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76. The Audacity of Obama
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313 76 The Audacity of Obama Friday, 07 November 2008 Barack Obama is brighter by far than a star and the spectacular manner in which he has shot his way from the outhouse to the White House constitutes an unprecedented landmark in World History. He has made history as the first Blackman to become President of the United States. What makes the guy tick is a combination of character, charisma and composure. The prevailing socio-economic conditions in America have also been quite conducive. In the early days of the presidential campaign, he once said, in response to remarks about his stature, “I may be thin, but, I am tough. I come from Chicago!” At that moment I thought he really was going to need all the audacity of a Chicago gangster to knife his way through the rough terrain of political campaigning. That the son of an African (not African-American) father and an American mother had dared to consider running for the highest office in the United States required a driving force that is by far deeper and stronger than a mere belief in the American dream. It is a driving force that is anchored in old time religion, profound compassion, and full-blooded empathy. In his book published in 2006, “The Audacity of Hope” which can be considered as his political manifesto, Barack Obama explores the contours of his religious faith: “There are some things that I am absolutely sure about - the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.” He explains that “when I read the Bible, I do so with a belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelations…” While Obama keeps his mind open to new revelations, he says he is “not willing to accept a reading 314 of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.” In short, he believes that the Biblical injunction that “Love thy neighbour as thyself” and the lesson drawn from the parable of the good Samaritan form the core of the guiding principles for all humanity and do not lend themselves to any ambiguous interpretations. Obama’s bid for the American presidency did not emerge on the spur of some whimsical urge to undertake an adventure for the sake of adventure. His bid was rooted in a well calculated design to shatter the centuries-old myth of racism and racial stereotypes. Obama’s audacity is rooted in the ancient iconoclastic tradition of Prometheus, the anti-slavery advocacy of Graville Sharp, Clarkson, and William Wilberforce - all white men who gave meaning to the religious assertion that all men are equal in the eyes of God. They were encouraged in this by a little known black slave from Nigeria, Olaudah, Equiano aka Gustav Vassa, who bought his freedom and wrote an account in 1788 (the first novel by an African) of his experience of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. What Obama has done is to accomplish the centuries-old belief of the founding founders of the United States, the Thomas Jeffersons, Alexander Hamiltons, Benjamin Franklins, the architects of the American Constitution (the Federalist Papers) also unequivocally declared that “we hold this truth as self-evident that all men are created equal…” What Obama has done is to accomplish the decades-old dream of the black civil rights leaders, the Martin Luther Kings, W.E.B. Du Bois; African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela; Black Power activists like Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Malcom X who all swore by the principle of the equality of man. Breaking away from the shackles of racism, man’s most dangerous myth, has been the most difficult step Obama had to overcome to undertake his short, but daunting walk to the White House, the path to which had been partially cleared by an earlier pathfinder, the Reverend Jesse Jackson in 1984. [3.237.186.170] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:31 GMT) 315 In his recollection of the funeral for Rosa Parks, the black seamstress who sparked off the civil rights movement by refusing to surrender her seat in a bus to a white boy in 1955, Obama had this to say: “The choir sang; the pastor said an opening prayer. Former President Bill Clinton rose to speak and began to describe what it had...