ONUMBA.COM, USA – Believe it or not, being the first African-American president of the United States has its downsides.
U.S. Senator Barack Obama holds his step-grandmother Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama as he returned to his ancestral rural village Kogelo August 26, 2006. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti (KENYA) – RTR1GPHU
Since his monumentally historic White House win in 2008, President Barack Obama, fair or not, has had all kinds of special expectations piled on him by his trifecta of communities. There are expectations from his African- American community and some more from his community in Africa.
And please don’t forget the president’s Asian community connection made possible after his mother’s marriage to an Indonesian man who fathered one daughter with her, thereby blessing Obama with a half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.
And then there’s Obama’s Jewish link by way of his father’s 1964 marriage to Ruth Baker, a Jewish woman of Lithuanian background, whose seven year marriage to Obama’s father produced Mark Obama, the president’s half-brother.
And somewhere in that ethnic and racial melting pot, poor Obama, in addition to staying connected to the hodgepodge of communities that claim him, still has to serve as the president of the United States elected to meet the vast expectations of all Americans.
Little of that spill is comforting to some Africans who have been caviling from the rooftop for a long time that President Obama, with paternal roots in Africa, has not visited the continent enough.
But everything taken into consideration, the president would probably beg to differ, having visited a number of African countries during his presidency so far including Ghana, Egypt, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa. The good news for everyone now is that Obama is set to visit Africa again.
The president will visit Kenya and Ethiopia starting July 24.
President Obama’s grandmother Mama Sarah
But as Obama prepares to jet off to Africa, with plans to go to his ancestral homeland of Kenya in east Africa, the president’s grandmother 94 year old Mama Sarah who lives in the western Luo village of Kogelo has already submitted her own expectations through a request that she be allowed to prepare a meal for her grandson. You would think that should be easily accommodated. But no, according to Kenyan government, Obama is not scheduled to travel to Kogelo, which means that Mama Sarah’s request may not be granted. She said she will prepare “all the traditional food available” for her grandson, to possibly include “fish, chicken and maize porridge.”
As though all of that would not be enough to have Obama’s head spinning under the scorching African heat, it turns out Obama’s grandmother is not the only one requesting something involving the president’s highly anticipated visit. The vocal and truculent anti-gay cabal in Kenya also has a stern message for Obama when it comes to the president’s imprimatur of same sex marriage: ‘we don’t roll like that.’ The group voiced its own expectations of Obama after requesting that the president not bring up the hopeless issue of same sex marriage during his visit, letting him know well in advance that Kenya is not interested at all in his global same sex marriage agenda.
“We do not want Obama and Obama, we do not want Michelle and Michelle,” they chanted. “We want Obama and Michelle and we want a child!
“It is important for us as Kenyans to know that the US is not God, and thus we cannot follow them blindly,” said evangelical Christian pastor Bishop Mark Kariuki.
From the look of things, it just doesn’t look like Africa and Obama will ever agree on the issue of same sex marriage. With resistance to allowing gay rights so fierce, it doesn’t even look like same sex marriage will ever happen in Africa, certainly not anytime soon.
But why is that?
It is deep. For one thing, it is culturally inharmonious with a smorgasbord of machismo African ethos and male swagger deeply rooted in traditions that fan its flame. To inject homosexuality into the scene would amount to, among other unimaginable changes, dismantling deeply held customs in culturally rigid societies where male and female roles in society and in marriage, even basic demeanor, are finely delineated and non-negotiable.
Summed up, hell will freeze over and over before that happens.
Of course, Africans love and embrace Obama affectionately and are profusely inspired by his epic historical accomplishment being the first Black president of the United States. In their view, he made all Black people profoundly proud. But that doesn’t mean Africans are prepared to blindly follow him and the United States into what some of them describe as an immoral pit being promoted by Obama’s ill-advised support for same sex marriage.
While gay rights and same sex marriage inspire agitations that dangle the ululations of the aggrieved gay community, which is why that lifestyle is increasingly becoming acceptable in the United States and other Western societies, the fact is, African countries are nowhere near the cusp of dancing, cheering, high-fiving and crooning along with the happy Kumbaya gay cuddling crowd.
If anything, several African countries have passed draconian laws completely banning homosexuality and activities promoting it.
