SOO MAAL Posted January 24, 2007 Barack Obama is tipped as a future US president and first black leader He told me that he was joining politics but I did not know his involvement would draw such international attention Sarah Hussein Obama While he could afford to rent a car... he squeezed into matatus [taxi buses] Said Hussein Obama US election makes waves in Kenya By Muliro Telewa BBC correspondent in Nairobi The prospects of an American of Kenyan descent becoming a US senator in November's elections has the politics-loving citizens of the East African country cheering. Barack Obama is tipped as a future US president and first black leader Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's candidate for Illinois, is the son of Barack Obama Sr, a senior economist in the Kenyan government, who died in a car accident in 1982. His father herded goats before winning a scholarship to study in the US and grew up in the rural village of Nyangoma Kogalo in Western Kenya, near the shores of Lake Victoria. Arriving in the village, people pointed out the direction of the Obamas' household. "Yes that is the home of the Obamas whose son is contesting a seat in the big American parliament," someone told us. He told me that he was joining politics but I did not know his involvement would draw such international attention Sarah Hussein Obama Barack Obama's grandmother Profile: Democrats' rising star The compound has three houses built from red bricks and corrugated iron - a sign of the middle class in rural areas. The first person we bumped into was Mr Obama Jr's uncle, Said Hussein Obama. He shows us the grave of his late brother, Mr Obama Sr, the decorated slabs of which are already peeling. Said Obama remembers his brother with nostalgia. "The late Dr Barack Obama was well educated. He was social. He always reached out to us wherever we needed him. He even assisted some of us, his brothers, to go to school," he says. As chickens foraged nearby, the 82-year-old grandmother of Mr Obama Jr pulled out a small sack filled with maize and poured it on the ground to dry in the pounding tropical heat. Proud Sarah Hussein Obama prays that her grandson wins a seat in the US Senate. "When I visited him in the United States he told me that he was joining politics but I did not know his involvement would draw such international attention," she says. While he could afford to rent a car... he squeezed into matatus [taxi buses] Said Hussein Obama Barack Obama's uncle When she learns that we are from the media, she pulls out three photo albums full of photographs of her "historic" tour of the US, UK and Germany. Then she proudly leads us into her seating room where she shows us the pictures on the walls of Barack Obama Jr, who is already being referred to in this lakeside town as "Senator". Barack Obama Jr was last in this tiny village in 1992 when he was accompanied by his wife. The photographs show him in the company of his grandmother carrying foodstuffs to the market to sell. Another shows him seated near a tiny grass thatched house with his uncle, Said Hussein Obama in 1987. A wedding picture of the young Barack also features prominently in his grandmother's album. Said Hussein Obama, who communicates with his now prominent nephew on the phone and through e-mail, says he remembers him as a young humble man when he came to Nyangoma Kogalo village in 1987 to do research for his autobiography. "While he could afford to rent a car to criss-cross Nyanza Province as he gathered material on his father, the young man, in his 20s then, squeezed into matatus [taxi buses]... that was his way of knowing the people," Said Hussein Obama says. Sleepless nights After my visit to the village, I checked into a hotel in nearby town of Kisumu, where I was caught up in the Obama mania. A person in the hotel room next to mine switched on his TV set rather loudly. Barack Obama's relatives are small-scale maize farmers I complained to the receptionist on the phone and she called me back three minutes later to explain my neighbour was watching the live speech by John Kerry, the US Democratic presidential candidate. "Your neighbour says he will switch off the TV after the live transmission," she said. The Obama family have also had a few sleepless nights monitoring the US campaign through the media. But they if they and the residents of Nyangoma Kogalo village had a vote in the US elections, they would not take longer than a moment to pick their man. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SOO MAAL Posted January 24, 2007 Just visiting for now - but will the White House soon be home? Profile: Barack Obama Just visiting for now - but will the White House soon be home? "Rock star" and "beach babe" are not labels normally applied to United States senators. But few senators have ever generated the kind of buzz associated with Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois. He is being tipped as a formidable candidate to replace George W Bush as president, although he will have spent only four years in Washington by Election Day 2008. He says he will announce on 10 February whether he will run for president in 2008. He first shot to national - and international - prominence with a speech that stirred the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, Mr Obama emphasised his personal history in a speech reflecting traditional American ideals of self-reliance and aspirations. "Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place - America, which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before," he said. BARACK OBAMA Born 4 Aug 1961 in Hawaii Studied law at Harvard Worked as a civil rights lawyer in Chicago Elected to the US Senate in 2004 Since his landslide election victory a few months later, he has become a media darling and one of the most visible figures in Washington. Time magazine headlined an October 2006 cover "Why Barack Obama could be the Next President", and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey urged him to declare his candidacy on her programme. His two books have both become best-sellers, and delirious crowds turned out to see him on the campaign trail for other Democrats in 2006. When he made his first trip to the state of New Hampshire - one of the first to choose its candidate for president - the governor joked that he had booked Mr Obama for an appearance because he would sell more tickets than the Rolling Stones. As a senator, he has established a firmly liberal voting record, but has also worked with Republican colleagues on issues such as Aids education and prevention. International upbringing Mr Obama is named after his father, who grew up in Kenya herding goats but gained a scholarship to study in Hawaii. There the Kenyan met and married Mr Obama's mother, who was living in Honolulu with her parents. Mr Obama wowed the 2004 Democratic National Convention When Mr Obama was a toddler, his father got a chance to study at Harvard but there was no money for the family to go with him. He later returned to Kenya alone, where he worked as a government economist, and the couple divorced. When Mr Obama was six, his mother, Ann, married an Indonesian man and the family moved to Jakarta. The boy lived there for four years, but then moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend school. Mr Obama went on to study political science at Columbia University in New York, and then moved to Chicago where he spent three years as a community organiser. In 1988 he left to attend Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. After Harvard, Mr Obama returned to Chicago to practise civil rights law, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination. He is married to a lawyer, Michelle, and they have two young daughters. Opposed invasion Mr Obama was an early critic of the Iraq war, speaking out against the prospect of war several months before the March 2003 invasion. When he addressed Democrats in Boston, he praised the men and women serving in Iraq, and said more should be done to financially support the families of those killed. "When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world," he said. Mr Obama often jokes that people are always getting his name wrong, calling him "Alabama" or "Yo Mama". The American cable station CNN was forced to apologise to him after it wrongly put his name on screen during a story about Osama Bin Laden. Supporters believe that one day, no-one will make that mistake. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Taako Man Posted January 24, 2007 The day a black president of the United States is allowed is the day a Muslim man becomes Secretary of State. Basically never. Barack is just a media tool to give increased attention to America's 'welcoming assimalation'. Otherwise Hillary is more likely a better candidate. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
