Philip Ochieng
13 September 2008
opinion
Nairobi — Barack Obama's popularity can be gauged by the growing desperation with which his enemies are fighting him.
Some self-appointed individuals are now busy collecting money from Americans to lift a Kenyan sibling of Barack out of poverty.
A man who might be a Kenyan of Goan origin is seeking to "rescue" the half-brother from "misery" in a Nairobi slum. Don't you smell a rat?
First, to live in a slum is not necessarily to be a pauper. I know individuals with lots of money who live permanently in such areas.
Secondly, where was this latter-day saviour before Barack appeared in the news pages? Why is he interested only in helping a celebrity's relative, whereas hunger is rasping millions of other Kenyans?
If he were a genuine saviour, would he not organise an institution -- like Father Grol's Undugu Society -- through which to channel such publicly collected funds to benefit more human beings? Granted that he has a right to choose to help only one individual.
But, if so, why not do it privately? Publicity -- I grant -- will help even in an impersonal cause.
But the ulterior motive stands out like the San Francisco Bay from the manner in which our saviour hankers after newspaper headlines. Genuine Good Samaritans do not toot horns.
Moreover, if the chosen recipient is a bother of a candidate for the most powerful seat in history, if you do not have the grace to inform that candidate that you are collecting money for his brother, if you do not attempt to channel your "charity" through him, the perniciousness of your motive becomes as clear as a pikestaff.
You are only trying to embarrass the Senator. The urge in your puny mind is to convince the world that Barack is a skinflint who cares nothing to help his own brother out of the quagmire.
You are telling Americans that the man seeking their votes is a sadist whose entire paternal clan in Kenya is perishing from hunger.
You are saying (not a word!) that Barack is a leader unto darkness of death and that the American electorate should reject him outright.
You resort to the cheapest, meanest tactics to thwart a candidate's quest. You are a godforsaken liar. Ordinarily, of course, the anti-Obama propaganda is impelled by racism.
But Afro-Saxons, British rajs and Uncle Toms abound for hire. They are hungry in the extreme and have lost every ounce of self-respect and dignity.
They will pocket any thirty pieces of squalid silver to bear false witness against their own kind. I have suffered terribly in the hands of such suborned witnesses, namely, US newspaper correspondents.
They have twisted my every word beyond recognition so as to feed long-held prejudices against black people (and Arabs, Turks, Chicanos, sub-continentals, Mongoloids and, up to recently, Jews).
A reader e-mails to ask me for an instance of what Mark Twain called "silent-assertion lies".
Well, another reader chips in with a recent media allegation meant to denigrate the other candidate. It is that John McCain has a "black" son. Of course, by America's definition of "black", he has.
But, in a race-demented society, imagine what damage you cause to the candidate and his wife if you do not go on to explain that the boy is adopted and of Indian parentage.
That is a good example of the "unspoken lie". The tragedy is that a nation as great as America chooses to drown in such bilge water?
I have never met Barack. But he seems ready and able to serve his country with dedication. I also expect him -- as leader of the superpower -- not to look at the world with George Bush's "Americentric" lenses.
Moreover, because he has roots in my country and because his father was my friend, I expect him to look on Kenya with particular favour.
That is a good subjective reason I wish him victory: I may personally benefit.
Burt sense tells me that Barack cannot take care of the needs of every individual in America itself, leave alone in Kenya.
It is quite natural for the Kogelo to think that Barack will make every member of the clan a millionaire. But it is totally unrealistic. For he won't.
It is not that he is unwilling, i know that he will try. It is only that it is impossible. Just as John F. Kennedy -- Barack's analogue --- served only America's interests, not Ireland's, so Barack's first duty will be to America, not to Kenya.
That is one answer to those who seek to ruin his chances by cooking up the story that he is cruel to his African family.
My advice to Americans is: Take Barack to the Oval Office because he represents genuine change in America's psychology.
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The writer is right about one thing, and that it is a poor way to go about attacking a candidate. He is however grossly wrong on two items. The first is that we should elect Obama to the Presidency. Senator Obama may well be a fine person, but he is woefully inexperienced. If you dissect his speeches you would realize that he seems to think that he will be able to rule by decree, and that is not how it works here. Having a good general idea of needs to be done is one thing, but to simply expect to wave a magic wand and have it happen is another. The second is his dissing of President Bush. President G.W. Bush has have given more support, both monetarily and technically, than any previous president in history to Africa. Indeed, I defy you to name a single world leader of any country that has done as much, or has worked so hard, to personally bring about positive change to the peoples of Africa.
Thank you for this article! We are aware of the many forces that seek to discredit Senator Obama. To his credit, from what I saw in the televised interview with George, the Senator's brother, George knew what was happening and gave astute answers and made astute comments to the interviewer. In other words, George was fully aware of what the interviewer was trying to do and stopped him from doing it.
New York