First protests today as Obama lands in South Africa.

The latest news is that US President Obama has landed in SA.
www.guardian.co.uk...

Meanwhile former SA President, Nelson Mandela, has made somewhat of a much hoped for recovery in hospital.

This afternoon the first pockets of protest began, predictably consisting largely of Muslims and communists.

The signs from people in Senegal yesterday saying "Welcome home" were hilarious

Also on the topic of Obama protests, Tahrir Square are having some on their own.

reply to post by cass1dy09

Well, so far there's no sign of such a welcome in SA.

However, there's also a lot of people fed up with Islamist and communist one-sided crap.
It remains to be seen if the silent majorities will be out to support him.

Perhaps it's quite ironic in a sense, because having followed many threads on Obama on ATS it seems the conservatives in the US see him as a closet communist and Muslim, and yet clearly that radical global constituency couldn't be further away from identifying with him.

So I'm not sure how one can call him a closet socialist or Muslim, because to such groups he is just an Imperialist.

Maybe his political rivals and critics in the US need to rethink their rhetoric, which seems like absolute nonsense considering the footage of neither radical Muslims or communists liking Obama whatsoever.

reply to post by halfoldman


I'm wondering why I had to go to page 3 of recent posts to see something about obozo's disastrous trip to africa.

He goes to a muslim country to talk about "gay rights" when muslims are well known for executing "gays'?

!100 million dollars spent to make more people hate america?

Why is Bush in africa the same time obozo is?

There is something up here. Hopefully obozo doesn't come back at all.

More on Obama's visit to South Africa so far.
Here there are also more positive responses, even jubilantly so.



US President Obama's meeting with prospective young African leaders at the University of Johannesburg, Soweto, 29 June 2013.

I enjoyed the above town-hall-style meeting with President Obama very much.

The audience was a bit a gushing, but the general understanding of African issues certainly destroyed the stereotype of Americans as provincial yokels.

There was a general question on the war on terror, however it never addressed specific points such as the Guantanamo detainees, or the civilians killed by US drone attacks, or the notion of blowback.

Sadly, despite references to Mandela, there was no question on Leonard Peltier.

The pieces on economics for Africa were rhetorically sound, yet somehow wishy-washy.
The general feeling seems to be that Africans are only potential consumers for US markets, however hardly anything on sale here has ever been made in the US (except for religion and rock 'n' roll).
Undeniably, America has more of an interest in African minerals and raw products, rather than making the African masses good consumers of products actually made by American labor (i.e., not outsourced to China).

During one of the last questions on environmentalism, Obama says that not everyone can have a car or air-conditioning (seemingly unless there's "clean energy" first).
What?
So what's the point of studying for these students if they have to live in a house that's freezing in winter and melting in summer?
And they have to take public transport to work?
Jeez, we might as well stick to grass huts and mud houses.

Sadly there was no question on racial minorities in Africa, and whether a reservation system could work to protect minorities.

But not bad.
I can see why he is a President.

I feel for the security staff standing on every corner.
My feet hurt just thinking about them.

I look forward to the University of Cape Town discussion, when it becomes available.

President Obama and Desmond Tutu listen to a rap song in South Africa: