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                   My thoughts on Obama’s speech to the Muslim World

     I woke up early on Thursday to watch Obama’s speech to the Muslim world. I’m glad, I did. Mr. Obama spoke forthrightly and frankly about one of the riskiest subjects in American politics: America’s relations with the Muslim world. It was a speech painful at points; brutally honest at others; and strikingly redemptive in the end. A speech this fine deserves to be mulled over and reflected upon.  That Mr. Obama chose to deliver it- while clearly aware of the political risks involved in doing so-is a testament to his courage and fortitude as a leader.

      
Governing is hard. Mr. Obama has learnt that early in his presidency. But as he has also found out; governing is not only about nuts and bolts; it’s also about poetry. It’s the poetry, people remember long after you are gone. I’m happy that Mr. Obama has found his voice after 5 months of prose. Now it’s time to follow the words with substance.

     
The man is endlessly fascinating. He is not given to cheap flattery or demagoguery. He addresses difficult problems without artifice or adornment. He chooses his words carefully and purposefully. He knows he has the biggest megaphone in the world but deploys it only when he has something meaningful to say. His willingness to push boundaries when it matters most--when it can actually make a difference-- is inspiring.

      
I love the man. I am not naïve. I know the politics of this place. The neocons would not forgive Obama for this speech. Neither will the Israeli lobby in Washington. It is a speech too mature for Washington’s sedated tastes.

    
Obama would make mistakes. He would compromise at points. That’s understandable. Politics, as Otto Von Bismarck noted, “is the art of the possible,” not the art of the impossible. It is tough to govern. You have to make decisions. Some of these decisions would not please your constituents. Sometimes it may mean breaking your own promises. But that’s what leadership is all about: the ability to look at facts-even the ones you find uncomfortable- and make decisions based on those facts.

Sometimes, the voice of the people is not the voice of God. I’m happy that it is this man-at this moment in history; not John McCain or somebody else who is making these decisions that affect us all. God bless America.

Leonard Quarshie is a freelance writer and a student at the University of Maryland, University College.

By Leonard Quarshie

Washington D.C.  

For many Africans living in the U.S, Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American President is a significant milestone in history.  The election of Mr. Obama and his swearing in as America’s 44^th President on Tuesday January 20, 2009 —has touched Africans deeply and revived hopes of change in Africa.

The reaction to Mr. Obama’s election among Africans has been at turns emotional and soul-searching.   Many say their faith in the American dream and what it represents—upward mobility and personal success if one works hard—has been renewed.

“When he first started, I thought it was a wasted vote,” said Cecilia Gugu Vilakazi, a South African native and business owner.  For Vilakazi, a naturalized American who moved here from South Africa more than 30 years ago, Mr. Obama’s election “is unbelievable.”  “It’s not real for people who know the history of this country. No one thought it would happen.”   Mr. Obama’s election happened, Vilakazi notes, because 43% of white Americans overcame their fears and voted their hopes.

 
“It’s almost like waking up and wondering whether I am still dreaming,” said Kofi Okyere, 60, a chef from Ghana who relocated to the U.S, 30 years ago. “I still haven’t quite woken up yet. I’m still in a daze.”  For Okyere, who donated $500 dollars to Mr. Obama’s campaign and volunteered as an election judge at his precinct in Baltimore; the idea of an African American president in the 70’s when he moved here was unthinkable. Mr. Obama’s election, Okyere said, showed that “there is something about America that is uniquely dynamic about this country which is capable of moving people in directions we can’t even think of.”

 
“It’s a vindication of what America stands for,” said Isaac Oppong, a native of Ghana and a naturalized American who voted for the first time on November 4. For Oppong, Mr. Obama’s election means that his son who is biracial “can be whatever he wants to be in America.”

Mr. Obama’s election demonstrates, Mildred Okwo, a lawyer and a Nollywood filmmaker said by email, that “in spite of all its deficiencies,” America is “still the greatest country on earth for any human to thrive regardless of creed, color or status.”  For Okwo, who moved back to Nigeria to join that country’s burgeoning film industry after living in California for 20 years— African and minority children no longer have an excuse to fail.  “If you think it, plan it, organize, work and execute it, you may just achieve it.”

 
Africans should not expect too much from Mr. Obama, warns Vilakazi.  “I don’t think we should expect anything great. It’s going to be a continuation of Africa policy,” she said. Mr. Obama, Vilakazi notes, “has some learning to do,” when it comes to the reality of the political situation in Africa. “He is going to be like any President. He would make mistakes. He is going to falter. But he has a good team and he is very bright.”

 “I don’t think we can look at Obama as another conduit to a handout,” Okyere said. Okyere hopes however that the symbolism of Mr. Obama’s election motivates Africans “to take responsibility for themselves.”  “Africans should start believing in themselves again, that what everybody else has done, we are capable of doing.”

 “Your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy,” Mr. Obama said in his inaugural address --reminding leaders everywhere of what their people would ultimately remember them for.

 “He might hold Africa to a higher standard. He has a connection there that others do not. He has family in Africa, so he sees the real pain. He might put the good of America to better use,” Oppong said.  Mr. Obama possesses a unique ability because of his heritage, Oppong added “to speak beyond the presidents in Africa and reach people directly.”

Mr.Obama, Okwo hopes, “would recognize that Africa is the next frontier and use his influence as a person of African descent to push forth policies that will benefit both continents.”

I was there on the Mall on January 20^th.  I came with my girlfriend and her family. We arrived by Metro from Bethesda station and got off at Farragut North. We made the journey on the train along with thousands of people from all over the country to the nation’s capital to witness history.

 I woke up at 4:30 am to be there. What drew us there-away from the comfort and warmth of our beds in 17 degree weather-was the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States. It was not just the symbolism. It was what his election said about America in the 21^st century: here in this country, you can rise as high as you allow yourself; notwithstanding the circumstances of your birth or the color of your skin.

 This is not a cliché. It is real. But it is not a given. You have to assimilate into the larger society. You have to learn to read and write. Speak English. Speak properly; whatever that means.  You have to sweat it out with odd jobs to pay the bills and make the payments. To get a foot at the door, you have to earn that single most valuable American possession: a college diploma.

 All these will still not guarantee you a place at the top. If you are a black person or a person of color, you have to deal with discrimination at the workplace and elsewhere, albeit of a subtle kind.   To succeed, you need that unquantifiable element to be present: the element of luck. And a network. Talent and ability is not enough.

The 25-minute ride from Bethesda Metro to Farragut North was eventful. Hundreds lined up along the rails anxiously awaiting their turn to board the train to D.C. Winter coats. Jackets. Headwear. The very look of warmth.

 As we trekked from the Farragut North station to the Capitol, through Constitution Avenue, I could not help but reflect on what Obama’s election meant to me as an immigrant from Ghana.

You see, I came here two days before 9/11.  Once here, I sweated it out like everybody else to make a living. I’m still sweating. Odd jobs. Retail. The normal route all immigrants take when they first arrive in this country.

But wait!  Here I was, walking to the inauguration of a man, who half a century ago, would not have been allowed to sit at the front of a bus or allowed to eat at the same lunch counter with a white person. I thought about the things we black people take for granted today. Mundane, everyday things we do without thinking about it.  

Sometimes, African immigrants like myself, don’t sufficiently appreciate the sacrifices our African-American brethren had to make for us to enjoy the things we do today. The fact is-a lot of things we take for granted today-we owe to their struggle for equal and civil rights: Integrated restrooms, drinking fountains, schools, buses, restaurants, apartments.

 The fact that I as an African immigrant can apply for a job today in America -and at the very least, expect to be considered -the issue of discrimination notwithstanding-is because my African-American brothers and sisters made it possible. They paved the way for me. I can’t thank them enough.

 As we walked passed Constitution Hall, I could not help but remember Marian Anderson, the iconic African-American singer, who was denied the opportunity to sing there in 1939 by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) because she was black.

 You know, Jim Crow was not an experience unique only to African-Americans. It affected all black and dark-skinned people who happened to find themselves in America in the 1960s.

 On October 10, 1957, Ghana’s visiting Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, was denied service at a Howard Johnson restaurant in Dover, Delaware because he was black. The bar attendant didn’t care whether Gbedemah had an accent or whether he was a government official. All she saw was the color of his skin.  As far as she was concerned, he was just another black man up to no good.

The poor man was shocked. The press reported it. And President Eisenhower had no choice but to apologize to Gbedemah at the White House. That is the history of America.

  But these United States was now bestowing the highest office of the land on a man whose father was an African immigrant student; a man who the framers of the U.S. constitution designated as three-fifths of a human being in 1787.

 But that is the thing about America that many people do not understand. This is a country of contradictions. The founders of this nation-inspired by a higher calling-while still owning slaves-produced a blueprint for freedom and human dignity for everyman: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident,” they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 As the crowd roared and screamed as Obama murmured the words “so help me, God!;-I  felt the hands of Obama’s ancestors on his shoulders-men and women who had paved the way for this moment-praying for him . Olaudah Equiano… Frederick Douglas… Sojourner Truth… Harriet Tubman… Martin Luther King Jr…

 And I wondered what David Hume would have thought of this moment--the idea of a non white person—taking the helm of a majority white nation. “I am apt to suspect the Negroes,” he wrote in his 1748 essay, National Characters, “and in general all other species of men to be naturally inferior to the whites.”

“We remain a young nation. But in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness,” President Obama began, breaking my reverie.

 The speech was short, about 18 minutes long and sobering. A call to arms. A thinking man’s speech. I expected to jump and shout like the almost two million other people on the Mall. But all I could do was think. Think about my own life. My shortcomings; the many ways, I had fallen short of fulfilling my potential. The many ways I had sold myself short; been irresponsible.  

 “Our challenges may be new,” the new president continued, “the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends—honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.”

 As I rode the train back home that afternoon, the words kept ringing in my ears: “there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit… than giving our all to a difficult task.”  I resolved to work harder, to be more responsible, to be tolerant and fair to all in this nation; this place that had been generous enough to let me see this moment in history.

 Leonard Quarshie is a freelance writer and a student at the University of Maryland, University College.