Charles Onyango-Obbo
15 June 2008
column
Nairobi — There are times when you wish that Libyan strongman Col Muammar Gaddafi would just shut up. The eccentric Gaddafi, who has been in power for nearly 40 years, is proverbial for making outrageous statements.
Last week, Gaddafi weighed into Barack Obama, the Democratic Party nominee for the November US election. Obama, the first African-American to become the nominee of a major party, recently made a speech overflowing with support for Israel.
Referring to Obama as "our Kenyan brother," Gaddafi said his support for Israel might stem from an "inferiority complex" over his African origins.
The question of race, he suggested, could make Obama's behaviour "more white than white people," rather than acting in solidarity with African and Arab nations.
On that note, I changed my view of Gaddafi, because he says in public what very many other people mutter into clenched fists.
Such criticism as Gaddafi made of Obama, has been made about many Anglophile Africans before, one of the best examples in East Africa being the case of former Kenyan attorney general Charles Njonjo.
Because it was Gaddafi speaking, he raised many other unspoken issues. He assumes that Africans have a natural duty to be in solidarity with Palestine, and the wider Middle East in favour of the Arab side, to put it crudely.
However, outside a small circle of left-leaning intellectuals and internationalist activists in Africa, there's actually not much sympathy for Palestine. Anyone who was a pro-Palestine activist in the 1980s and early '90s will know that.
The reason is not hard to see. Like everywhere in the world, every weekday in primary schools, and every Sunday in the millions of Christian prayer services in Africa, there is a pitch in favour of Israel. Being Christian is almost synonymous with being pro-Israel in its confrontation with its Arab adversaries.
Secondly, the divisions between Arab Africans and African Africans, if there is any such thing, are much deeper than tends to be acknowledged. The notion of "sub-Saharan Africa," which tends to be accepted in Africa without question, is one that divides Arab North Africa from "black" Africa.
It's not politically correct to delve into the roots of this division. Scholars like Prof. Ali Mazrui have dealt with it by including the Arab/Islamic thread as part of Africa's "triple heritage."
This tends to mask the fact that in black Africa, the Arabs are seen as racists in part because of their role in the slave trade, and also because of the rabid anti-black Africa sentiments in countries in North Africa. Last year, in Gaddafi's Libya, thousands of black Africans were attacked and run out of the country.
Scholars say Arab slavery was "better" than the European one, because the Africans were not exploited for labour as happened in the Americas, but were turned into eunuchs in the courts of the sultans, among other things.
THAT NOTWITHSTANDING, THERE'S A feeling today that the descendants of Western slave traders have atoned more for the crimes than the Arabs. While Western leaders have apologised, the Arab world continues to be in denial about slavery.
While a guilty West has "paid back" with crumbs in aid, scholarships, and so on, at the height of the oil crisis of the late 1970s, the OAU appealed to Arab oil producers to sell the continent cheap oil because we were "brothers." The Arab oil producers tuned them out.
Obama's father was a Kenyan who went to the US on a scholarship, so he's not descended from slaves. Still, if all the facts above are taken together, the irony and insensitivity of an (African) Arab leader telling an African-American that his support for Israel is based on an "inferiority complex" is staggering.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group's managing editor for convergence and new products.
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I just want to know how many Arab nations have unification and solidarity with African people and nations, Mr.Gaddafi? It may be my limited American understanding but haven't the Arabs been pillaging Northern Africa for decades, even centuries?..Now I do believe the Isralies stole Isreal from the Palestinean people and though I support Obama I do not support his policies twoards Israel, but lets just keep it real....what haven't the Arab people stolen from Africa?? Obama is the lesser of two evils as all politicians can be viewed. Just goes to show us Obama is human and not the perfect presidential canidate, people like myself would like him to be...hes human so some of his policies may be flawed just like any other politician on THE GLOBE, he still offers a lot more, reasoning, sympathy and understanding for people of color than John McCain does.
Gaddafi is just a power hungry scum bag like any other scum bags of the developing nations. If you want to understand Gaddafi more read his 'Green Demagogue'.
This guy doesn't understand the world and leadership. He is just a Dictator and power hungry scum like the rest of the scum bags of the developing nations.
On the other hand, Abuaumama or Obama Bomba is an African who loves to be a ruler like Gaddafi. To him mixing and playing cards upside down for the sake of power is his profession, especially when this is his ethnic background ticks.
To understand further, to win more votes, support, power and business from the ethnic minorities, especially from the influencial Jewish communities in the western world, he is playing the 'Jews-Palestinian' dirty cards.
He certainly won't succeed in his tricks, because many are aware of the opportune ethnic minorities tricks for power and economics in the western world. Because of his irrational and biased behaviors, he added more fuel and damage to the Jews-Palestinian plight.
No body wise enough will remember people like Abuaumama kindly. On the contrary, they will always spit on their 'hypocricy' regardless of their faiths and ethnic backgrounds. I doubt that the Americans, the Jews and the Arabs are stupid enough to hand over power to a maniac like Abuaumama.
These kind of people are well know to the entire world, because they are like lizards always spinning on all sides just to achieve their own objectives.