US President Barack Obama looks down from the Door of No Return on Goree Island, in Dakar, Senegal. Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/APSouth Africans have had a rough week. It started on Sunday with news that our former president Nelson Mandela's health had gone from serious to critical. And we've been hanging on to every update since. On Wednesday morning, as I watched reports on the hundreds of people who gathered outside the hospital where Mandela was being treated, I glanced over at a picture on the White House Instagram feed of Marine One leaving Washington, DC – America's first family had left for Africa.
As the first images of the Obama's on the continent emerged, I thought it was fortunate that his three-country Africa tour had started in Senegal. There he received a warm welcome. Locals lined the streets holding boards printed with welcome messages, and waving American flags as his convoy made its way to the Presidential Palace. I wonder if he'll get the same reception in South Africa. I just can't imagine that the streets will be filled with people cheering on his arrival. It's nothing personal. Our thoughts are simply elsewhere.
It is with the father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, the man Obama first met, briefly, in 2005 at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, DC. The same man Obama has often been compared to. There are certainly similarities, sure. Both worked as lawyers. Both list Mahatma Gandhi as a personal inspiration. Both made history as their respective country's first black presidents. Both represent what is possible when people believe, when they unite, when they act.
I watched, as most of the world did, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States in 2009. It was the kind of historic moment we, as South Africans, were familiar with. We were captivated, more so perhaps because of Obama's African heritage. Those close ancestral ties are why many had high expectations of what Obama could, and surely should, do for Africa. His predecessors had left a strong legacy on the continent, what will he do?
Bill Clinton was the first US president to visit South Africa. He came in 1998 when our Rainbow Nation was barely four years old. We had just come out of our toddler phase – we were young, not yet able to walk steadily and trying to grapple with the new-found acceptance into the global community. Like excited kids, we gave Clinton a warm welcome, and he came bearing gifts. He pledged to increase aid to the continent, allocating more than $60m to South Africa that year. He also gave us the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which he signed into law in 2000. It is an important piece of legislature that till today allows us preferential access to the US market, with duties and tariffs on thousands of products being dropped to zero.
George W Bush walked into a very different South Africa when he met with our then-president Thabo Mbeki in 2003. We were on the brink of celebrating our 10th birthday. We were more stable and confident of our place in the world, we even started playing with new friends, but there was still a lot of growing up to do. That same year Bush launched the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), committing $15bn over five years to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. At that time, the United States was South Africa's largest trading partner. Today it is China.
That relationship is of course part of the reason why many of the reports I read leading up to Obama's visit said it's too little, too late, that the US was just trying to catch up, even questioned if it is worth it to spend so much money just getting to Africa. Yes, we are worth it.
The country Obama will visit is very different to the one Clinton or Bush engaged with. At 19, we have reached the age of majority – a milestone where, according to South African law, you are no longer considered a child. During Clinton's address to South Africa's parliament in 1998, he announced:
"Simply put, America wants a strong South Africa, America needs a strong South Africa, and we are determined to work with you as you build a strong South Africa."
We are stronger. Obama will be meeting with a young adult. One that is part of the powerful BRICS club. One that is looked at as the as the gateway to Africa – one of the fastest growing regions of the world. And so we know why America wants to come to our party and we should welcome them to join us.
But right now, we are likely facing (or soon to face) another milestone, one without our beloved Mandela, the man who gave birth to our now-thriving nation. We are told he opened his eyes and smiled when his daughter said to him, "Obama is coming."
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