On Friday, Barack Obama became the first sitting president of the United States to visit Kenya. For Kenyans, it was a long time coming. But Obama finally gave them the love and recognition they longed for since 2008, when Americans elected this “son of Kenya” president, making him the most powerful man in the world.
U.S. President Barack Obama received a rock star’s welcome during his first presidential visit to Kenya, the country where his father was born… Speaking outside the State House in Nairobi, Kenya, on Saturday night, President Barack Obama criticized Kenya for its treatment of homosexuals…
The U.S. president urged the nation’s leaders to continue to root out corruption, eliminate income equality and end tribal conflict and gender violence.
(Daily Mail, July 26, 2015)
The Kenyan people showered him with unbridled affection and adulation. Perhaps Obama struck them as the personification of the parable of Joseph. Meanwhile, Kenyan leaders basked in his reflected glow. Perhaps he struck them as the personification of the parable of the Prodigal Son. Except that they must have winced at his rebuke of their corrupt and oppressive leadership.
That said, iPINIONS remember all too well Obama’s historic trip to Egypt in 2009, where he inspired similar hope among Egyptians. Yet, despite all the promises of democratic freedoms and better Western relations, Egyptians have little to show for his visit. Kenyans, beware.
Championing American values with humility
Obama’s Republican critics hurled the same deranged criticisms during this trip as they did during his Egypt visit. But the way Obama championed American values while criticizing African practices was both instructive and unprecedented:
As an African American in the United States I am painfully aware of what happens when people are treated differently. When you start treating people differently, not because of any harm they are doing to anybody but because they are different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode.
(Reuters, July 26, 2015)
Hell, he even risked offending the entire Continent by declaring that some hallowed African traditions have no place in the twenty-first century.
Yet Republicans would have you believe that all he did was apologize for America… like he supposedly always does on trips abroad. They hung their specious criticisms on Obama’s habit of acknowledging America’s imperfections, especially on race, when critiquing foreign countries.
To his credit, Obama preempted their criticisms by joking during a state dinner toast that Republicans probably think he’s in Kenya searching for his birth certificate.
Unfortunately, his critics are too self-righteous to appreciate that championing American values in developing countries requires humility. In fact, it was the failure of previous presidents to empathize with people worldwide that incited anti-American slogans like “cowboy diplomacy” and “Yankee go home.”
As I wrote about Obama’s historic speech to the Muslim world, only those who’ve experienced racial, religious, and gender oppression can appreciate how liberating it is for marginalized groups to have the world’s most powerful leader accord them respect. This is why criticism comes mostly from narcissistic white American men who travel abroad expecting locals to speak “American.”
Media Coverage and Presidential Legacy
If nothing else, Obama’s visit to Kenya reinforces his presidential legacy of presenting America’s most wholesome image. Of course, that image compares favorably with that of any other country, acknowledging both heroic triumphs and tragic failures in our history.
Mind you, the US media once had a “slobbering love affair” with Obama. For example, they covered his trip to Egypt like teenagers experiencing their first crush. Now they’re so over him that they begrudged interrupting their obsessive Donald Trump coverage to give even passing attention to Obama’s trip to Kenya.
As I lamented in 2013, this reflects the pathetic state of the Fourth Estate. Because it now features journalists wasting hours speculating about elections years in advance, while interrupting Syria crisis reports for “BREAKING NEWS” on Lindsay Lohan’s latest arrests.
Historic Ethiopia Visit Gets Less Attention
Apropos of pathetic journalism, you’d barely know it, but Obama made another historic trip to Ethiopia today. He became the first sitting president to visit that country. He’s there primarily to discuss peace and security issues, particularly regarding South Sudan’s civil strife and the regional scourge of al-Shabaab militants. Perhaps discussion of such serious issues explains why his visit is generating less fanfare and even less media coverage.
But Obama will also become the first US president to address the 54-member African Union. I just hope he has the good sense to appreciate the irony of lecturing African leaders about democracy and human rights on this occasion. After all, the Chinese built the AU’s extravagant new headquarters where he’ll be delivering this address.
It’s a fitting metaphor for Africa’s geopolitical strategy: staying wedded to the politically staid United States, while having an open affair with the politically indulgent China.
Mungu ibariki Africa.
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday, at 7:06 p.m.
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