Editorial,

Some few decades ago, it was beyond the power of human imagination to envision that a day like Tuesday, the 20th of January 2009, would ever arrive, considering the history of America, a nation shadowed by the tinted visage of race and white supremacy.

Even though during the declaration of independence Americans upheld it to be a self-evident truth that all men are born equal, the practical reality that prevailed continuously in America distanced her from that declaration.

The African-American community which is the by-product of slavery was deprived of any fundamental chance of self-fulfillment, and as Malcolm X put it, they are not Americans but victims of America since they do not participate in architecting their destiny.

Today however, Americans have proven that they are real champions of democracy. The American dream which calls for every human being to be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin has finally been fulfilled with the slogan: “Yes we can.”

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th and first black president of the United States has indeed opened a new page in American history.  The page though is empty, as nothing has yet been done. What is important now is for Barack Obama to bury the past with all its unpleasant memories and focus on re-uniting an already divided world and to tackle the serious economic crisis he inherited.

On the part of Africa, we should not expect that because Obama is of African decent America’s policy in Africa is going to drastically change overnight. What we should expect from him is to engender a foreign policy that will give Africa the same chances as other parts of the world - equal political power and unrestricted access to the global economy.

We should judge Barrack Obama not by his lineage but by the system in which he found himself.