Gaddafi and Obama

Gaddafi, I suppose, still has many admirers around Africa; but I think his claim last week that Obama's support for Israel stems from an "inferiority complex" itself smacks suspiciously of a bigoted mind clothed in radicalism -- a bigotry which, on reflection, emanates from an all-too-familiar "superiority complex" of the North; and a radicalism more Arab-nationalist than leftist. He was not just verbalizing his mind's picture of Obama, millions in Sub-Saharan Africa will conclude, but of all Africans who do not share his uncomplicated view of an increasingly complex world. He has just lost their goodwill, to the extent that he still had it.

To argue that Obama will (I use will and not would), on account of his mixed race and therefore deep sense of inferiority, be, as the next US President, "more white than white people" in his policy toward Israel and, presumably, the Middle East as a whole, is to display one's own sheltered inattention to evidentiary detail.

In fact, many Jewish voters in the US worry about Obama's candidacy, but on opposing grounds. They worry that he will be overly inclined to engage Hamas and Iran, and any Gaddafis who still live in the Seventies and Eighties, in serious diplomacy (rather than sabre-rattling); all at the expense of Israel's security interests. On the other hand, many Israelis share his view that it is better to engage in tough diplomacy than to wage war. Why Gaddafi considers this a sign of "inferiority complex" only he and his cheering crowd can explain.

Having said that, I must concede that Obama inexplicably went overboard in his recent address to a Jewish-American gathering when he stated categorically that Jerusalem must remain, undivided and singularly, in Israeli hands. The ultimate status of Jerusalem must remain the subject of genuine diplomatic engagement, even as the Palestinian right to an independent state contiguous to a sovereign and secure Israel remains an article of faith.

Gaddafi should be careful not to be swayed by stereotypes which date back to a slave-trade era which Black Africa is too magnanimous to keep reminding all and sundry. And let him ponder the following: would Obama have bombed Libya with more ferocity than Reagan did, and maybe gone all out to kill him (Gaddafi)? In Gulf War I, Colin Powell, a black general, called off further bombing of Iraqi field forces (against the wishes of more war-like colleagues) when he saw that enough carnage was enough -- and that there was no need to continue with the carpet bombing and all the shooting all the way to Baghdad, after the Iraqi forces had already been defeated. Was that a sign of "inferiority complex", or humane military leadership? Obama was opposed to G.W. Bush's push for Gulf War II. In voting against that war, was he the caricature Gaddafi spins in his mind?

Would Obama have worked behind the scenes to ensure that Saddam was hanged, as many suspect that Bush did? How would Obama dealt with Lockerbee? Looking further back, we remember that Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not Tokyo -- to bring militarist Japan to its knees. Does Gaddafi's reading of Obama's mind suggest that he would have dropped them on Tokyo instead, being "more white than white", and perhaps on Berlin itself -- although Berlin would have been a fundamental and perhaps impeachable contradiction?

To be fair to Gaddafi, his impression of Obama is probably partly constructed from his reading of the latter's autobiography -- and of accounts therein of Obama's search across two continents for his roots and the fullness of his identity. I think that reading, in whatever way it took place, was in fact a mis-reading of the man Obama has become. Obama's journeys to Kogelo, Kenya, display an inner self and an inner drive that is truly admirable and exemplary.

Am I biased? Perhaps, but I have good and countless company. Yet I must ask, is this any thinking person's idea of a future President weighed down by "inferiority complex": a "Freshman" with only four years' experience in the US Senate, who nevertheless dares to run; a black man, with a "funny" name and no wealth to talk of, holding America's hand in order to take her, willingly, "to a better place"; a man proud of his Kenyan and Scottish-Irish roots in equal measures? No!

You wrong the man, Gaddafi!

May the two one day meet face-to-face and become true brothers, true brothers of the 21st century -- perhaps at UN headquarters, perhaps in Gaddafi's Great Tent, perhaps at Kogelo! Let me in fact suggest Kogelo! Meanwhile, we await Gaddafi's own account of his early years -- before and after his coup. He owes that to history. Then we will also pay homage to whatever his roots are.