OPINION:A FEW hours after Barack Obama's acceptance speech, my wife jokingly said to me: "You do realise that he is going to be the president of America don't you? America, not the rest of the world!", writes Bryan Mukandi
I am not American, and Obama's functional role in the future matters little to me at the moment.
What really matters to me are the implications of his election to a continent in desperate need of hope, and to minorities like myself around the world.
The late Edward Said wrote in his memoir: "Everyone lives life in a given language; everyone's experiences therefore are had, absorbed, and recalled in that language."
Though we often assume that languages can easily be translated from one to another, that is not always the case. Much is lost in translation because words and phrases in one language do not always exist in another. In many ways, race is like a language. One's subjective and actual experience of life would be very different were one able to switch race.
Barack Obama's victory is priceless because it suggests that in the world's most powerful nation, success beyond one's wildest dreams translates into many languages.
I had the privilege, growing up in southern Africa, of attending multiracial schools. I say privilege because I got to know people of other races as individuals. I accepted the conventional wisdom of the time. It stated there was something in white people that made them better than black people. It was a wisdom accepted by both black and white.
Conversely, it was also widely believed that there was something in the very genetic nature of black people that made us less capable. That while we were as human as anyone else, we were not endowed with the same talents that allowed others to breathe life into their dreams and accomplish great things.
I turned out to be one of the better students in my school. News of this quickly reached members of my extended family. At a gathering, an elderly uncle took me aside.
He particularly wanted to know if I had performed better than any of the white students. For him, a man who spent most of his life in a British colony, there was an established social order. White people were "better" in just about every sense.
That a young man whom he saw as his grandchild defied this idea warmed his heart.
I really wish he were alive today to celebrate Obama's success.
When I travelled to less developed countries in the region, people would often remark that my country - Zimbabwe - was fortunate to have had colonial settlers who had invested in basic infrastructure such as roads and railways.
The insinuation was that black people were not wired to develop their own countries. A white schoolmate put it bluntly: "You black guys should be grateful . . . If it weren't for us, you'd still be living in mud huts."
My personal experience as a black person, and worse, as an African, has been that my equality with others is often challenged.
Even before my homeland's economic collapse, it costs tens or even hundreds of our dollars for one American one. While as a country we were eager to attract as many tourists as possible, few of us were eligible for visas to travel abroad.
When an African state makes it on to the news, it is usually because of war or famine. And while there are plenty of entertainers and athletes of colour on the world stage, few of us are on that stage wearing suits and engaged in weighty matters. Public perception and daily reality can, in my language, sound like the accusation that there is something problematic about my blackness.
That is why I am grateful to president-elect Barack Obama and the people of America. His election means a lot of different things to a lot of people.
What resonates for most is a sense of hope and a turning of the page. It does not so much mark the end of past realities as much as it inspires confidence for a fresh start.
And even where things have not changed and the slate cannot be wiped clean, he has inspired hope for progress.
So while I don't expect the rival groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to lay down their arms in response to the election, I do expect the people of that nation and beyond to have a renewed desire and impetus for peace and stability.
In his acceptance speech, Obama asked the audience to consider the next 100 years and the influence this generation will have had.
I cannot really speak for other regions, but I have a fair idea of what the African continent will see. Thanks in no small part to Obama's election, she will witness a continent whose people "refuse to die from ignorance, hunger and thirst any longer".
A generation that is not content to be the recipient of the world's pity, but builds strong, viable, free nations.
A people who have sung and lived out Still I Rise, Maya Angelou's poem.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope
of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.