Obama’s ‘revolution’ brewed in the African pot of ‘ubuntu’

By Mangoa Mosota

US President Barack Obama’s successful run for the White House in 2008 was grounded in humanist philosophy, utu in Kiswahili, or ubuntu, as is commonly called in Bantu communities, an attribute well appreciated in most of Africa.

And Kenya, the land of Obama’s father, played a pivotal role in ingraining that principle in Obama through the steady base of his immediate and extended family.

Prof Horace Campbell, who was in the country this week to launch Barack Obama and Twenty-First-Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment In The USA provides interesting perspectives on the evolution of Obama from a community organiser to President.

Campbell, a political science professor at Syracuse University in US, is a pan-Africanist who spent most of his adult life in Africa, away from his land of birth, Jamaica.

He says Obama’s Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Obama, played a key role in making him understand the history of his grandfather, Hussein Onyango, and the Luo community at large.

Campbell enumerates the many challenges Obama faced in his quest for the presidency, including racism and economic crisis, which he refers to as economic terrorism engineered to plague his campaign.

Campbell extensively quotes Obama’s seminal autobiography, Dreams from My Father, to reinforce his arguments about Kenya having played a pivotal role in Obama’s evolution.

Five Great Women

"In the estimation of this writer," Campbell writes about Obama’s turning point by his father’s graveside, "This is when Obama made the decision that he was going to soar and be a beacon of light for the new relations between humans transcending race, ethnicity and religion."

In the book, the author brings out Obama’s appreciation of the five women who shaped his life, among them his white grandmother, fondly known as Toot, and mother. Campbell says the duo taught young Obama pragmatic tendencies that included being realistic about future tasks in his life.

Prof Horace Campbell with a book enthusiast and (inset) the book. Campbell was in Kenya to launch his book: Barack Obama and Twenty-First-Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment In The USA [PHOTO: Mangoa Mosota/STANDARD]