What America Means!

The United States of America is about the greatest country in the universe. America is an uncommon super power whose military might could set the world ablaze if it so wishes or in the event of a Hitler taking up residence in the White House. An economic, political and military giant the US is rich, prosperous and generous. The nation of 50 competing confederating states is both highly organized and sophisticated from every indication. It prides itself with an air of supreme arrogance as the land of the free, a land literally flowing with milk and honey where hope, dream and merit are fundamental ethos.

I have had to argue with some learned friends that were America, armed with her dreadful nuclear arsenal, an Arabic or Islamic country the world would have since been either islamised or destroyed altogether by jihadists or islamic fundamentalists. What makes America America could well be located in her aggressive drive for scientific evolution, for foreigner intakes. She derives her greatness from capitalism and democracy, from the liberal tolerance of foreigners through generous state immigration programmes that encourage and let millions into her vast empire with the aim of strengthening her economy and sharing her abundance with others.

In the US today one could find a Nigerian-American, Iraqi-American, Afghan-American, Ivorian-American, Saudi-American etc. In Africa the only two outstanding countries that can boast of such high level of foreign presence demographically are South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire. With the recent wave of xenophobic violence in SA leading to the home-ward exodus of many blacks (excluding Nigerians who preferred to die there than go back home) South Africa is becoming less attractive.

In Ivory Coast more than thirty percent of the eighteen million inhabitants are foreigners from diverse backgrounds. You have Lebanese-Ivorians, French-Ivorians, Nigerian-Ivorians, Malian-Ivorians, Burkinabe-Ivorians etc. In a French-speaking nation in West Africa where basic amenities like pipe-borne water, electricity and good network of roads and telecommunication facilities work soundly round the clock those who came visiting as tourists has had to settle permanently after experiencing the West African infrastructural miracle and natural ecological beauty.

The late first President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, though a civilian dictator, had a vision and dreamt big and pursued patriotically his vision. A diminutive statesman with giant ideas still held in highest esteem by majority of Ivorians ‘Nana’ Boigny built the largest Basilica in the world with cocoa and coffee resources of his country in Yammoussoukro. If his patriotic benevolent dictatorship was emulated by many diffident dictators around Africa then one may be forced by positive continental circumstances to re-examine the credentials of the ‘democrats’ who continually abuse that majestic system of governance.

Nigeria would have been the United States of Africa but for some explicable leadership mediocrity and squandered natural national resources. Potentially a super power given her abundant human and material resources the giant of Africa has been dwarfed by internal contradictions and visionless leadership. Nigeria is only the America of Africa on paper; on the ground you have a big nation groping in the dark whose quest to Americanize herself is centuries away from eventual realisation (if that will ever occur).

Saddled with the current democratic dispensation whose legitimacy is still a subject of wide speculation at home and elsewhere President Umaru Yar’Adua appears weighed down by his poor health profile and daunting presidential task that leaves him clueless.

America is a great ally of the Jewish state of Israel who celebrated her 60th statehood anniversary last May. If not for the American strategic material support coupled with the invincibility of the Israeli military machinery then the Arabic enemies that surrounded her as uneasy neighbours would have annihilated her long before now. Israel will continue to exist and survive despite the Hamas or Hezbollah hate-mongering terrorist distractions.

There are of course many more things right with America than those wrong with her. Like every other society there are ups and downs; there are positive and negative pages in any history of nation building. Yet America means many things to many folks across the world.

To many Africans struggling with poverty and despair America holds out banners of hope and self realisation. To the late Guinean Diallo, however, whose body was riddled with dozens of bullets by overzealous American police America meant state-assisted assassination in the name of homeland security. To Osama Bin Ladin and his Al Queda terrorist network America means a global monster that must be stood up to and possibly over-awed with sheer terror! To the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez American skewed international politics of petrol and monstrous capitalism will one day plunge the international community into another world war with catastrophic consequencies.

For many decent muslims or Arabs living in or visiting America Uncle Sam post 9/11 means hell. For millions of HIV/AIDS victims across sub-saharan Africa America means the very origin of the pandemic that has mercilessly registered 25 million graves 25 years on! To them it is incomprehensible how and why AIDS made in America could have been ‘exported’ across the Atlantic to become the historic killer of a particular race that it is has become. Now they are telling us it has something to do with a DARC gene!

For thousands of kid mothers and pregnant teens scattered across American glittering cities America, their country means a huge amoral laboratory where the virginity of minors are flagrantly abused for blissful sexual experiment that is out of the ordinary.

America means sport glory in athletics, boxing, female soccer, basketball, wrestling etc but it also means sports fraud and shame — Maria Jones. America means post-modern presidency in philandering Bill Clinton and post-modern war mongering and electoral controversy in George W. Bush. America means the internet revolution epitomised by Bill Gates but it also means corporate fraud in Enron scandal.

To the hanged Iraqi brutal dictator Saddam Hussein America meant nothing but an evil empire who invaded many countries only for it to turn around and condemned his own invasion of the oil-rich Kuweit leading up to the invasion of his ‘kingdom’ of Iraq and his hanging. To those young students who occasionally run amok shooting fellow students to death and blaming it on ‘being sick and tired’ of the system America means nothing but spiritual void and meaninglessness of life and living.

America means godliness and godlessness. Godliness in the sense that the richest, most flamboyant and most popular pastors are resident there; godliness because “in God we trust”. The spiritual prayerful interventions by these sophisticated new-generation pastors and other men of God help one way or the other to bring divine favour to bear in American affairs. But godlessness in the sense that the greatest number of atheists in the world could be found in the States. They are causing satanic confusions in science, technology and academia. Godlessness because the highest number of sexual abuses involving priests and pastors are recorded there.

America means illusion because many have gone there and failed in their pursuits. (All that glitters can never be gold!) Illusion because despite her great riches one could still find beggars on the streets in New York or so we were told by the drug-addicted musician Majek Fashek in one of his songs after an encounter with America.

America means diplomatic hypocrisy and mendacity. By using questionable facts, figures and propaganda to invade Iraq the Bush administration committed huge diplomatic blunder which has continued to cost American lives. America talks glibly about democratic ideals but

when the undemocratic situation favours her economic or security interests then dictatorship is welcome. Pakistan is a case in point. Many countries African is another.

America means urban crime and narcotics consumption. Whereas the opium producers in Colombia and elsewhere are hounded and treated as mafians you have a huge opium demand in the States. You have the highest number of drug-induced junkies in America. You see them in sports and entertainment circles and even the pulpits. You encounter them in black neighbourhoods.

To those folks who see some heroism in the weird rapper 50 Cent and his pedestrian ‘get rich quick or die trying’ philosophy America is home of opportunities, raw guts, audacity and bravado. And to those disciples of ‘Obamania’ America means the breaking down of racial political barriers and the imminent formation of a new racially indiscriminate dawn in the 21st century America.

To those admirers of Ms Monika Lewinsky and the Eliot Spitzer nemesis, Ms Ashley Dupre America represents the executive power demystification (by whores) through mutual sexual exploits. America means, in the final analysis, the best, the good, the bad and the ugly.