GBC Radio/TV News Commentary.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 on the inauguration of President Obama
Today, a most unlikely person, Barack Hussein Obama, begins a new job as President of the United States of America. With that, the global community at long last gets a new leader with mosaic racial make-up – a half-white half-black with American and African origins who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii. He is not the average African-American borne out of painful slave origins. Yet, he is a fulfillment of the dreams of offspring of slaves who, against all odds, have carried the hope that one day, they will overcome. This life is not a dress rehearsal. It is a journey with phases, challenges, opportunities and triumphs. Obama’s name sake, his father, Dr. Barack Obama from Kenya went to study in America on his life’s journey. While there, he had a son. But he left him behind in America to be raised by his white American maternal grandparents. Obama met his father only once at the age of ten. So his father played no role in his upbringing. But the boy survived and thrived out of sheer hard work and perseverance, and grace.
America has been on a journey too. In its 232 year-old history of tried and tested democracy, America has struggled with the sinister issue of race. Enters Obama, who today, begins a journey in high hopes for the future of America and the world. At age 47, he is carrying along a nation and indeed the world with him on a journey of hope for change. Incredible! The interest in him is immense. The excitement is infectious. Many people from Japan to Ireland are claiming him. But especially among people of the Black race, Obama’s ascendancy to power resonates deeply. In Africa and in the African Diaspora of slave descendants, and in slums across the world of the underprivileged, there is joy that at long last, one of our own is ascending to public office as the most important world leader.
His campaign mantra, “Yes, we can,” should become the motto of Africa and Blacks in the Diaspora. If Obama can, so can we. Obama did not accomplish this outstanding feat by being lazy. He worked for it. He stayed in school and did the hard work of studying, with his eyes on the prize. He took strategic moves on his career path.
After graduating from the prestigious Harvard Law School, he took a job in the trenches as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago, a tough neighbourhood. He could have pursued jobs in the high-flying corporate world with big salaries. Instead, his served in difficult circumstances, giving of himself to the needy and troubled. While doing that, he was investing in himself to receive intangible results. It paid off. Much of the success of his presidential campaign can be attributed to his unique organizing skills at the grassroots.
Africa is also on a journey. The solutions to the challenges of poverty and peaceful co-existence appear to elude this continent. The excitement across Africa about Obama is centred on racial pride. But clearly, there is also the expectation that with Obama – a fellow brother, cousin, uncle, father or son in the highest office in the most powerful country of the world, our problems will be paid greater and much deserved attention. Some of us might even be expecting manna to drop down from heaven into our wide-open mouths and balm to drip into our festering wounds. From our dependency mindset, we might be expecting Obama to lay the red carpet of help for Africa, unimpeded.
But Obama’s ascendency to the Presidency should not be reduced to stretching out Africa’s long hands for help. The significance of his Presidency should lie in the intangible things his life teaches. He is personable, exudes confidence, inspiring and persuasive about his values. But most importantly, he is someone who refused to be trapped in the limitations of race and deprivations and attach himself to excuses for failure. His successes did not happen by chance. It is the result of strategic investments of a life-time.
The key lesson from Obama’s success for black youth across the world, and in Africa in particular, is that to be successful, you must invest in yourself. Self-investment entails systematically building on what you have, avoiding instant gratification of rapid results and hurriedly claiming success when success is not ripe. After all, success is preparation meeting opportunity.
Today should also be a day of pride and a celebration of grandmothers, the unsung heroines in the lives of many children. Many grandmothers step in to parent children whose parents walk away for one reason or another. Obama, an Exhibit A of Africa to the world, was abandoned by his father. This should be a sore point of embarrassment for African men, especially the irresponsible fathers who walk away from their offspring, expecting women to toil alone to do the difficult job of child-raising. Then, long after the fact, they show up to gloat in glory to which they did not contribute.
With Obama, America has chosen a fresh start. He has called America for a new declaration of independence. This is a call for a renewal of faith and of old expectations. Africa and Ghana should take a cue and see this historical moment as the beginning of a movement to rekindle the dreams and hopes that powered the fight for independence for which many died. True, we have had many false starts. The road to political and economic independence has not been easy. We have many flashpoints of political strive and of debilitating poverty which at times are devoid of hope. But the human capacity to endure and to rise above challenges is immense. So therefore regardless of all our difficulties, Yes – we too, can.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 on the inauguration of President Obama
Today, a most unlikely person, Barack Hussein Obama, begins a new job as President of the United States of America. With that, the global community at long last gets a new leader with mosaic racial make-up – a half-white half-black with American and African origins who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii. He is not the average African-American borne out of painful slave origins. Yet, he is a fulfillment of the dreams of offspring of slaves who, against all odds, have carried the hope that one day, they will overcome. This life is not a dress rehearsal. It is a journey with phases, challenges, opportunities and triumphs. Obama’s name sake, his father, Dr. Barack Obama from Kenya went to study in America on his life’s journey. While there, he had a son. But he left him behind in America to be raised by his white American maternal grandparents. Obama met his father only once at the age of ten. So his father played no role in his upbringing. But the boy survived and thrived out of sheer hard work and perseverance, and grace.
America has been on a journey too. In its 232 year-old history of tried and tested democracy, America has struggled with the sinister issue of race. Enters Obama, who today, begins a journey in high hopes for the future of America and the world. At age 47, he is carrying along a nation and indeed the world with him on a journey of hope for change. Incredible! The interest in him is immense. The excitement is infectious. Many people from Japan to Ireland are claiming him. But especially among people of the Black race, Obama’s ascendancy to power resonates deeply. In Africa and in the African Diaspora of slave descendants, and in slums across the world of the underprivileged, there is joy that at long last, one of our own is ascending to public office as the most important world leader.
His campaign mantra, “Yes, we can,” should become the motto of Africa and Blacks in the Diaspora. If Obama can, so can we. Obama did not accomplish this outstanding feat by being lazy. He worked for it. He stayed in school and did the hard work of studying, with his eyes on the prize. He took strategic moves on his career path.
After graduating from the prestigious Harvard Law School, he took a job in the trenches as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago, a tough neighbourhood. He could have pursued jobs in the high-flying corporate world with big salaries. Instead, his served in difficult circumstances, giving of himself to the needy and troubled. While doing that, he was investing in himself to receive intangible results. It paid off. Much of the success of his presidential campaign can be attributed to his unique organizing skills at the grassroots.
Africa is also on a journey. The solutions to the challenges of poverty and peaceful co-existence appear to elude this continent. The excitement across Africa about Obama is centred on racial pride. But clearly, there is also the expectation that with Obama – a fellow brother, cousin, uncle, father or son in the highest office in the most powerful country of the world, our problems will be paid greater and much deserved attention. Some of us might even be expecting manna to drop down from heaven into our wide-open mouths and balm to drip into our festering wounds. From our dependency mindset, we might be expecting Obama to lay the red carpet of help for Africa, unimpeded.
But Obama’s ascendency to the Presidency should not be reduced to stretching out Africa’s long hands for help. The significance of his Presidency should lie in the intangible things his life teaches. He is personable, exudes confidence, inspiring and persuasive about his values. But most importantly, he is someone who refused to be trapped in the limitations of race and deprivations and attach himself to excuses for failure. His successes did not happen by chance. It is the result of strategic investments of a life-time.
The key lesson from Obama’s success for black youth across the world, and in Africa in particular, is that to be successful, you must invest in yourself. Self-investment entails systematically building on what you have, avoiding instant gratification of rapid results and hurriedly claiming success when success is not ripe. After all, success is preparation meeting opportunity.
Today should also be a day of pride and a celebration of grandmothers, the unsung heroines in the lives of many children. Many grandmothers step in to parent children whose parents walk away for one reason or another. Obama, an Exhibit A of Africa to the world, was abandoned by his father. This should be a sore point of embarrassment for African men, especially the irresponsible fathers who walk away from their offspring, expecting women to toil alone to do the difficult job of child-raising. Then, long after the fact, they show up to gloat in glory to which they did not contribute.
With Obama, America has chosen a fresh start. He has called America for a new declaration of independence. This is a call for a renewal of faith and of old expectations. Africa and Ghana should take a cue and see this historical moment as the beginning of a movement to rekindle the dreams and hopes that powered the fight for independence for which many died. True, we have had many false starts. The road to political and economic independence has not been easy. We have many flashpoints of political strive and of debilitating poverty which at times are devoid of hope. But the human capacity to endure and to rise above challenges is immense. So therefore regardless of all our difficulties, Yes – we too, can.
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