America will face intense scrutiny in 2009, but US President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to be subject to such an inquisition, writes Gamal Nkrumah American policymakers have a reputation for being opaque, and 2009 may well go down in history as the year that the United States officially accepts that it is a country like any other. The US has fallen from grace during the administration of outgoing George W Bush, and it is about to officially accept that it may no longer be the world's sole superpower for much longer. The trickiest task of US President-elect Barack Obama in 2009 is to prove to his people how he was offering leadership to the world in the grip of a financial crisis. He would also have to convince the peoples of the world that Washington is the epicentre of global politics. Obama would do so knowing all too well that he is the first African American president of the US. People of colour around the world are irrepressibly ecstatic. Advocates of Pax Americana are bound to be nervous because Obama is a most curious US president. He is African American, but he does not necessarily inherit the slavery legacy of the vast majority of African Americans. Obama is the son of a continental African father and a white American mother. He was raised by his maternal grandparents and spent his formative years in Hawaii and Indonesia. His outlook is international, and his disposition is broad-minded. The bottom line is that he is the black president who is widely anticipated to whitewash America's tarnished image abroad. Individual liberty will give way to social justice. The latter has already done so in much of the developing countries of the South. Even in the industrially-advanced nations of the North, the often negative correlation between individual liberties and social justice are beginning to take root. Social rights are as important if not more so than individual rights. Perhaps that is why Republican presidential hopeful John McCain tried in vain to tar Obama as "Barack the Redisributor". Least we forget, Obama is certainly no socialist. He may be dubbed a moderate and a liberal, and his legislative inclinations might have been on the left as far as America is concerned, but there is nothing remotely novel about him except his swarthy complexion. Obama's appeal in the developing countries of the South is universal. He is immensely popular in Western Europe. He is less so approved of in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. In the Muslim world people are ambivalent about ideology and religious persuasion. Faith is a potent force in Africa and the Islamic world, and Obama presents a curious puzzle. Oddly enough, one of his most articulate critics summed Muslim ambivalence thus: "If you still want to be stubborn about America's blunder in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of [US President George W] Bush and [ex-Pakistani President] Pervez Musharraf and the fate of the Soviets and the British before them." These words were uttered by no other than Al-Qaeda's second in command Ayman El-Zawahri. Not all Muslims ascribe to or see eye to eye with El-Zawahri. Indeed, Osama bin Laden's right hand warned Obama bluntly not to accept the lowly status of "House Nigger". As the year 2009 unfolds it will, indeed, clarify the somewhat ambivalent status of Obama from a Muslim perspective. Is Middle East policy the barometer with which Arabs and Muslims the world over will judge Obama? America's first black president may well surprise us all.
