IN February of 2007, Barack Hussein Obama announced his candidacy for the USA presidency. Many were shocked whereas others found it entertaining, as this was a young junior senator, with very little experience in Washington, and what’s even more startling, he was black.
I for one had never heard for Barack Obama until that day and I remember thinking that it was too soon for him to be thinking that big. Today, as I sit here, writing this article, I dare myself to dream beyond the horizon, to allow myself to go beyond expectations – and all because of Barack Obama!
Barack Obama is typical of what the world needs today, and especially of what Zimbabwe needs right now.
Zimbabwe needs a leader that cares less for themselves and their family, and has the deepest desire to change the world for the people of Zimbabwe, a leader who realizes that they have to lay themselves down so that others can have the freedom and peace that they so desperately desire.
There is a calling for leadership that is not just for display. Ultimately, leadership is a responsibility that is given by the people. Today many individuals assume leadership or aspire to become leaders. They think that leadership is their right and have forgotten that it is an awarded privilege. The voices of the people are drowned by the cries of death and destruction falling upon them. The current state of affairs in Zimbabwe, as well as the rest of the world is deplorable. Those who perpetuate that state should be ashamed of themselves.
We can sit here, explaining the situation and come up with all sorts of theories to explain what’s happening, but the cold hard truth is that we need someone who stands for truth, freedom and justice. The other truth is that we are all afraid and that is the truth; we are afraid of the consequences that come with standing up, afraid for our loved ones and ourselves. No one can blame us for the fear, but fear is the opposite of the faith we should have in ourselves. What we don’t seem to realize is that even if we don’t stand, we will still suffer.
People will still die violent deaths, people will continue to starve, people will still be denied the basic human rights that they so deserve. So the question you and I should be asking ourselves is, “What do we achieve by sitting on the side lines, waiting for change. Who is going to bring about change when we are all waiting?”
I tire of hearing how another person has been killed in political violence taking place in Zimbabwe. I tire and am drained of hearing how prices are going up everyday, children are starving, mothers watching their children suffer and how men have been reduced to mere beggars who can’t take care of themselves and their families.
I am tired of the politics, the analysts. I am sick of it because none of them is suffering, none of them is dying and none of them is living the Zimbabwean life. All they seem to do is say a whole lot, with very little action and still, ordinary people pay for their rhetoric.
Maybe I am one of those people, all talk and not much action. Talk is very cheap but action, that’s the real deal. In the world that we live in today, you have to represent something, and stand for something. In the world we live in today, a mere gesture of a stance will not move mountains or bring down walls and barriers that block truth and freedom, love and peace.
The world we live in today is calling for a different kind of people. A new generation that fights the odds and stands for something because they believe in it, regardless of how small and insignificant it may be. The world today is calling for the separation of the ordinary from extraordinary.
For every generation, there has to come a leader that dares to challenge us to go beyond the ordinary. Martin Luther King Jnr., Kwame Francis Nwia Kofie Nkrumah , Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi, Joshua Nkomo, Indira Ghandi.The list is endless. But a leader has to arise to bring about a new hope, a new spark to start a fire.
This man today, the son of an African student and a white mother, amazes me that he has become more than a phenomena. Imagine if he was the son of a Zimbabwean, and not a Kenyan?
On June 3rd 2008, he rewrote history by becoming the first black man ever to win the Democratic Party nomination for presidential candidate. This victory is not only for the USA, Afro-Americans or even Kenyans. This victory is for anyone and every one who is black, every one who believes that there is need for change in this world and everyone who dares believe that they too, can be a tool of hope.
When Senator Obama decided to run for the presidency, he calculated the challenges that lay ahead of him, and the many challenges that were waiting to snare him. He knew that which he wanted would cost him a high price, but he was willing to pay the price. He knew that he was up against a race of colour, religion, feminism and so many other prejudices but at the end of the day, he knew he had to make a stand.
He knew that the likelihood of him becoming at target of hate crimes, the possibility of an assassination would present itself, but he did what needed to be done, and he became the voice of every American that needed to be heard. He became that familiar black face that would be seen on television over and over again, and he became a wild dream that fast is becoming a reality for everyone who yearns for change.
As much as Obama is black, what he symbolizes goes beyond the colour of skin. Barack Obama is the epitome of taking a stand when all odds are against you. He came onto the scene, with very little experience but with one goal.
He wanted to make the change that he envisages in his world, and in his country. He gave himself the responsibility of placing himself in the line of fire so that everyone, not just the Americans, would believe that change is indeed possible.
I believe that the people who are going to make change in this world are not going to come from some distant planet and bring with them super powers of change. The only way our world is going to change is because we will make that decision, the choice to stand for truth, freedom, love, peace and integrity. If we cannot stand for the least of these, we might as well shut up and sit in a corner, never to rise for we have failed ourselves.
We need to make a stand for change. This is the time for sacrifice, the question is, who will be the first to stand? Tomorrow may be too late to make a stand.
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ARTICLE ATTACHMENTS
READER OPINIONS
Tino Tonga • tonga@yahoo.co.uk Subject: useless OBAMA Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:55:49 • Obama is about as useless or useful to Africa and Zimbabwe as pimples are to an insecure ugly black woman.
He is from the same school as Powell, Condaleesa Rice and Jendayi Fraser(Tendayi Fraser actually...they thought the T was a J).
Nehoreka • domboshava@googlemail.com Subject: Like father like son Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:04:49 • Let's take a journey back down the branches of this tree into the depths of Kenya. Barack's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, tool of British Lord Delamere may be a bit smellier than his appearance may suggest. Obama’s Grandmother herself quotes Onyango, “Like an ant, the white man works together. His nation, his business – these things are more important to him than himself. He will follow his leaders and not question orders. Black men are not like this. Even the most foolish black man thinks he knows better than the wise man. That is why the black man will always lose.”
With a self-oppressive world outlook of this type, it is no wonder that the Obama family never joined the African Independence Movement, fighting against British imperialism in Africa. As a matter of fact, when Barack Sr. began to attend political meetings, becoming familiar with some of the KANU leadership, he was arrested by the police and jailed. Barack Sr., in need of money for bail, sent word to his father. Onyango however, too frightened by the wise, white men he served, refused to bail his son out of jail and suggested that Barack, Sr. needed to learn the lesson of African subservience.
Barack Sr. left Kenya in the middle of the struggle for independence, with a scholarship to the University of Hawaii in 1959. It was there that Barack, Sr. encountered the village bicycle: the woman who was to be his future white wife. Thus, it is indeed the case that Barack Obama was born black by accident.
In the 1960’s Barack Sr. went back to Kenya and, after the death of Kenyata in 1978, he got into a government position in the finance ministry. He died in a car crash in 1982, never having joined the African independence movement.
For hundreds of years, the issue with Africa has been a fight between imperial enslavement of the population and looting of the continent vs. the establishment of nation states and development of the people and the land. Today, as in the famous case of Zimbabwe, this battle is at full throttle. With the financial collapse banging people over the head, the British empire has launched an all out targetting of anybody and everybody associated with the cause of independence and freedom in Africa. Behind the insane British racist attack on revolutionary leader, Mugabe, is Mugabe's stand against enslavement. With a big, Fuck you to the limey British elite, he redistributed a small number of large, colonially-owned farmsteads among the starving Zimbabwean population. Right now, the issue in Africa, is genocide. The disintegrating financial system has put this issue squarely on the table and Lyndon LaRouche, in his three step proposal, has provided the solution.
Barack Obama has already highlighted where he stands on Zimbabwe: The United States must continue to stand strongly against the Mugabe government's abuse of power in Zimbabwe. We must join with our European allies, the United Nations, and, most importantly, the countries and institutions of the region, to press for positive change in Zimbabwe. That means a peaceful democratic transition in 2008, and support for economic growth and opportunity, including the lifting of sanctions, once the dark cloud of Mugabe's rule is lifted, and Zimbabweans are able again to reach for the new horizon they deserve.
Damming all Africans to British genocide, Barack Obama, with the empire's agent Jello-Head Al Gore, has made his choice to stand alongside London's Brutish colonial rule. Just as Barack, Sr. was used as a throwaway by second rate Margarat Mead (aka. Obama's mother), Barack Obama himself is a throwaway of the bulging, festering Whore of Babylon, the British Empire.
tired • n/a Subject: wrong wrong wrong Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:30:22 • You don't know what you are talking about. Not a single thing you said is true.
But this is just more of the same blindness that has made the world the unjust hell it is since the dawn of time.
If you really believe someone can rise in U.S., politics by their bootstrap, and that they are not going the serve the same interests and policies of the powers that be, I'm hoping you're still in grade school though you write very well.
I'm tired and better, smarter, and braver people than I, are fighting against this great push to overtly enslave mankind again.
I'm going to let them handle this from now on because I'm sick of hearing and reading the ignorance.
Gonna get me some wimmons and drink pina coladas
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