From ages ago, but still very apt:
DJ Adrian has one on his car. I have one on the car and one on my laptop. I have seen several adorning bumpers all over Nairobi, and I can bet you there are tons circulating all over the world. These are the sky-blue ‘Obama ‘08’ stickers – those little bits of sticky paper that announce to the world that we have pegged our hopes this November on the half-black man from Illinois and Kogelo, to become the most powerful man in the world.
Barack Obama is an exciting man, and an exciting politician, on so many levels. He seems to be one of the most well-put-together of men – sure of his place in life and having come to terms with all the potential chips on his shoulder (do not underestimate the importance of this in a politician – a large part of the tragedy of Zimbabwe can be attributed to Mugabe’s neuroses). He seems to be part of a new breed of self-assured American politician – one who is ready and willing to go beyond the ancient left-right battles that have characterized American politics for two generations, and to shift the entire battlefield of American politics to a new plane where the important issues of the future, such as America’s diminished place in the world, the threat of climate change, reduced and expensive energy supplies, and a shrinking global economy, are addressed in a sober, less ideological way.
He is also an astute organiser and manager. The manner in which Obama demolished the presidential hopes of Hillary Clinton is an object lesson in tactical and strategic brilliance. Hillary Clinton had everything going for her – unparalleled name recognition, a boatload of money, a former, (somewhat) beloved President as part of the team, and a certain air of entitled inevitability about her that should have seen her coast to victory with her eyes closed. Yet Obama managed to annihilate all those advantages, and to move the field of contest away from these perceived advantages into a place where his strengths were key – a certain fresh newness on the political scene, an impressively complex autobiography that delivers a multi-hued back story, and a message of change that seemed to resonate with the new breed of voters who had moved on, with him, onto a more rarefied realm of electoral politics.
Of course, we in Africa, and especially in Kenya, have been trying – at times desperately – to ride on his charismatic coattails; to try and have at least some of that magic dust land on us. Thus the attempts by many politicians from Nyanza to claim either familial or ideological ties to Obama, even when these are of doubtful provenance. Hence our predilection to those blue bumper stickers (I had to send my cousin in America for mine, and I’ve had all sorts of people – from bankers in suits, to security guards, asking me for some). Yet, as I wrote back in 2004 when Obama was just emerging onto the scene – our hold on him is so tenuous as to be nonsensical. While he does carry the name and the dusky skin of a Luo, the fact that Barack Obama Senior was a cad who could do no better than abandon his wife and infant son means that his (and Kenyans’) claim on Barack the politician would be nothing better than hypocritical. But on such thin gruel are claims built, so we will continue to wish him the best, this supposed son of Kenya.
But I’m hesitant, and a great deal so.
The primary reason for this is that the image we now cast our hopes upon is a mythical notion of Barack Obama, resembling not so much a man as a Rorschach test, in which everyone everywhere sees a reflection of their most fervent hopes (and sometimes fears) in the man and his candidacy. Thus he carries not only the hopes of black Americans (despite the fact that he is half white); the hopes of the African continent (despite our screw-ups over the years, we only need a generation to produce the most powerful man in the world); the hopes of young Muslims (anyone named Hussein has to be good to Muslims, doesn’t he?); the hopes of young, cool people everywhere (the Japanese, the Germans and other Europeans all want a piece of him); and the hopes of all those who seek to restore America’s badly damaged image in the world. He also carries the fears of quite a number – unreconstructed racists all over the world; right wingers in America (and quite a few in Europe, such as Angela Merkel), who are afraid that Obama is such an uncommon talent that he makes them all look stodgy; as well as those who mistakenly think that Obama is an intellectual and policy lightweight (any reading of his more substantial works will disabuse you of this notion).
All this, I fear, is too much for a myth, much less a man, to bear. Even worse, many of our assumptions about Barack Obama may be at variance with the evidence at hand about the man and his politics.
One – Obama is almost as white as he is black. The world he grew up in – his mother’s as well as his grandparents’, was white to the core, and he had to make a strenuous effort to ‘discover’ his blackness (a process that included joining Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s monument to the black yuppie religious experience). Part of the exoticism inherent in America’s fascination with Obama is that he is either a prototypical (but immensely gifted) black man, or that his African roots (as exemplified in his ‘strange’ name) mean that he is somewhat ‘post-racial’ – a political version of Tiger Woods. Actually the Woods comparison may be an apt one – Tiger, by downplaying his blackness, made it safe for black people in America to be proud of him while allowing white people to accept him at the pinnacle of ‘their’ sport. But if he grew up in a white world, are the fears of people like Jesse Jackson then justified – that he has not paid the price at the altar of the black experience – that he is having it all too easy? And, more importantly, will he govern as the anti-black President – one who only pays attention to ‘black’ issues as part of the multitude of issues coming before him, and not necessarily the most important?
Two – Barack Obama is supposedly African. The fact that he is in touch with his grandmother in Kogelo and has visited Kenya in both humility (back when no one knew him) and in grandeur (when he visited as Senator a couple of years ago), somehow means that he will be more attuned to our particular needs and problems, and will treat us with special concern once he is ensconced in the White House. Yet remember how he managed to tick off almost the entire Kenyan government during his visit, with his unvarnished take on our problems and conditions. Yes, Obama has direct relatives here, and reserves a very soft spot for them, but when he visits, he does so primarily as an American, and he regards Kenya and Africa through peculiarly American eyes. This will be even more so as President, when his policy decisions will be constrained by his need to fulfil the requirements of more immediate and more important constituencies. Yes, Mama Sarah Obama may have a place of honour at the inaugural dais next January 20th, but that doesn’t mean that the Siaya-Kogelo Road will be tarmacked with American government funds, or that the Senator Obama Secondary School will have state-of-the-art computers and its students direct admission to Ivy League universities. Barack Obama will be an American President,
Three – our assumption of Barack Obama as Messiah, who will somehow float above the dirty rough-and-tumble of politics, ignores what we know about him. Yes, he is an inspirational figure, who can make you believe in the world again if you listen to his speeches. But he is also a ruthless politician reared in the old school. Politics in Chicago, according to all observers, are some of the roughest and rawest in America. This is where Barack Obama learned his craft, and sharpened his elbows. This is the school that gave him the skills to vanquish the Clinton machine, and hopefully the Republican one in November. The fact that he is a graceful young man with the best rhetorical skills America has seen in forty years don’t mean that he cannot wield the political shank with skill. And now that he’s started doing it – giving up ideological purity for political advantage, idealists are howling in hurt disbelief. Presidents, especially successful ones, are first politicians, and politicians act in ways that you wouldn’t want your mother to see. If we expect Obama to win in November, and govern with any level of success, we need to lower the level of rose tint in our spectacles.
So let’s all raise a glass to the son of Kogelo, via Kansas and Hawaii and Chicago, and wish him the best in his amazing quest. We hope that he will get there, but we know that his success will mean that our idealistic hearts may be just a little broken.
DJ Adrian has one on his car. I have one on the car and one on my laptop. I have seen several adorning bumpers all over Nairobi, and I can bet you there are tons circulating all over the world. These are the sky-blue ‘Obama ‘08’ stickers – those little bits of sticky paper that announce to the world that we have pegged our hopes this November on the half-black man from Illinois and Kogelo, to become the most powerful man in the world.
Barack Obama is an exciting man, and an exciting politician, on so many levels. He seems to be one of the most well-put-together of men – sure of his place in life and having come to terms with all the potential chips on his shoulder (do not underestimate the importance of this in a politician – a large part of the tragedy of Zimbabwe can be attributed to Mugabe’s neuroses). He seems to be part of a new breed of self-assured American politician – one who is ready and willing to go beyond the ancient left-right battles that have characterized American politics for two generations, and to shift the entire battlefield of American politics to a new plane where the important issues of the future, such as America’s diminished place in the world, the threat of climate change, reduced and expensive energy supplies, and a shrinking global economy, are addressed in a sober, less ideological way.
He is also an astute organiser and manager. The manner in which Obama demolished the presidential hopes of Hillary Clinton is an object lesson in tactical and strategic brilliance. Hillary Clinton had everything going for her – unparalleled name recognition, a boatload of money, a former, (somewhat) beloved President as part of the team, and a certain air of entitled inevitability about her that should have seen her coast to victory with her eyes closed. Yet Obama managed to annihilate all those advantages, and to move the field of contest away from these perceived advantages into a place where his strengths were key – a certain fresh newness on the political scene, an impressively complex autobiography that delivers a multi-hued back story, and a message of change that seemed to resonate with the new breed of voters who had moved on, with him, onto a more rarefied realm of electoral politics.
Of course, we in Africa, and especially in Kenya, have been trying – at times desperately – to ride on his charismatic coattails; to try and have at least some of that magic dust land on us. Thus the attempts by many politicians from Nyanza to claim either familial or ideological ties to Obama, even when these are of doubtful provenance. Hence our predilection to those blue bumper stickers (I had to send my cousin in America for mine, and I’ve had all sorts of people – from bankers in suits, to security guards, asking me for some). Yet, as I wrote back in 2004 when Obama was just emerging onto the scene – our hold on him is so tenuous as to be nonsensical. While he does carry the name and the dusky skin of a Luo, the fact that Barack Obama Senior was a cad who could do no better than abandon his wife and infant son means that his (and Kenyans’) claim on Barack the politician would be nothing better than hypocritical. But on such thin gruel are claims built, so we will continue to wish him the best, this supposed son of Kenya.
But I’m hesitant, and a great deal so.
The primary reason for this is that the image we now cast our hopes upon is a mythical notion of Barack Obama, resembling not so much a man as a Rorschach test, in which everyone everywhere sees a reflection of their most fervent hopes (and sometimes fears) in the man and his candidacy. Thus he carries not only the hopes of black Americans (despite the fact that he is half white); the hopes of the African continent (despite our screw-ups over the years, we only need a generation to produce the most powerful man in the world); the hopes of young Muslims (anyone named Hussein has to be good to Muslims, doesn’t he?); the hopes of young, cool people everywhere (the Japanese, the Germans and other Europeans all want a piece of him); and the hopes of all those who seek to restore America’s badly damaged image in the world. He also carries the fears of quite a number – unreconstructed racists all over the world; right wingers in America (and quite a few in Europe, such as Angela Merkel), who are afraid that Obama is such an uncommon talent that he makes them all look stodgy; as well as those who mistakenly think that Obama is an intellectual and policy lightweight (any reading of his more substantial works will disabuse you of this notion).
All this, I fear, is too much for a myth, much less a man, to bear. Even worse, many of our assumptions about Barack Obama may be at variance with the evidence at hand about the man and his politics.
One – Obama is almost as white as he is black. The world he grew up in – his mother’s as well as his grandparents’, was white to the core, and he had to make a strenuous effort to ‘discover’ his blackness (a process that included joining Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s monument to the black yuppie religious experience). Part of the exoticism inherent in America’s fascination with Obama is that he is either a prototypical (but immensely gifted) black man, or that his African roots (as exemplified in his ‘strange’ name) mean that he is somewhat ‘post-racial’ – a political version of Tiger Woods. Actually the Woods comparison may be an apt one – Tiger, by downplaying his blackness, made it safe for black people in America to be proud of him while allowing white people to accept him at the pinnacle of ‘their’ sport. But if he grew up in a white world, are the fears of people like Jesse Jackson then justified – that he has not paid the price at the altar of the black experience – that he is having it all too easy? And, more importantly, will he govern as the anti-black President – one who only pays attention to ‘black’ issues as part of the multitude of issues coming before him, and not necessarily the most important?
Two – Barack Obama is supposedly African. The fact that he is in touch with his grandmother in Kogelo and has visited Kenya in both humility (back when no one knew him) and in grandeur (when he visited as Senator a couple of years ago), somehow means that he will be more attuned to our particular needs and problems, and will treat us with special concern once he is ensconced in the White House. Yet remember how he managed to tick off almost the entire Kenyan government during his visit, with his unvarnished take on our problems and conditions. Yes, Obama has direct relatives here, and reserves a very soft spot for them, but when he visits, he does so primarily as an American, and he regards Kenya and Africa through peculiarly American eyes. This will be even more so as President, when his policy decisions will be constrained by his need to fulfil the requirements of more immediate and more important constituencies. Yes, Mama Sarah Obama may have a place of honour at the inaugural dais next January 20th, but that doesn’t mean that the Siaya-Kogelo Road will be tarmacked with American government funds, or that the Senator Obama Secondary School will have state-of-the-art computers and its students direct admission to Ivy League universities. Barack Obama will be an American President,
Three – our assumption of Barack Obama as Messiah, who will somehow float above the dirty rough-and-tumble of politics, ignores what we know about him. Yes, he is an inspirational figure, who can make you believe in the world again if you listen to his speeches. But he is also a ruthless politician reared in the old school. Politics in Chicago, according to all observers, are some of the roughest and rawest in America. This is where Barack Obama learned his craft, and sharpened his elbows. This is the school that gave him the skills to vanquish the Clinton machine, and hopefully the Republican one in November. The fact that he is a graceful young man with the best rhetorical skills America has seen in forty years don’t mean that he cannot wield the political shank with skill. And now that he’s started doing it – giving up ideological purity for political advantage, idealists are howling in hurt disbelief. Presidents, especially successful ones, are first politicians, and politicians act in ways that you wouldn’t want your mother to see. If we expect Obama to win in November, and govern with any level of success, we need to lower the level of rose tint in our spectacles.
So let’s all raise a glass to the son of Kogelo, via Kansas and Hawaii and Chicago, and wish him the best in his amazing quest. We hope that he will get there, but we know that his success will mean that our idealistic hearts may be just a little broken.
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