Obama Gets Rock Star Welcome in Kenya

Senator Barrack Obama (D-IL) returned to Kenya to visit relatives, something he has done before now. However, he wasn’t a US senator then. The African country where his father and grandfather lived rolled out the red carpet to welcome home its native son. Heads of state and rock stars get this kind of treatment. No fool, Mr. Obama used his time in the spotlight to take an AIDS test, promised to fight African poverty, and most importantly, stood up for a free press.

The American and other western media will have a field day with the black senator’s homecoming to the Motherland, but the visit he made to the Daily Standard offices is the significant move. Without a free press, Africa is going nowhere because ignorance of the day’s events destroy any hope for change. When totalitarians take over in any nation, the first thing they do is shut the opposition press down. Mr. Mugabe, a bit to the south of Kenya, has ruined Zimbabwe in ways he could never have done without a virtual monopoly on information in the country.

Senator Obama said that threats to press freedom “is a problem that's worldwide, it’s not isolated to Kenya. But it’s something that all of us have to continually press on governments around the world that we expect the press to provide transparency and accountability to the people to whom governments are ultimately accountable so people are well-informed.”

He added, “One of our reporters from the Chicago Tribune is currently being detained in the Sudan, allegedly for espionage. This is an issue that myself, the US State Department and international journalists organizations are taking very seriously.” Paul Salopek is the reporter in question, and his predicament is typical of foreign correspondents everywhere. Telling truths governments don’t want to hear often sounds like spying to the jackbooted jackasses. He concluded, “Press freedom is like tending a garden, it’s never done. It continually has to be nurtured and cultivated and the citizenry has to value it. It's one of those things that can slip away if we don't tend to it.”

Senator Obama has a unique platform given that Kenyans have taken him to their hearts. He can say things as a proud son of Africa that few others can. White Americans certainly can’t, and very few other black Americans can point to the map and say, “my family came from here.” The slave trade prevents that. To his credit, he’s using that platform to tell home truths to a continent in need of them.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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