Peterkins Manyong
7 November 2008
opinion
"A chick that would grow into a cock is known soon after it is hatched." This well known African proverb is applicable in the case of Barack Obama, the man from humble origins, who is today, the President-Elect of the world's greatest nation.
According to an essay by David James Smith published in the Sunday Times, Obama's childhood was anything but rosy. The essayist quotes Jerry Kellman, one of Obama's friends as saying "Barry", as he was fondly called, was politically naïve, but idealistic. He had received his own fair share of the "national cake" of insults and racial discrimination while a pupil at Punachou, one of the biggest American private schools in Hawaii.
Most of his experiences are recorded in a book titled "Dreams from my father". A man whose father left him when he was still a boy cannot be expected to have fond memories of him.
The fact that Barack Sr., his father, remained a source of inspiration for his son even in his absence speaks volumes about Obama as a man of a tolerant and forgiving nature. His capacity for "dreaming" qualifies Obama as he socio political heir of Martin Luther King.
That he identified himself as a black when he has traces of the white colour in him is a rare quality which he shares with late Bob Marley, one of whose parents was a white and does incomparable good to the cause of the African American dream Obama's victory was anything but an accident.
Like every astute politician he outlined his objectives and set out to achieve them. His intellectual confidence built over the years of interaction with knowledgeable people was further strengthened with a law degree from the renowned Harvard University. Nobody who graduates from that school can be called a fool.
Obama The Pragmatist
The difference between a learned and an educated person is that the former is quite often an unrealistic "a bookful blockhead," with "lots of learned lumber in his head" while the educated employs his knowledge for practical ends. Obama began as an idealist and metamorphosed into a pragmatist.
As Smith remarks concerning his relationships with society as he grew up, most people were won over and often awed by his charms and his skills and especially, his lack of ego. Besides being a workaholic.
Obama is also moderate in his eating habits and prune to physical exercise. A youthful look can only linger in middle age by moderation. Obama is too much of a moderate to have grown lazy or obese. The youth identified themselves with him. That is why they registered massively and voted for him.
Candour As Best Ingredient Of Biography
There is nothing that destroys the strength of a biographical document as insincerity. A lie whether by act or omission is a lie all, the same. Obama shares this quality with Bill Clinton, his Democratic Predecessor. Clinton's candour was demonstrated during his campaign for his first mandate when he admitted having once taken drugs and rescued himself by saying he, found it wasn't good for him and so stopped the practice.
Clinton was frank enough to remind Americans that they needed a President, not a Pope.
Obama portrayed the same degree of candour when he admitted having once taken alcohol or even sniffed cocaine He justifies such an obnoxious conduct on grounds that he found the slang flung at him for being a Blackman too hard.
The fact that he chopped the habit after two years is a testimony of his strong will and the equal strength of his vision. An even greater degree found in his victory speech.
Obama And Change
Obama won his election on the platform of change. Fru Ndi did same in 1992. Effective change can only take place where there is a political will. If Africans are rejoicing over Obama's victory it is not only because they share a common colour with him. Obama's victory speech portrays him as a man who knows not only where he is coming from, but the direction he is going and the difficulties to be surmounted.
He said his victory was that of America and calls for collaboration.It is with the hope that change would come, especially to Africa, that most Africans welcome his victory.Lord Alfred Tennyson who recommends that the old order should change giving way to the new justifies his view by saying "one good custom can corrupt the world" It sounds paradoxical to say something good can corrupt.
What he means here is that anything, however good, would become obnoxious if it persists beyond an acceptable level. Bernard Shaw puts it more succinctly when he says the law of change is the law of God. Barack Obama was certainly God's candidate.
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