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Kenya: What the Global Left Can Learn From Obama's Victory

Onyango Oloo

13 November 2008

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opinion

Through examining the broader context behind the recent US election, Onyango Oloo argues that Barack Obama's emergence as an exceptional figure of leadership is to a great extent circumstantial.

In his timeless historical appeal, the new president-elect merits comparison with Nelson Mandela and will likely be remembered favourably by posterity regardless of the potential ineffectiveness of his policy over the long-term. Situating Obama's victory within a broader political move across the Americas towards left-wing governance - notably in Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia - Oloo contends that the real challenge for forces of the global Left will centre on building on and exploring the successes of a veritable popular movement for democratic reform.

On the Friday after the historic Tuesday, Kenyans were still ululating and gyrating to the beat of the Obama presidential landslide. There was a public holiday decreed by our doddering head of state (forgetting for a moment that Kibaki himself stole an equally fiercely contested election just a few months ago), while a market-savvy brewer promoted one of its labels from senator to president (albeit in a limited edition). In the same spirit, a backstreet smarts guerrilla music producer unleashed a breaking news Benga-tinged praise song awash with brand new footage from the Grant Park site of the acceptance speech by Illinois's most famous politician, and in the classifieds at the very back of the daily newspapers, an innovative 'Obama Sale' to entice and pamper politically primed penny pinchers appeared, while in the maternity wards of Kenya we saw the appearance of instant Baracks and Barakas, including a fresh pair of fraternal Kisumu twins with the monikers Michelle and Barack. And on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation's Kiswahili Service, an Obama campaign ditty by Trinidad's legendary calypso griot Mighty Sparrow continues the spirit of elation...

But in our excitement, some of us have propelled Obama to near messianic, almost mythical heights, even though the man himself (and his very down to earth spouse) frequently reminded his huge audiences that he is a very fallible human being with more than a couple of foibles just like the rest of us. In once in a life time global moments like this, we must pause and revisit the phenomenon of outstanding leaders and the historical circumstances which propel them to the national and world stages. It is my argument that if Barack Obama had never been born 47 years ago, history would still have invented him. Now, I know that I have just uttered what to some is a confusing and cryptic remark. What I am saying is that the concrete historical and material circumstances in the United States provided the fertiliser that allowed a neophyte first-time African-American senator like Barack Obama to knock on the doors of destiny in the early 21st century.

After eight years of the fascist, neoconservative and neoliberal Bush administration it was almost imperative that a leader would arise as an antidote to all those years of jingoistic and militaristic insanity, those delusions of prosperity spurred by oodles of snake oil from the crass neoliberal salesmen of global monopoly capitalism and the gross xenophobia of the bloodthirsty racists who denigrated Arabs and other people of colour using the canards of the Bush Doctrine. The specific set of socio-economic and political circumstances created the pre-conditions that allowed the talents, the vim, the fervour, the vigour, the inspiration, the charisma of a biracial Illinois constitutional professor turned senator to galvanise a grass roots movement and drive the pilots of the MV Project for a New American Century out of town and straight into the dustbins of political rejection. Remember, Obama has been living on this planet for almost half a century now. Eight years ago he failed miserably in his bid to be a member of the US Congress. Today he is on the brink of making history.

What is the difference? The time. Or rather the timing of his remarkable rise. It was important for Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and co. to rise to power to enable Obama to make history.

He is a leader who is needed in the United States at this time. In the future there will be other Obamas who may or may not even make it past their local counties and state legislatures. That is what I meant when I said a moment ago that if Obama had never been born, the disaster known as the Bush reign of terror would have created him anyway. Philosophically, I am very much influenced by Marxist thought and I agree wholeheartedly with the excerpt I have included at length below:

'The role of great men [and women - Oloo] in history can be understood only by examining their activity in relation to the class struggle, to the activity of large social groups and to the struggle between these groups. Outstanding public men [and women - Oloo] are not the creators of events and movements but the leaders of the masses, of social classes. The support they receive from large social groups is, in fact, the source of their strength. No matter how gifted and intelligent these leaders may be in themselves, without such support they are powerless and incapable of exercising any significant influence on the course of events... Whether people with exceptional abilities come to the fore or not is inseparably connected with the operation of historical law.

'There are always talented, gifted people in society. But only the appearance of a social need for people possessing certain capabilities, certain qualities of mind and character, can bring such people to the fore and create the necessary conditions for this. This is seen particularly strikingly in an epoch of revolutions, when hundreds of thousands of people come to direct public affairs, people who shortly before were quite unknown and who under the conditions of the old system could find no application of their talents and abilities. In exactly the same way the social demand in time of war creates conditions for the promotion of people possessing qualities of generalship. Who it is who comes to the fore under certain social conditions remains, of course, a matter of chance, the actual fact of the promotion of people whose qualities correspond to the needs of the age has the character of a natural law... Whether a particular outstanding public figure arises or not is a matter of chance, but this does not mean that anybody could occupy his (or her) place and carry out (their) historical mission. To perform that task appropriate qualities and abilities are needed. It is usually therefore people possessing such qualities to a greater or lesser degree who come to the fore as leaders...'(1)

In other words, what I am also saying is that students of Obama-mania must also examine the role that US progressive forces, particularly anti-war activists, radical democrats, anti-racists, feminists, LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Sexual-Transsexual) foot soldiers, youth advocates, environmentalists and other militant groups have played in confronting the excesses of Bush and his big business supporters. We must factor in democratic and anti-imperialist forces around the world, from Latin America, to Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean, North America and Europe who have mobilised and organised against the neoliberal global agenda. It is not an accident that there were 200,000 people in Berlin to drink in Barack Obama's every word a few months ago. In today's globalised world, we are all Americans to the extent that US imperialist policies impact on every one of our countries and therefore we all had a life and death stake in helping decide whom the next occupant of the White House will be.

Lest we forget, Obama's triumph is not an isolated incident in the Americas. It follows the consolidation of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, the success of the Movement Towards Socialism in Bolivia under Evo Morales - himself of indigenous stock, the ascendancy to the presidency in Paraguay of a left-wing outsider and pro-poor priest, a strike against the IMF and the World Bank in Ecuador and Argentina by progressive regimes, and the repeated success of Lula da Silva, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), and popular forces in Brazil (even with its centrist drift lately).

It is sweet but stale news by now that the world's candidate for the US presidency has prevailed, like Muhammad Ali in an unforgettable gruelling bout against a McCain-Sonny Liston from the yesteryears of the American political establishment.

Yes, let us savour that epic victory that is set to define an aspect of this epoch.

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