A 12th century French nobleman was describing his experiences, after his journey to the middle east during the crusades. He remarked at how men he had known in Europe, who had been born into the highest levels of nobility, had amounted to little above beggars in the streets of Jerusalem because they did not have the aptitude to rise to positions like those they had been born into. He also remarked how men who had not a name, let alone a dime to that name, had become the masters of this far away land. He called what he saw, "the epitome of a new world". A world where a man, irregardless of the position he was born into, could rise to prominence.

This nobleman was not the only person to have envisioned such a thing. Countless men and women throughout history, ancient and modern, have been making the same case. The case that a man or woman, irregardless of status of birth, should be given the opportunity to prove their ability and if that ability is  proven, then rewarded as such. We as a generation witnessed this some weeks ago on November 4, 2008 when a young man, the son of an African man no less, ascended to the seat of the American presidency.  The dream of some and the hopes of many, Barack Obama not only represents the change in American domestic policy that he campaigned for so fervently, he also represents the creation of a new American republic and a break from the beliefs and practices of a nation that had been doing the same thing for over 230 years.

Obama's election to the presidency signals just what he had been echoing throughout his campaign, "change, change" and in case we didn't hear it the first 100 times, "change". As he himself stated after his victory, that change has now come to America. So, though inauguration has come and gone, the process of  creating what I call the new republic begins. Obama, as the whole world most certainly knows, has inherited a country with severe  economic issues and major wars on two fronts. These are the most well known or simply perhaps most visible of  the tasks at hand. Beneath these however, lies the necessity to create, or better yet,  perfect the so called perfect union that some founders of the American republic envisioned but by either shear ignorance or more probably societal restraints could not put into practice.

So what is this new republic of which I speak. It is the American republic that had always been coveted by many but was not allowed to breathe life. It is a republic where the issue of race is of no consequence or importance because it really has never been the true issue but rather a cover for the real conflict, a battle between those who have and those who have not. It is a republic where government for the people and by the people is actually, for the people and by the people. It's a place where the government actually takes into consideration the people of the nation when making decisions that will affect their day to day lives. I do feel strongly that we as a people, and I am speaking to the Americans, need to allow this republic to take root and flourish. It is what countless American patriots, from John Adams and Frederick Douglass to Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy have fought and in some cases died for. When we do this, we can once again take a place on the world stage where we serve as an inspiration to the rest of the global community. I know with President Obama's election on the 4th of November , we took an immensly gigantic step toward that place.

Now I am well aware of the possiblity of someone reading this and thinking, what does the idea of a new American republic have to do with a publication that states its focus on presenting the issues of Africa, both continental and diasporic to the world? Well the answer to that is simple. Barack Obama is the son of a Kenyan man. Last I checked, I could be wrong, Kenya is an African nation. This is significant in many ways but perhaps the most important is that, the very person that stands to usher the world's foremost democracy into a new age and the "more perfect union" that was its intend goal at its humble beginning, is a son of the African continent. A continent whose descendants have suffered the most greatly in the west for close to 400 years. Africa has always been married to America because her children helped to create and literally build the nation.  Now the descendants of those children, the countless men and women who have been lost to history, will for the first time feel as though they too are a part and parcel of the nation they have helped create. A nation that has always been theirs but just never fully felt as such. That there is the very essence of the new republic. It is a more inclusive nation, where those who had been overlooked and underrepresented can feel as though they too are part of the greatest union since the empire of the Romans. It is a nation that chooses to rewrite what had been written wrong and move forward with a new lease on what Americans know all too well, our Manifest Destiny. The do-nothing generation has finally awaken and the results are to be profound. From the slave fort at Elmina to the white house,  it is a saga four centuries in the making and like Jesse Jackson showed us, it is a story that is well worth the tears.

Barack Hussein Obama II, 44th U.S President

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