrators and instead put resources and training into the hands of those who need them (i.e. resident Africans), as well as when he highlighted the economic possibilities implicit in African entrepreneurship (which, again, Kagame has been stressing for some time). But overall the speech diverged little from previous U.S. policy statements on Africa, no less so given Obama's insistence on continuing Bush's terrible idea of Africa Command. As Bill Easterly aptly notes in today's post, "[...] goodwill for U.S. military is nonexistent after a long history of Cold War Africa interventions, post-Cold War fumbles, reinforced by the more recent fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan. Africans will never see US military (or any other Western force) as a neutral and benevolent force." *Sigh* When will we learn?
Of course the speech was inspirational - as may of President Obama's speeches are - and quite empowering for many Africans (and, apparently, for the UK Times' Libby Purves who sees a fantastic "new start" where those who understand African history and politics see none). Yet it pales in comparison to the speech Obama gave in Cairo when he addressed the Islamic world, and fails to represent much in the way of a novel shift in U.S. policy towards Africa and its people. Yes, Africans must pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they are to make anything of themselves, but didn't we (and they) know that already?