Obama, the African Colonial

American Thinker ^ | June 25, 2009 | L.E. Ikenga

[neverdem]

Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa.

Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western ideology, Marxism. I call such frustrated and angry modern Africans who embrace various foreign "isms", instead of looking homeward for repair of societies that are broken, African Colonials. They are Africans who serve foreign ideas.

The tropes of America's racial history as a way of understanding all things black are useless in understanding the man who got his dreams from his father, a Kenyan exemplar of the African Colonial.

Before I continue, I need to say this: I am a first generation born West African-American woman whose parents emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970's from the country now called Nigeria. I travel to Nigeria frequently. I see myself as both a proud American and as a proud Igbo (the tribe that we come from -- also sometimes spelled Ibo). Politically, I have always been conservative (though it took this past election for me to commit to this once and for all!); my conservative values come from my Igbo heritage and my place of birth. Of course, none of this qualifies me to say what I am about to -- but at the same time it does.

My friends, despite what CNN and the rest are telling you, Barack Obama is nothing more than an old school African Colonial who is on his way to turning this country into one of the developing nations that you learn about on the National Geographic Channel. Many conservative (East, West, South, North) African-Americans like myself -- those of us who know our history -- have seen this movie before. Here are two main reasons why many Americans allowed Obama to slip through the cracks despite all of his glaring inconsistencies:

First, Obama has been living on American soil for most of his adult life. Therefore, he has been able to masquerade as one who understands and believes in American democratic ideals. But he does not. Barack Obama is intrinsically undemocratic and as his presidency plays out, this will become more obvious. Second, and most importantly, too many Americans know very little about Africa. The one-size-fits-all understanding that many Americans (both black and white) continue to have of Africa might end up bringing dire consequences for this country.

Contrary to the way it continues to be portrayed in mainstream Western culture, Africa is not a continent that can be solely defined by AIDS, ethnic rivalries, poverty and safaris. Africa, like any other continent, has an immense history defined by much diversity and complexity. Africa's long-standing relationship with Europe speaks especially to some of these complexities -- particularly the relationship that has existed between the two continents over the past two centuries. Europe's complete colonization of Africa during the nineteenth century, also known as the Scramble for Africa, produced many unfortunate consequences, the African colonial being one of them.

The African colonial (AC) is a person who by means of their birth or lineage has a direct connection with Africa. However, unlike Africans like me, their worldviews have been largely shaped not by the indigenous beliefs of a specific African tribe but by the ideals of the European imperialism that overwhelmed and dominated Africa during the colonial period. AC's have no real regard for their specific African traditions or histories.  AC's use aspects of their African culture as one would use pieces of costume jewelry: things of little or no value that can be thoughtlessly discarded when they become a negative distraction, or used on a whim to decorate oneself in order to seem exotic. (Hint: Obama's Muslim heritage).

On the other hand, AC's strive to be the best at the culture that they inherited from Europe. Throughout the West, they are tops in their professions as lawyers, doctors, engineers, Ivy League professors and business moguls; this is all well and good. It's when they decide to engage us as politicians that things become messy and convoluted.

The African colonial politician (ACP) feigns repulsion towards the hegemonic paradigms of Western civilization. But at the same time, he is completely enamored of the trappings of its aristocracy or elite culture. The ACP blames and caricatures whitey to no end for all that has gone wrong in the world. He convinces the masses that various forms of African socialism are the best way for redressing the problems that European colonialism motivated in Africa. However, as opposed to really being a hard-core African Leftist who actually believes in something, the ACP uses socialist themes as a way to disguise his true ambitions: a complete power grab whereby the "will of the people" becomes completely irrelevant.

Barack Obama is all of the above. The only difference is that he is here playing (colonial) African politics as usual.  

In his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father -- an eloquent piece of political propaganda -- Obama styles himself as a misunderstood intellectual who is deeply affected by the sufferings of black people, especially in America and Africa. In the book, Obama clearly sees himself as an African, not as a black American. And to prove this, he goes on a quest to understand his Kenyan roots. He is extremely thoughtful of his deceased father's legacy; this provides the main clue for understanding Barack Obama.

Barack Obama Sr. was an African colonial to the core; in his case, the apple did not fall far from the tree. All of the telltale signs of Obama's African colonialist attitudes are on full display in the book -- from his feigned antipathy towards Europeans to his view of African tribal associations as distracting elements that get in the way of "progress".  (On p. 308 of Dreams From My Father, Obama says that African tribes should be viewed as an "ancient loyalties".)

Like imperialists of Old World Europe, the ACP sees their constituents not as free thinking individuals who best know how to go about achieving and creating their own means for success. Instead, the ACP sees his constituents as a flock of ignorant sheep that need to be led -- oftentimes to their own slaughter.

Like the European imperialist who spawned him, the ACP is a destroyer of all forms of democracy.

Here are a few examples of what the British did in order to create (in 1914) what is now called Nigeria and what Obama is doing to you: 

1. Convince the people that "clinging" to any aspect of their cultural (tribal) identity or history is bad and regresses the process of "unity". British Imperialists deeply feared people who were loyal to anything other than the state. "Tribalism" made the imperialists have to work harder to get people to just fall in line. Imperialists pitted tribes against each other in order to create chaos that they then blamed on ethnic rivalry. Today many "educated" Nigerians, having believed that their traditions were irrelevant, remain completely ignorant of their ancestry and the history of their own tribes.
2. Confiscate the wealth and resources of the area that you govern by any means necessary in order to redistribute wealth. The British used this tactic to present themselves as empathetic and benevolent leaders who wanted everyone to have a "fair shake". Imperialists are not interested in equality for all. They are interested in controlling all.  
3. Convince the masses that your upper-crust university education naturally puts you on an intellectual plane from which to understand everything even when you understand nothing. Imperialists were able to convince the people that their elite university educations allowed them to understand what Africa needed. Many of today's Nigerians-having followed that lead-hold all sorts of degrees and certificates-but what good are they if you can't find a job?   
4. Lie to the people and tell them that progress is being made even though things are clearly becoming worse.  One thing that the British forgot to mention to their Nigerian constituents was that one day, the resources that were being used to engineer "progress" (which the British had confiscated from the Africans to begin with!) would eventually run out. After WWII, Western Europe could no longer afford to hold on to their African colonies. So all of the counterfeit countries that the Europeans created were then left high-and-dry to fend for themselves. This was the main reason behind the African independence movements of the1950 and 60's. What will a post-Obama America look like?
5. Use every available media outlet to perpetuate the belief that you and your followers are the enlightened ones-and that those who refuse to support you are just barbaric, uncivilized, ignorant curmudgeons.  This speaks for itself.

America, don't be fooled. The Igbos were once made up of a confederacy of clans that ascribed to various forms of democratic government. They took their eyes off the ball and before they knew it, the British were upon them. Also, understand this: the African colonial who is given too much political power can only become one thing: a despot.

L.E. Ikenga can be reached at leikenga@gmail.com.

[lentulusgracchus]

Excellent essay, fresh perspectives.

Perhaps Obama (explicated in this essay) offers a new sort of reverse prism through which to see afresh purely Western credentialed exploiters (Noam Chomsky calls them "New Mandarins") like the Clintons and their crew, and the floating party/craps game of lotus-eaters called the United Nations commissariat.

Perhaps that is why Obama is so comfortable with signing on Clintonistas en masse in his Administration.

[lentulusgracchus]

The Republican implosion is the only thing that made this wretch of a “president” possible.

And now we know what the installation of the hack Denny Hastert in the Speakership has cost the country. Well, partly cost ..... no telling what the full bill will be. Or whether it will be all payable in cash, or in part, in blood and tears.

[hershey]

Bingo.

[Gemsbok]

obumpa

[Bluebird Singing]

Because he’s an overgrown, identity-seeking, narcissistic adolescent.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Oh, just great! We have our own Robert Mugabe!

Instead of expropriating farms Obama is expropriating auto manufacturers.

[Fred Nerks]

GHANAS 50TH BIRTHDAY

The Rise & Fall & Rise of Pan-Africanism

...One day in 1961, a 93-year-old man from Western Massachusetts named W.E.B. Du Bois picked up and relocated to Ghana, a newly independent state in West Africa. Cold War hysteria had stripped him of his freedom and turned him into a pariah in his own country. Suspecting his Communist affiliations, Joseph McCarthy set his sights on Du Bois and the State Department went so far as to strip him of his passport for six years in the 1950s.

Two years after his passport was restored to him, Du Bois severed his ties to the United States. While he goes down in history as one of the most influential African-American intellectuals, he chose to die an African citizen. “I have returned that my dust shall mingle with the dust of my forefathers,” he wrote to a Ghanaian official at the time. Ghana in 1961 was still riding high on the euphoria of its liberation from Britain four years earlier...

Subject: Delegates from Junior NAACP, Cleveland, with W. E. B. Du Bois Date: 1929

Subject: Du Bois attending President Nkrumah’s Inauguration, Accra, Ghana Date: 1960 July 1

Subject: Du Bois, W. E. B. with Tang Ming-Chao, Ting Hsi-lin, Chu Poshem, Mao Tse-tung, Anna Louise Strong Date: ca.1959

Subject: Du Bois, W. E. B., shaking hands with Nikita Khrushchev; Shirley Graham Du Bois in background Date: ca.1958

Subject: Du Bois, W. E. B., and Paul Robeson, Salle Pleyel, Paris, World Peace Congress Date: 1949 April 20

Du Bois: A Chronology:

1945 Attends founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco as representative of the NAACP.

1948 Co-chairman, Council on African Affairs.

1950 Chairman, Peace Information Center in New York City; candidate for U.S. Senate for New York Progressive Party. Wife, Nina Gomer Du Bois, dies and is buried in Great Barrington.

1951 Indictment, trial, and acquittal of subversive activities charges brought against him by the Justice Department; marries Shirley Graham.

1951-1959 Extensive speaking, writing, and international travel; wins Lenin Peace Prize in 1958.

1961 Becomes member of the Communist Party, U.S.A. Invited to Ghana by President Kwame Nkrumah to edit the Encyclopedia Africana.

1963 Becomes citizen of Ghana. Dies on August 27th and is buried with a state funeral in Accra. Du Bois’s death is announced by Roy Wilkins of the NAACP as the March on Washington begins on August 28th.

PAUL ROBESON. MBOYA. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT.

MAYA ANGELOU - MALCOLM X

Developing a brother/sister relationship with Malcolm X has been very important to me.

Because Mr. Malcolm X came to Africa, and I was able, along with others, to help him to meet all of the Africans of power in Ghana at the time.

maya angelou bio

In New York, she fell in love with the South African civil rights activist Vusumzi Make and in 1960, the couple moved, with Angelou's son, to Cairo, Egypt. In Cairo, Angelou served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. Angelou and Guy later moved to Ghana, where she joined a thriving group of African American expatriates. She served as an instructor and assistant administrator at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times and the Ghanaian Broadcasting Company.

Malcolm X - Black American History, a history of black people in the United States.

He also began developing an independent Pan-Africanist and, in some respects, "Third World" political perspective during the 1950s, when anticolonial wars and decolonization (see Decolonization in Africa: An Interpretation) were pressing public issues. As early as 1954 Malcolm X gave a speech comparing the situation in Vietnam (see Vietnam War) with that of the Mau Mau Rebellion in colonial Kenya, framing both of these movements as uprisings of the "darker races" creating a "tidal wave" against U.S. and European imperialism. Indeed, Africa remained his primary political interest outside of black America. He toured Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana in 1959, well before his famous trip to Africa and the Middle East in 1964.

MALCOLM X-BARACK OBAMA-OGINGA ODINGA

When Malcolm visited African in 1964 he visited Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It was during that trip that he met with Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta, Uganda’s president Dr. Milton Obote, President Julius K. Nyerere and Muhammad Babu of Tanzania. Babu, Malcolm and Leroi Jones (now Amiri Baraka) held a meeting during this period in New York City. Malcolm talked about meeting President Kenyatta, Malcolm however, was also aware of Kenya ’s Oginga Odinga.

OGINGA ODINGA. KENYETTA. MBOYA.

MALCOM X IN AFRICA

OGINGA & MALCOLM X

OGINGA ODINGA, FATHER OF RAILA ODINGA

Odinga sat on the edge of his chair and leaned forward, facing Joe and I. He told us of his visit to America and how American Freedom Fighters--civil rights activists had secretly visited with him in Atlanta as he was under State Department security control. He told us how the famous American Freedom Fighter, Malcom X had embraced him (Odinga) and that there was even a song written in America called, "Oginga Odinga of Kenya."

KENYAN STUDENT AIRLIFT

Airlift students withTom Mboya (fourth right), Gloria and Gordon Hagberg (second and third right

Their cook was Hussein Onyango Obama, none other than the paternal grandfather of President Obama. Gloria recalls the times Hussein’s son, the youthful student Barack Obama Sr, would visit their house, announcing: “I’ve come to see the old man!”

TO BE CONTINUED.

[Tax-chick]

bttt

[arasina]

[hsalaw]

I meant philosophicaly, not physically.

[Thommas]

(Waaaauugh!) Oh, why won’t these (whuh - whuh - whuh) dry heaves (Ghaaaaaph) stop already?

[greyfoxx39]

Political ping

To be added to a LOW VOLUME political ping, just let me know.

[chpmass]

I 100% agree about Obama being a WEIRD guy bit. Great article and well worth the read.

[Tax-chick]

bttt

[LucyT]

Thanks Fred Nerks. Interesting post; good photos. Bookmarked, and Linked to The Long Thread.

Ping to article, also #18 & #27.

[Spunky]

What an interesting web that has been woven.

[Fred Nerks]

CONTINUATION.

Senator John F. Kennedy and the Kenyan nationalist leader Tom Mboya speak to reporters after their meeting on July 26, 1960, in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Mboya had asked Kennedy to intercede with the State Department for funds to transport African students to the United States. Instead, Kennedy secured funds from a charity his family controlled. Photograph by Boston Herald American in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY.LINK

On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, black leaders recognized the need for aid to African education. With the encouragement of American civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, the Kenyan Tom Mboya organized the African-American Students Foundation (aasf), which awarded Kenyan students scholarships for study in the United States. This photograph shows the Kenyan students arriving at Idlewild Airport in New York in September 1959 as participants in the first “African Airlift.” Courtesy Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Jackie Robinson Papers.

[25] Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, and Jackie Robinson appeal letter, Aug. 24, 1959, box 3, Robinson Papers; Smith, “East African Airlifts of 1959, 1960, and 1961,” 25–43. Barack Obama wrote that his father “had been selected by Kenyan leaders and American sponsors to attend a university in the United States,” but a list of the students who landed in New York on September 9, 1959, does not contain the name of the elder Obama. Tom Shachtman, working in the African-American Students Foundation (aasf) papers for a book on the airlifts, has found that the elder Obama came in 1959 with support from the aasf but appears to have been routed a different way as he made his way to the University of Hawaii. Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York, 1995), 9; “Eighty-One Kenya Airlift Students Arrived New York Sept. 9th 1959,” box 3, Robinson Papers; Tom Shachtman telephone interview by James H. Meriwether, Aug. 19, 2008, notes (confirmed via e-mail by Shachtman) (in James H. Meriwether’s possession).

THE FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS NETWORK

“Davis’s initial contacts with Hawaiiall had extremely strong ILWU ties. (Communist party member) Paul Robeson’s own Hawaiiacquaintances, which he passed on to Davis, insured that ‘when I came over, one of the first things that I got involved with―well, I met all the ILWU brass, (Communist Party executive committee member) Jack Hall and all of them, and I went―they had both of us over to various functions for them―Harriet Bouslog (Communist Party executive committee member) was also a good friend.’”

Taken at face value, this undated image shows a welcome at arrival in Hawaii. If it's 1959, what is Stanley Armour Dunham doing there?

ILWU HAWAII

Barack Obama (senior) was one of the featured speakers at a Mother’s Peace Rally in Ala Moana Park on Sunday May 13, 1962. ILWU leaders, including Jack Hall, joined the march and rally. Obama, an African student from Kenya studying economics at the University of Hawaii Afro-American Affairs Institute, told the crowd of 350, “Anything which relieves military spending will help us...Peace will release great resources...”

to be continued.

[mojitojoe]

Thank you, good read! It describes the usurper in chief to a T. Now what do we do about it? We know what’s going on, what do we do?

[neverdem]

I meant philosophicaly, not physically.

Why did you think I wrote: "So, hate whitey," IIRC. Go to the source that I linked. It's all about politics and political gain.

[neverdem]

Thank you, good read! It describes the usurper in chief to a T. Now what do we do about it? We know what’s going on, what do we do?

Tea Parties and take back a spendthrift Congress for starters.