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Obi Egbuna Jnr:Simunye

For the so-called African Americans, two events took place this week that conjured up a whirlwind of emotions — the farewell speech of US President Obama and the sentencing of White Supremacist Dylann Roof.Due to the political, economic and military might US imperialism enjoys, it is safe to say the entire planet was also paying extremely close attention to these developments as they unfolded.

Because of the US capitalist media’s sensationalist approach to covering its political affairs, the inauguration of US President elect Donald Trump will be viewed as another public spectacle that all who value and treasure logic and common sense recognise it to be, expect condemnation by those who have grown sick and tired of the US’ grotesque masquerade as the caretakers of democracy on the world stage.

On October 20, 1956, The Nation published the analysis of the US Presidential election by Dr WEB DuBois titled “Why I Won’t Vote”.

Dr DuBois eloquently stated “I shall not go to the polls I have not registered for. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that “no two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.

What Dr DuBois felt morally and intellectually obligated to condemn 71 years ago was the political culture of US imperialism that produced both President Obama and Dylann Roof at the same moment in history.

Since President Obama’s speech was in the final analysis, his last opportunity to politically show boat before his scheduled exit from the Oval Office, he decided to pay homage to the fictional character Atticus Finch from the book and film “To Kill a Mockingbird”, President Obama’s quote of choice was “You never really understand a person until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”.

Mr Roof represents a grouping in the US historically referred to as poor white trash who, based on their political orientation, will either enter the house of the Lord and kill innocent Africans with the hopes of starting a race war, or reach the conclusion of the revolutionary John Brown that slavery colonialism and imperialism must be eradicated, in the words of Malcolm X, “By Any Means Necessary”.

If Mr Roof had decided to murder the killer of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman as a tribute to John Brown, instead of our people in the memory of Cecil Rhodes and Ian Smith, how would President Obama and the US Homeland Security apparatus have responded publicly?

That very dynamic not only puts us on a collision course with US imperialism, but forces us to reason with so-called African-American children, who will innocently gaze into our eyes and boldly and emphatically let it be known they can one day become President of the US.

Perhaps the first question can be, who has killed more Africans historically, the Ku Klux Klan White Citizens Council or the US Military?

What cannot be denied is at least the Klan and White Supremacist groups that produce the likes of Mr Roof confine their aggression to US borders, while the US military has never answered for African blood, thanks to them, that has been spilled all over the world.

Like all his predecessors, President Obama feels the irresistible urge to label the US military the greatest in the world today.

President Obama also said his best job was parenting his daughters Sasha and Malia. We wonder, does he think of the children in Zimbabwe in their age-group or younger who died due to illegal sanctions?

We are being forced by circumstances to take a rather unconventional approach to engage our children on the question of what President Obama symbolises historically as the best illustration of individual achievement in a capitalist context and paradigm.

We thank the father of African history, Dr Carter G Woodson, for exposing in his 1933 masterpiece “The Miseducation of the Negro” that at the height of segregation, White Supremacists like Mr Roof would rip out the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights out of the textbooks before they were sent to our schools for so-called African-American children to digest and absorb.

What they discovered is the document President Obama called, on Tuesday night, a remarkable beautiful gift initially considered three fifths of a human being.

For those among our people who will remember Mr Roof as the face of domestic terrorism, they must answer the question, who has more African blood on their hands, Dylann Roof or President Obama?

Before any so-called African-American voice their displeasure with this comparison which on the surface may appear ridiculous, Mr Roof is guilty of nine murders, while President Obama and his NATO allies are guilty of thousands of children, women and men being sent to an early grave.

This was a sterling example of President Obama’s bold experiment in self-government.

We are well aware that Mr Roof’s website was entitled “The Last Rhodesian), another point that must be raised is, if this young misguided soul makes his final request a chance to sit down and have a beer with President Obama, what we will discover is they both would rejoice if the US-EU regime change agenda prevailed in Zimbabwe.

President Obama and Mr Roof also are diametrically opposed to reparations for chattel slavery, which, based its call for self-determination, provides the platform to embrace President Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga.

Based on his political orientation, President Obama felt it was his patriotic duty to maintain US-EU sanctions.

This is the same narrative that makes Mr Roof regret being too young to go to Rhodesia with the 1 000 US mercenaries who fought alongside the Rhodesian Front and Sellous Scouts.

We are eternally grateful to Dr Gerald Horne and Malik Reaves for exposing these barbaric campaign in their writings.

Dr Horne’s book “From the Barrel of the Gun: The United States War Against Zimbabwe” was published in 2001 and Mr Reaves’ essay in Zimbabwe “1 000 mercenaries fight against African Liberation” was published in the 1978 issue of the magazine Southern Africa.

President Obama displayed his sense of humour when he stated rivals like Russia and China “cannot not match our influence around the world unless the country gives up what we stand for, and turn ourselves into just another country that bullies smaller neighbours”.

This was not a geopolitical analysis, but a confession similar to what Catholic priests and bartenders routinely listen to year after year.

President Obama must have overlooked the statement by his advisor to the US Institute of Peace, Ambassador Johnnie Carson, who was Assistant Secretary for African Affairs during his first administration, that President Mugabe and zanu-pf have won the propaganda war.

We are well aware of numerous organisations who opposed to the death penalty — where were they when President Obama and President Bush sentenced Zimbabweans to death everyday by imposing and maintaining sanctions.

After Mr Roof is executed for terrorism and hate crimes, while President Obama is being celebrated the world over, let us answer the question — which one of them was a bigger threat to humanity and world peace?

Obi Egbuna Jnr is the US Correspondent to The Herald and the external relations officer of ZICUFA (Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association). His email is [email protected]