Sunday, December 21, 2008 Ramos: Pacific islander Baracko ’Bama: New leadership paradigm By Former President Fidel V. Ramos (First of 2 Parts)
OUR two recent columns on Guam underscored the anxieties of Americans, the Guamanians included, over the deepening economic recession. Nevertheless, the people of Guam – being among the more progressive and modernized Pacific Islanders as the Hawaiians – but different from the islanders of the independent but less developed states of Fiji, Kiribati and Vanuatu – entertain hopes for some measure of salvation with the coming Presidency of Barack Obama. If those on Guam, the Marianas, Hawaii and Micronesia are cautiously optimistic instead of being totally downhearted, as are the workers in the giant big 3 corporations of the automotive industry on the US mainland, it is probably because of their general belief that Obama, as leader of the US and the Free World, indeed, can effect positive change.
The advent of Barack Obama should be welcomed by Filipinos, given his liberal, anti-race prejudice, pro-minority, and pro-poor tendencies developed throughout his youth, and during his immersion in a diversity of cultures and social justice advocacies.
In the Philippines, Barack should be entitled – and even encouraged – to modify the spelling of his name to "Baracko ‘Bama," and give it a special flavor endearing to Filipinos as the barako (manly, maverick, risk-taker) champion of the oppressed and the disadvantaged.
The young Obama: Learning to serve others
His unique ethnic background as an African-American born in 1961 of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Wichita, Kansas knows no parallel among leaders in contemporary history.
Leadership is what Barack prepared himself for and sacrificed for. His burning desire to excel was not just to satisfy a grand personal ambition, but to be able to better serve suffering and unjustly treated blacks in the New York and Chicago slums. A deep social conscience motivated him to organize and train poor people so that they could help not only themselves but even those in more difficult circumstances than their own. His drive for excellence overcame racial barriers and anti-Negro prejudices in the US, and vaulted him past Columbia University and Harvard Law School as an outstanding student in both Ivy League institutions.
One wonders, how many Filipino leaders aspiring for high office have the "fire in the belly" to reform and reinvent themselves so that they could be of better service to their constituents? Not many. Not the rule here in the Philippines anyway, but the exception.
Obama’s first book, "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," published in 1995, was and continues to be a national best-seller. It describes Barack’s grandfather, Onyango, as a respected elder of the Luo tribe, who had such strong qualities of caring, sharing and daring for his community that he was known for having "ants in his anus" (or "fire in his belly"). The same was said about Onyango’s son, Barack (which means "Blessed" in Arabic), and it is presumed that their genes, fires and ants flowed into Barack II, the latter-day Barry (Barack’s nickname during his youth) and incoming President of the US.
Racial prejudice then up to now
The book narrates that his parents met, fell in love and married in 1960 as students in the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Barack Sr. had won a scholarship to UH at Manoa because of his persistence in following up applications to various US institutions of higher learning. Their wedding was a quiet ceremony before a justice of the peace, and devoid of the usual trappings -- no relatives in attendance, no cake, no ring, no giving away of the bride. This happened at a time when racial prejudice still reigned across most parts of the US in spite of President JF Kennedy’s New Frontier and Dr. Martin Luther King’s "magnificent dream."
It also records Barack’s upbringing by his mother, Ann Dunham (named officially as "Stanley Ann," following the expectation of a son by her parents Stanley "Gramps" and Madelyn "Toot" Dunham), in Honolulu, and his early education in local Jakarta schools until ten years old. His parents divorced in 1964, and his father returned to Kenya thereafter to assume a job as an economist with an oil company.
Later, Ann married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro, then pursuing post-graduate studies in Hawaii. When, in 1967, President Soeharto ordered the recall of all Indonesian students studying abroad, Soetoro moved to Jakarta with his family including Barry. After three years in Indonesia, Barack II returned to Honolulu and was placed under the care of his maternal grandparents to attend Punahoa School from 5th grade until he graduated from high school in 1979. Meantime, Barry’s half-sister, Maya, was born to Ann Dunham and Lolo Soetoro.
Encountering his father
In his early recollections, Barack II confesses that he had only vague memories of his father except for a single visit from December, 1971 thru early January 1972, when Barack Sr. visited Honolulu and stayed with Gramps, Toots and Ann. In his 1995 book, Barack II recalls:
"There was so much to tell in that single month, so much explaining to do; and yet when I reach back into my memory for the words of my father, the small interactions or conversations we might have had, they seem irretrievably lost. Perhaps they’re imprinted too deeply, his voice the seed of all sorts of tangled arguments that I carry on with myself, as impenetrable now as the pattern of my genes, so that all I can perceive is the worn-out shell•
"Whenever he spoke – his one leg draped over the other, his large hands outstretched to direct or deflect attention, his voice deep and sure, cajoling and laughing – I would see a sudden change take place in the family. Gramps became more vigorous and thoughtful, my mother more bashful; even Toot... would start sparring with him about politics or finance, stabbing the air with her blue-veined hands to make a point. It was as if his presence had summoned the spirit of earlier times and allowed each of them to reprise his or her old role, as if Dr. King had never been shot, and the Kennedys continued to beckon the nation, and war, riot and famine were nothing more than temporary setbacks, and there was nothing to fear but fear itself. It fascinated me, this strange power of his, and for the first time I began to think of my father as something real and immediate, perhaps even permanent."
Dreams from his father: An enlightened man
Barry’s scant and muddled memories of his father were later augmented by his younger Kenyan half-sister, Auma, who visited him in Chicago. At that time, he was still deep in his community organizing work in the city’s Southside poor neighborhoods.
In the book "Dreams," Auma recalls: "I cannot say I really knew our father. Maybe nobody did – not really• His life was so scattered• People only knew scraps and pieces, even his own children – I was scared of him. You know, he was really away when I was born. In Hawaii with your mom, and then at Harvard... When he came back to Kenya, our oldest brother, Roy, and I were small children. I was too young to remember much about his coming."
The reader of "Dreams From My Father" gets the impression that Barack Sr. was an enlightened Luo elder whose forebears proudly roamed the Kenyan countryside at peace with the equally powerful Bantu and Masai chieftains until British colonizers took over.
From Auma’s account, the senior Barack had had two white American wives, Ann and Ruth, and also a Kenyan wife, Kezia, who was her mother. She also mentioned other women and offspring in the "Old Man’s" life. Perhaps this was quite natural for Barack Sr., to do, given the Luo traditional customs in domestic and family relations, and having been "raised as a Muslim but a confirmed atheist," in the words of Barry. On top of that, his "Old Man" was an acknowledged Luo achiever in terms of both his education and combination of wives.
Lessons for filipino leaders and public servants
There are valuable traits and lessons for "wannabe" Presidents of the Philippines to be learned from a meticulous study of the early years of Baracko ‘Bama. Among them: His humility, determination, honesty, industry, and his caring, sharing and daring for others. What could be his most precious legacy to the American people – as well as for others around the world – after four or eight years of the US presidency, and beyond, could be and should be "The Audacity of Hope," as a new, reformist paradigm for public service and leadership in the globalized world of the 21st century.
Next Sunday, Abangan: "The Audacity of Hope."
Please send any comments to fvr@rpdev.org. Copies of articles are available at www.rpdev.org.
