The Kenyan Daily Nation on Sen. Obama

'The best we can expect from Obama,' by Philip Ochieng --

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'Exactly what do we mean when we say that Barack Obama has made history? For the professional historian — because he has studied so many cases — the answer is double-edged and scary.

For it is clear that, whatever the history-maker has done, he has done it in opposition to a solid status quo which — precisely because of the breakthrough — is redoubling its effort to roll back the wheels of history.

Barack Obama has done what no other black American has ever done. Yet this is historic merely because, despite amazing futuristic techno-scientific achievements, his country’s mind remains enslaved by the most primitive tribal ideas about colour, gender and religion. '

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Also, 'Barack Obama is Africa's Talisman,' by the Nation's editorial board --

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Kenyans are celebrating Senator Barack Obama’s success in the US Democratic Party nomination, not because they expect goodies from him if he becomes the most powerful leader in the world; they know there won’t be any.

At one level they are doing so because of a sense of kinship. His father was Kenyan, after all.

But the bigger reason is that he is a role model for almost a billion black people in the world today who are used to coming last in everything important. The black race is the poorest, least powerful, most unhealthy, least hopeful of them all.

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