Backlash Trails Obama's Advice to African Politicians...Read the Messages Africans Have Sent

 

United States President, Barack who gave his own candid advise to African politicians have recieved so form of criticisms for some Africans.

 

“Tough love” was the theme of President Obama's visit to East Africa.

 

However, young people in Kenya and Ethiopia had plenty to say to Obama about the state of America.

 

He talked of the need to eradicate corruption and treat fairly minority communities, including Muslims in Kenya.

 

“Progress requires that you see the differences and diversity of this country as a strength, just as we in America try to see the diversity of our country as a strength,” he said.

 

Although Kenyans and Ethiopians were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, even fanatical, about their returning East African son, but there were many who felt America, even Barack Obama, was not in a position to lecture others on some of these points.

 

“Most Americans think about what needs to change in other countries but they need to solve their own problems,” Shiferaw Tilahun, 31, told the BBC in a coffee shop in Addis Ababa.

 

“They are interested in other people's problems but they don't care about black people in their own country,” Shiferaw said. “Most of our black brothers and sisters are suffering in the US.”

 

It was clear in both countries that the issue of race, more than any other, had damaged people’s perceptions of the US.

“When I speak to my friends and family here in Kenya, their feeling about America is ‘clean your own house first’,” said Teresa Mbagaya, 28.

 

Teresa is a Kenyan-American entrepreneur who was at the summit in Nairobi attended by President Obama.

 

She said that Africans often asked her about the state of race relations in the US having been concerned about reports they had seen on the news.

 

“We're not on the ground so we just get reports from what is on the media, but it is extremely appalling, shocking and horrifying what is going on to the black community in America,” said Amanda Gicharu, 29, also met in Nairobi.

 

In both Kenya and Ethiopia, it was a recurring theme when we asked what “tough love” might need to go in the US’ direction, with people saying they felt personally “offended”, “hurt” and “insulted” by the treatment of African-Americans that they had seen reported.

But it wasn't the only thing that concerned them about US society.

 

“The shootings in America for me are scarier than what is happening in Kenya,” said Alifie Amalia, 37, in Nairobi.