When and why did I 'cynically' encounter the West/Euro-America? In fact I didn't spend a lot of time in Euro-America, unless South Africa is also regarded as a part of it. My great disappointment in 'America the Beautiful' was to see a lot of Tanzanians there who had given up what might have been a bright future back home in search of the 'American Dream'. I am saying 'might have been' because the 'Biblicanism' in me says I cannot afford to play God who sees the end from the beginning. Yet the testimonies of some of those I have met here in Tanzania after at least five years of their search for 'makaratasi', that is, the 'papers' such as green cards that can guarantee their return home without the possibility of being denied a visa to go back to the land of the 'American pie in the sky' have made me sense their shock at how their 'Tanzania' has left them behind.

On my second visit to 'The Land of the Brave', what came as a revelation to me was a graduate class discussion on a book that I used to see in our home library here in Tanzania, even though I never bothered to read it in spite of its tantalising title: . Of course that was a time before a Ben Carson, whom I admire a lot and who is on record for saying that he never saw a 'white' person in the US until he was a teenager, could make it from a ghetto boy with D grades to arguably the best neurosurgeon in the world and thus preach that you can also make it 'anywhere' if you THINK BIG. Yes it was a time before the skinny boy with a funny name could become the president of the United States (of America) by reclaiming, nay, rehabilitating the seemingly elusive American dream as 'change we can believe In' through , Marieme Helie Lucas on and yet hear some of my compatriots talk about the possibilities the US offers them and can offer all of 'us' – especially in the so-called 'Age/Era of Obama' if we just 'work hard' – I can't help but wonder if maybe that 'blind spot' which made the author of Democracy in America gloss over the then 'Negro question' is the same myopia that make us overlook the 'Muslim question' among other very hard questions.

So, do I hate 'America' or Euro-America for that matter? Am I one of those who were supposed to answer George W. Bush question 'WHY DO THEY HATE US?' No. I actually love America a lot. In fact I am one of those who believe it could be a model for deracialising the continents since, as the de facto North America, it is probably the only habitable continent for humans that is not really seen as a continent that belongs to a particular 'race' the strereotypical way Africa is seen as belonging to the 'blacks', Europe to the 'whites' and Asia to the 'yellows'. As a melting pot, it has the potential of being the model of a cosmopolitan society that is not racialised. Unfortunately it is this same America that is haunted by what the 'new orator on the bloc' refers to as the [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.