hen the U.S. roars, the world pays attention. On November 4, 2008, history was made. For the first time, a black person (half black, half white, half American, half African-what a diversity!) was elected President of the most powerful country in the world: The United States of America. The atmosphere was like the second coming of Christ. Many people wanted to be part of that history-making day. My friends didn't want to be caught sleeping when the elections results were announced. Others partied in anticipation. Those who had not voted previously, voted to be part of that history.

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I was visited that week by the Deputy Director of Ministry of Works and Transport, Mr. Ishaya Yem. During dinner at my house, I got a feel of how Nigerians perceived the election. Like most Nigerians, he too, wanted to be part of the history-making. With exhilaration, Mr. Yem stated that he was happy and privileged to be in the U.S. as a witness to the history of "either the election of the first black President of United states, or the first female Vice-President". Whatever the outcome of the election Mr. Yem felt he would be witnessing history. And fortunately for him, he was still in America when Barack Obama was elected to the most powerful office in the world.

The reaction to Obama's victory was predictable: festive and euphoric, both in the States and all over the world, with Kenyans declaring a national holiday. Never has an American been so expected, admired, and adored: not even John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Mahatma Gandhi.

For the next four or possibly eight years, Barrack Obama will strive to be an exemplar to black leaders everywhere and African Americans in particular. In addition, he will try to redeem the "battered" American image in the world, and to halt the decline of the U.S. economy and bring it back from the precipice of a depression, reminiscent of 1930s. With such an enormous responsibility and expectations, only a handful of leaders will envy the 48 year-old son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother. Only a miracle worker will meet such expectations.

WHO IS OBAMA?

President-elect Barrack Hussein Obama II, is a member of United Church of Christ (he has left Trinity United Church of Christ, the controversial church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright), is a son of Barack Hussein Obama, from the Luo ethnic group of the Nyanza province in Kenya. Obama's white American mother is of English, Irish, and German ancestry. With such a pedigree, President-Elect Obama deviates from the traditional African American. This explains why African Americans were late to embrace him in the primary elections.

He was not considered to be pure black. Most prominent black leaders of the civil rights movement only came on board to support him when he defeated the "First black Lady" (Senator Hillary Clinton) in the Democratic Party primaries. Even then, when Jesse Jackson (a prominent black American leader; a product of the civil rights movement, who was by the side of Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was shot) openly wept during Obama's victory speech, some described his tears as crocodile tears.

Andrew Young did not support him during the primaries. He claimed that Obama lacked the experience to be President, and that Bill Clinton was "As black as Barack," and therefore, blacks should support Senator Hillary Clinton. So, far, Mr. Young has yet to declare his support for President-Elect Obama.

The President-Elect is a Harvard-educated lawyer and a career politician. He has never held an administrative position. He is well-spoken and articulate, with a contagious smile. He is ideologically a liberal Democrat, who supports a woman's right to abortion, homosexual marriage (so called civil union), and government-funded embryonic stem cell research; but has a compassionate heart for the poor. He is wrongly characterized as a socialist by his detractors. In reality, he is a benevolent or compassionate liberal capitalist. Like most American politicians, he is a free market oriented politician.

His opponents have cynically used all kinds of messianic names and terminologies to label him: the Messiah, the One, Moses, the Holy One, and Lord Krishna, the Anointed.

His admirers wept at his rallies and victory speech, even prominent blacks such as Oprah Winfrey and Jesse Jackson couldn't control their emotions. Others have fainted during his rallies when they see him or hear him speak or "touch" even just "his garment." Barack Obama has an aura that has endeared him to some, but conjured hate in others. After all, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, the "First black President," were admired in America and all over the world and hated at the same time.

On a sober note, the President-Elect has been compared to Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and of course, John F. Kennedy, emphasizing that he is the key to "restorative justice" for African Americans and minorities in general. Few will deny that the Obama phenomenon is raising the hopes of millions of Americans who have felt depoliticized and marginalized by mainstream American politics.

He attracted quite a sizeable number of poor, young, black, new immigrant, and women voters, many of whom have never taken part in electoral politics of this magnitude. He also attracted a sizeable number of white middle class and white intellectuals. To white Americans, Obama is being used as a scapegoat to purge them of the sins of slavery and racism (in Leviticus 16, a scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of the Jewish Day of Atonement. All those with sins would ritually put their sins on the goat and it was sent into the wilderness to die for their sins). With the election of Obama, white America can demonstrate to the world that racism has ended and they have atoned for the past mistreatment of blacks. One hopes that they will sin no more: that racism will play little or no part in electoral politics.

More tech-savvy than any of his competitors within or beyond the Democrats, Obama has relied on email and YouTube videos to reach a wider, younger audience, raise more than half billion dollars, and to get elected.

His style is as important as the message-which is almost devoid of content, but is optimistic and captures the mood of the times: "Yes we can" or "Change we can believe in," "the audacity of hope," slogans in the tradition of another King, Martin Luther King Jr., and reminiscent of John F. Kennedy, that captivated even intellectuals. Obama would repeat in clear and passionate language that altering the course of U.S. policies set by President George W. Bush is urgent and possible.

Such a style and message resonated with the voters: poor, wealthy, blacks and whites, men and women; and facilitated by the declining economy and the war in Iraq, contributed to the history- making event of November 4, 2008.

CAN OBAMA DELIVER?

No one who opposes racism, oppression, and American "imperialism" can sincerely ignore these realities and the need for change. But what can we expect from an Obama Presidency? He has been given a very tall order. He is faced with many forces: a declining U.S. and global economy, the war on terrorism, Dmitry Medvedev-Hugo Chavez alliance, Iran, the Palestinian question, and growing Chinese market communism and imperialist power.

Obama has claimed the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He has been compared to former president John F. Kennedy. He points to his mixed-race and multicultural background as a symbol of a new and different "America" in his speeches and autobiography ("Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance").

But Barack Obama is not a candidate for change. Contrary to popular belief and campaign slogans, he is an establishment candidate, in more ways than one. Partly because of this, and partly because of other forces, Obama will move from the left to near center, if not center, on many important issues:

On the War on Terrorism

Take the issue of the war on terrorism. He is much an American-militaristic/imperialistic and intrinsically hungry for U.S. military and economic supremacy and dominance as President Bush or any American President. As he walked side by side with President Bush, in the same color-coded tie and designer suits on November 10th, when the Obamas visited the White House for a tour of their new home, one is reminded of Gorge Orwell's Animal Farm after the Animals had taken control under the leadership if the pigs and promised a change in the order of things:

"The animals, watching through the window, realize with a start that, as they look around the room of the farmhouse, they can no longer distinguish which of the card players are pigs and which are human beings."

Both Obama and Bush walked with the same Texas cowboy swagger that Bush has been accused of. Both are Americans and leaders who are, by nature, protective of the most powerful nation in the world. Little on the war on terrorism will change, though he may make cosmetic changes to please his anti-war supporters.

For example, on the war in Iraq, Obama opposes it, not on any grounds, but that it is unwinnable. When he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama supported Bush's calls for unconditional funding for the war in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. In June 2006, Obama voted against an amendment demanding a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, despite having previously called for such a timetable in the senate.

Obama is also in favor of maintaining a U.S. occupation in Iraq. He has directly linked U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq to redeployment in Afghanistan, and seems willing to invade Pakistan in the hunt for Bin Laden.

In November 2006, Obama stated,

"Drawing down our troops in Iraq will allow us to redeploy additional troops to northern Iraq and elsewhere in the region as an over-the-horizon force.

"Perhaps most importantly, some of these troops could be redeployed to Afghanistan.

"By redeploying from Iraq to Afghanistan, we will answer NATO's call for more troops and provide a much-needed boost to this critical fight against terrorism."

So, his anti-war supporters will be disappointed when President Obama follows in the foot steps of President Bush. By doing so, he would simply be an American.

On the Economy

United States is facing a near economic catastrophe. Obama couldn't have come at a worse time. He came to power partly because voters believe that he and his Democratic Party can remedy the economy. But can he deliver?

Historically, the Democrats and the Republicans have had very similar economic policies. They are both parties of big business. It is a myth that the Republicans are richer than Democrats. Five of the top six wealthiest American legislators are Democrats; Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Presidential candidate (worth $1-3 billion); Representative John Corzine of New Jersey (over $300 million), Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin (at least $275 million), Senator Jay Rockefeller of ($200 million), and Representative Jane Harmon of California ($117.1 million). Some of the richest-billionaires-Americans are Democrats (Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (co-founders of Google), and George Soros. Obama's $680 million campaign donations (the largest in American electoral history) came from both the wealthiest and the ordinary, but the largest contributions came from the former.

Obama is a product of American big business or corporate environment (even if he is yet to join the club of the wealthy). For this reason, his campaign promises of tax cuts for only the middle class and sending checks of $500 to the poor; while at the same time, reducing the deficit and improving the economy, are at odds with the culture of the wealthy Americans, who don't care who is President, so long as their interests are safeguarded.

True, he opposed trade agreements with South Korea and Colombia, voted "no" on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, sought to impose tariffs on goods from China if it didn't readjust its currency exchange rate, and has promised to re-negotiate NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). These measures are pointers to economic nationalism and isolationism, which, in a globalizing economy, will amount to an economic suicide.

The question is: How can you stimulate a $15 trillion economy that is plunging into a recession with such approach? You can't. President Obama will not be the first to muddy the waters. America may be hoping against hope that Obama will bring the "change that we can believe in," at least not soon, when it comes to the economy. He is as much an American capitalist as a capitalist can be. Little will change soon.

His election is the great expectation of the 21st century. As the world welcomes him and awaits his governance, we pray and hope.

Now that the American government is pumping billions of dollars into the economy in what has been termed a bailout, and as the G-20 nations (Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the largest economies) have promised to help bailout the global economy, and with the media behind him; and his party in control of a majority of the states' governments, the Senate and House of Representative, we pray and hope for the change we can believe in.

But I am not optimistic. Neither America nor the world should expect Obama to perform miracles, to remedy the economy any time soon, prevent terrorism or win the war on terrorism, or bring peace to the world. Barrack Obama is like all American Presidents before him: human.