Something Went Terribly Right

President Elect Barack Obama

Maybe it’s because he is such a charismatic character that some Neo-conservatives in America have already branded Barack Obama the antichrist. Others say he’s an undercover Muslim committed to the destruction of America’s religious freedom, although the evidence for this is flimsy; his middle name is Hussein. One commentator I came across on Pat Robertson’s website said, ‘I fully believe that a Muslim has been elected President, and please don't insult God by saying, “Pray for his regime!” Why don't I just bow down and pray for Satan? The Christian world needs to be alerted to an antichrist mentality.’

Setting all that aside, the thing that’s undeniably fascinating about the man is not just that he’s the first black incumbent at the White House, it’s his background, so many aspects of which could easily have ruled him out of fulfilling the American Dream.

Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii in August 1961, his father was a Kenyan; as an avowed atheist he saw himself as a failed Muslim. When Barack – Barry he was called in his youth, was two his father left the family to study in Harvard leaving Ann Dunham to bring up two children as a single mother. The Obamas divorced when young Barack was two and the boy saw his father again only once when he was ten, just before Barack Obama senior was killed in a car crash.

When he was six his mother married an Indonesian man and the family moved to Jakarta, but after four years it was thought it would be better for him to move back to Honolulu, which he did, and he lived with his Grandma ‘Toot’, short for ‘Tutu’, the Hawaiian word for Granny. She is credited with shaping him; almost single handedly making him the man he is today, and yet by a cruel twist of fate she died the day before the people of America voted him as their President.

It could be that the young Obama inherited his drive and passion from his mother; she began her working life as a weaver in a textile factory, but at the age of 50 she earned a PhD from the University of Hawaii. Interestingly her dissertation was entitled; Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving and thriving against all odds. She died two years later of ovarian cancer.

The young Obama took out loans to put himself through school and when he finished college he worked for a time in Christian churches in Chicago, helping to improve the living conditions of people plagued by crime and high unemployment, and at that point he decided that on-the-ground social action was not enough, change needed to come from the top.

There were always more reasons for Barack Obama to fail than to ‘survive and thrive against all the odds’ and yet today he stands with the potential to be the most powerful man in the world. Is there something in his genes that made him confront rather than succumb to threats and challenges? Was it the role Granny Toot played in his life? Or was it the time he spent working with his underprivileged ‘bothers’ in Chicago that cemented his resolve to do something. More likely it’s a combination of these and many other factors. One thing’s for sure though; his story demonstrates that one man, in the right place at the right time with the courage to seize the day will always achieve far more than a thousand who talk, analyse and apportion blame. For Barack Obama, November 4th 2008 was just another occasion when something went terribly right.  

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