The Audacity of Hope Vis A Vis the Audacity of Hate

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The Audacity of Hope Vis A Vis the Audacity of Hate.

“There is no force in the world that can stop an idea whose time has come”-Victor Hugo.

The Time has come ladies and gentlemen to finally take the gloves off. The time to quote a former to- be President Stateside, after America was attacked by Osama Bin Hiding “to declare whether you are with us, or without”. Incidentally I am an ardent supporter of one Barack Hussein Jnr Wuod Obama, and unashamedly so. Not least because his ancestral home is less than one hundred miles from mine .as the crow flies, but do I say, to borrow an expression from Luo local parlance

It has to do with very fundamental and deep reaching issues, issues of a universal character.
The issue of hope and audacity, Vis a Vis, that of hate and pandering to those innate, pernicious and primeval human fears, that are also universal in character. Barrack,(Which is Arabic and by extension Swahili for blessings, has been and is the blessing that the world needs to be salvaged from its current state of quagmire. The quandary that is to the Americans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Foreclosures, The credit crunch, a dollar in decline, rising energy costs and a host of other domestic issues.

The predicament that is to the world, that of rising intolerance in the form of the multi headed hydra of Xenophobia, terrorism and racism. Cultural and religious intolerance, and an endless list of bias. Barrack Obama has consistently sold to America and to the world at large the enduring belief in hope. Hope in a bright future, hope in a better tomorrow; hope that even the darkest night has its dawn.

But more so the hope that we can, each of us, on a personal level, make it if we try. If we dare to believe that we can leave an imprint, a long lasting, worthwhile imprint on the sands of time. That summarily is what his candidature for POTUS, President of the United States of America, the highest office in both the free and bounded world, is about.

“Who would have thought that a skinny kid, with a funny sounding name would one day be a serious contender for the Presidency of the United States of America”

To quote the man, “Who would have thought that a skinny kid, with a funny sounding name would one day be a serious contender for the Presidency of the United States of America”. That statement in itself denotes the odds that were stuck against him, when he embarked on his unlikely journey to the Presidency of the U.S.A.I feel strong kinship with that statement as I guess most of you do.

So I am utterly dismayed when the Republicans more so Sarah Pallin, Governor of Alaska tries to distort this message by trying to sell Obama’s candidature as one of fear and hate. To pander to the lowliest fears known to man, the fear that somehow he means harm, for the simple fact that he is not like “Us”.

Stoking such deep psychological fears is not a new tactic having been effectively deployed in the past by the NAZI’S and Fascists who effectively created full-fledged ministries of Propaganda/’-. In Psychology it is referred to as the Apollonian, Dionysian conflict. Which was aptly captured in Mary Shelley’s Book, “Frankenstein”, which was later remade into a Hollywood Blockbuster Movie, and which to date ranks as a classic of the horror and macabre genre.

In recent weeks the McCain campaign has run adverts to this effect. Like the one featuring a couple expecting their first child declaring that they fear an Obama Presidency. Including the instance when Sarah Pallin,Governer of Alaska, declaring at a public rally, that she fears Obama due to his links to Bill Ayers, now a college professor. A 60’s Chicago radical who led a group in planning attacks on US installations to protest the Vietnam War and who was Chief Guest at Obama Campaign for the Illinois senate.

Whereas McCain Himself has sought to distance himself from such talk, the fact remains he has not stopped the more hawkish inclined side of his campaign from running such attack ads. Which is reminiscent of what happened in the run up to the Kenyan polls when hate ads were aired questioning the religiosity or otherwise, of current Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Amollo Odinga, who was then running for the presidency of his homeland Kenya.

(Image of Obama with His Kenyan Grandmother, Mama Sarah Obama Outside Her Home in Kogello)

It is instructive to note that such hate mongering ultimately has a boomerang effect. As was witnessed in Kenya from December 29^th onwards, after the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner in that years flawed electoral process. The announcement, which plunged Kenya into an abyss of pure anarchy, a period that can only be described as Kenya’s darkest hour.

Now, for the McCain Campaign to resort to such underhand tactics in a bid to win the American Vote Is not shocking, considering the lack of concise policy that side has been selling. What is perchance shocking is the venom at which this particular issue is being driven.

There are more pressing issues of global concern, than concentrating on trivial sideshows which will ultimately be of little or no bearing to the world at large. This is what I refer to as the audacity of hate. We Obamaholics as I prefer to refer to myself abhor such negative campaigning.

We know that the Apollonian Dionysian complex has been the root cause of so much untold suffering down the eons. So much blood has been shed in the name of rectifying such “differences”. To name but a few major ones the Crusades instigated by the Princes of Europe to conquer/retake Jerusalem (Which incidentally means the city of peace in Hebrew just like Dar-es-Salaam in Arabic) ironically named so ,in view of the fact that so much blood has been shed in the name of the City and the name of God.

The first and second world wars ,the Balkan conflict, The Masalit, Zaghawa and Fur Conflict with Sudanese authorities, a war otherwise known as the Darfur Conflict and a host of other such conflicts. Obama represents all things to all people his mixed ancestry his having studied in Indonesia, trip to Kenya, his rising to the pinnacle of academia, by being the first ever black editor of the Harvard law review and by graduating Magna Cum Laude, Juris Doctor, at Harvard.

But most importantly and what the gist of this article is, that if you can have an idea individually and collectively believe we can. Yes We Can. Since I am Kenyan and I believe I can, I have decided to coin a new compound word yes we “canyan”, a hybrid of Kenyan and can. You can too, if you dare to, so surpass yourself. Go Barrack Obama, wuod mama, juok piny en kodi.