Thanks for this . While Obama's and US policy towards Africa is likely to change, we must understand that this will not take place outside of activism on the part of African society. African society in this new era of change and openness need to deconstruct and dismantle the neo-colonial bonds which has strangled development from the bottom-up over the last thirty or so years. African policy makers, African civil society, and African peoples must play their part in forging new pathways and new relations. This would mean that they will have to develop new approaches and ideas based in their cultures and history in order to reshape and reorganize development goals. What is required is a new period of bottom-up development. The election of Barack Obama and his idea of change has to be met with new challenges by the ordinary people of Africa seeking to regain the ground lost since the colonial slave trade, the placing of its citizens in reserves and the appropriation of their land, and the oppression which continued with the imposition of neo-colonial rule. Africa must learn from the failure of elections in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Elections which did not deliver democracy for the majority. Change and Democracy in Africa in the era of Obama must begin with long overdue land reform. Reforms which has been forestalled over the last three decades because of local collusion and adherence to the neo-colonial agenda of international capital. African society and African leaders must enter the debate of change based on a paradigm that is home grown and rooted in the culture of their societies.