The Year in Review: Highlights and Low Points of 2009
The swearing-in on January 20th 2009 of Barack Obama as the first African American President of the United States represented the crossing of the final frontier for Americans of African descent. Prior to his election, there had been many African-American “firsts”.
Sports was perhaps the first arena in which colour barriers were broken in the US. It has been argued that this is because Black people are such natural athletes. Baseball used to be an all-white game until Jack Roosevelt Robinson came on the scene and began to break home-run records. In boxing, black men have a fearsome reputation in the ring, but it took Don King to show that a black man could control the financial side of boxing, negotiating big buck deals for boxers who hitherto often retired into penury.
Black people have always had a talent for music. Berry Gordy founded the Motown record label, and discovered and managed many big acts such as the Supremes, Temptations and Jackson 5, thus paving a way for black people on the business side of the industry. In publishing, there was John Johnson the founder of Ebony who along with Gordy was one of the first Black businessmen of note.
The idea of a black presidency had been mooted in 1996 by Republicans who considered Colin Powell as an opponent to Bill Clinton. On paper, Powell was better qualified to lead the United States than candidate Obama, with his experience as the first African American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coming from a party for which blacks in America did not traditionally vote, he should also have been a more viable candidate because he could have received the votes of white conservatives and also stolen the votes of most black Democrats. But Powell declined, citing his lack of passion for politics.
Twelve years later, the mantle of black leadership fell on the shoulders of the much younger Barack Obama. He was a pacesetter in diverse fields. In 1990 he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and sixteen years later became the fifth US senator of African-American descent. Now he has become the first African American President of the United States.
Much has been made of Obama’s rhetorical skills, but they would not have come to much without the astuteness and discipline of his campaign. Unlike Hilary Clinton during the primaries and John McCain in the general election, Barack Obama’s campaign never changed his platform which was CHANGE nor his campaign slogan “Yes We Can”. Obama was very savvy in his use of the internet to get out his messages and even more remarkably, to raise 700 million dollars – the largest sum of funds raised in US campaign history. This was perhaps the greatest testament to his attunement with the trends of the 21st century and his ability to effect the much-needed change in America in the midst of an economic crisis. But leadership is not only about organizational skills – one can always hire good managers.
What Obama had which Clinton, Edwards and McCain lacked is charisma; the ability to inspire others by one’s mere physical presence. This is an asset that will always be valued above intelligence or managerial competence, especially because it is so rare. Charisma is what Barack Obama used to inspire an enthusiastic assemblage of young people. The young have always been the most idealistic and susceptible to the siren call for change, without necessarily knowing the type of change desired or even how it could be achieved. These early adherents sold Obama’s message to the middle class and the wealthy in America, a constituency who, with their higher levels of education, have been traditionally more open to new ideas.
The scope of Obama’s victory which swept a number of traditionally Republican States, suggests a degree of enthusiasm and expectations any human being would find difficult to meet. They say genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Having done the inspiring, Obama now has to employ the perspiration element of that formula to effect the change he promised and show the world the true extent of his genius.
CATCH-22 IN ZIMBABWE
One of the most influential novels of the 20th century was Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel, Catch-22, the anarchic satire of military life set on an American base in the Mediterranean in the later stages of World War 2. Everyone in this camp was a nutter. There was a pilot who said he would live forever or die trying and in interactive sessions with the top brass inquiries such as “Who is Spain?”, “Why is Hitler?”, “When is right?” often rang out in succession. The story’s greatest absurdity, one which would become the stuff of legend concerned combat pilots. Only sane pilots were allowed to fly combat missions and Catch-22 specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of immediate danger was the process of a rational mind. If before taking off a pilot asked questions showing concern for his safety while in the air, he was considered sane enough to fly. However, any pilot who agreed to go up had to be crazy as no sane person should agree to fly into harm’s way. If he was crazy, then he had to be grounded.
Critics described Catch-22 as a serious protest against the uselessness of rationality in the face of unbridled power in any form. Such unbridled power is on display in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe stubbornly clings on to power. In Mugabe’s eyes, his right to rule derives from his status as the leader of the liberation movement, the breaker of white power and the creator of Zimbabwe from Rhodesia, “Zimbabwe is mine” he boasts. Never mind the fact that the country, once one of Africa’s most prosperous has been wrecked by his disastrous policies. Inflation is running at 100,000% and millions of his countrymen have left in search of greener pastures. The so-called power-sharing arrangement between the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front ZANU PF and the Movement for Democratic Change MDC was exposed for the charade it is when a senior representative of the United Nations was turned back at the nation’s airport. The official had been invited by the country’s titular Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to assess the state of human rights in the country
At the end of two days of talks in the second week of September, leaders of South African Development Council SADC countries joined Mugabe in calling for an end to sanctions against Zimbabwe in order to alleviate the suffering of the people. The international community led by the European Union responded by saying that sanctions would be lifted once the people of the Zimbabwe start to enjoy the benefits of democracy and show an improvement in their standards of living.
So there you have it. Relief can only come by way of lifted sanctions but sanctions will only be lifted when the people have a demonstrable level of relief. A classic Catch-22 scenario?
LIGHTING BOLT
At the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Jamaican phenomenon Usain Bolt proved that his chicken nuggets menu is the food of champions!
Leaving behind a field of the world’s top sprinters, Bolt smashed his Beijing Olympics record of 9.69 seconds in the 100 meters event recording a new all-time record of 9.58 seconds, then went on to set a new record of 19.19 seconds to top his 19.30 seconds record in the 200 meters race. Mr Bolt proved that his record-breaking performance during the 2008 Beijing Olympics was no flash in the pan.
Bolt is a unique individual. Male sprinters are by and large brothers with an attitude. Invariably black and mostly sullen or cranky, Bolt breaks the mould in several categories. One is his height: champion sprinters are rarely six feet tall. Bolt is six feet five inches! Second is his demeanour: He has an easygoing almost playful style and just before his races, often poses for the cameras sending imaginary bolts of lightning into the sky. This is a pleasant counterpoint to the tense strutting of his competitors. In Beijing, he even carried this attitude over into the actual event, never seeming to take it seriously and spending the last ten meters of the race show-boating. Incredibly he still broke the world record. People who were wondering what he could do if he really tried, got their answer in last year’s championships in Berlin.
What fuels this incredible athlete when he runs? As he tells it: chicken nuggets!
MAYAWATI MEGALOMANIA
It has been said that history always repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. This clearly is the case in the southern Indian State of Uttar Pradesh (UP).After generations of oppression by higher castes in their country. The Dalits or Untouchables are once again being exploited. This time the exploitation is by one of their own. History is once again repeating itself.
The farcical side of this exploitation was that Chief Minister Mayawati herself a Dalit was squandering funds meant for the development of one of India’s poorest people. Funds in the neighbourhood of $500 million dollars were spent on statues of the Minister as great big monuments to her own ego. The structures depicting a stout woman, sometimes surrounded by elephants are scattered around Lucknow, the state capital. The elephant is the symbol of her Bahujan Samaj Party. Over her four terms as Chief Minister Ms Mayawati has demolished public buildings replacing their sites with statues set in majestic parks.
A public interest lawsuit filed at India’s Supreme Court stopped the Chief Minister’s profligacy. The Chief Minister justified her actions by saying she wanted the statues to serve as inspiration for her downtrodden people to realize that they can rise above their present circumstances. Never mind that the millions spent on these edifices would have gone a much longer way towards achieving that same goal. The year 2009 has been a rough one for Mayawati. In her country’s April and May general elections, she had anticipated another surprise victory such as the BSP achieved in UP’s 2007 assembly elections to win majority seats in the state. Rumours of plans to form a coalition with either the Congress Party or the Bharatiya Janata Party were rife and seen as a move that would have positioned her to become the first Dalit to become prime minister of India. A 50-foot bronze statue had even been commissioned for Delhi in anticipation of the victory. Her party was roundly defeated, some say because she ignored the main constituency in her quest for national office.
As the minister gives in to an attack of that age-old ailment: the intoxication of power, a reality check might be in order. As for inspiring the underprivileged, she might want to build a couple of new schools and stick plaques on the walls.
OBAMA – THE PRIZE FOR GOOD INTENTIONS
United States President Barack Obama was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway on 10 December 2009, amidst cries of indignation from right-wing conservatives. Receiving the award in Oslo, he delivered a speech which was a heady mix of hubris and humility.
Pledging to “reach for the world that ought to be”, Obama in his opening remarks acknowledged that compared with past Peace Prize winners such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, his accomplishments were “slight”. He however became more combative praising his country’s military exploits and defending his decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
An objective assessment would concur that President Obama has done little to merit this recognition. Not only has he been unable to break new ground in the Middle East, but he also struggled to meet the deadline set by his own administration to close the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Now that President Obama has found alternative accommodation for Guantanamo inmates, the place can finally be closed down as he directed almost a year ago.
While he did not directly solve any global problems, he extended an olive branch to the Muslim world in his speech from Egypt. The speech was a declaration of intent and along with his words on the campaign trail; it was this speech more than anything else that won him the Nobel Peace Prize – very appropriate for a young politician who came to national prominence by way of another speech at a US Democratic Convention. If the Israelis and Palestinians understand that the present occupant of the White House is the President most committed to underwriting Middle East peace in almost a decade, they will get down to some serious negotiations, and when the world’s extremists realize the futility of imposing their ideology on the rest of the world, they will respond to Obama’s outstretched hand and “unclench their fists”.
History will always refer to the 2009 Peace Prize as the award for good intentions. The international community will have to suppress cynicism and give the man the benefit of the doubt. Barack Obama may not have done much to get the Nobel Peace Prize, but he is the man most uniquely positioned in this generation to earn it!
AFRICANS WALK OUT OF CLIMATE CONFERENCE IN DENMARK
There is a joke told in Israel of a young Jew who turns up for a job interview. The employer tells him his only duty will be to look out for the second coming of the Messiah. The boss says: “The pay may not be much but the job security is excellent!” Going by the response of world governments to 21st-century challenges, the young man might soon be out of a job.
We have global warming, worldwide food shortages, and cross-continental financial crises, yet humanity lacks true leadership in the face of these problems. An honest assessment can only bring one to the conclusion that someone has pressed earth’s self-destruct button and mankind can do nothing to save it.
Delegates to the December 2009 Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen Denmark spent two weeks bickering then the Africans joined their counterparts from other developing countries in a dramatic walkout. The Africans said they were excluded from the decision-making process and were just expected to become rubber stamps to conclusions predetermined by the conference organizers. The real reasons were the reluctance of industrialized nations to put a cap on carbon emissions and to share as well as fund technology for poorer countries to make the conversion to green energy. When they eventually returned, the conference chairman Denmark’s Environment Minister resigned to be replaced by the country’s Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen. The Danes said the change was a matter of protocol putting their most senior politician in charge of proceedings when world leaders arrived on December 17th. It fell to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to smoothen ruffled feathers by committing her country to raise $100 billion by 2010 for developing countries to convert to green energy. While all this was going on, a sideshow was unfolding outside the building with the arrest of dozens of protesters trying to break into the conference venue, angry with the apparent lack of urgency on the part of hidebound politicians and diplomats.
With the arrival of the top guns, the drama continued as President Lula of Brazil blasted the Americans for lacking commitment. All eyes turned to United States President Barack Obama to save the day. In truth, there was nothing more he could give beyond what Mrs Clinton had offered before his arrival. Even if he had wanted to save the world, the conservatives in his country would see to it that he looked after America first. The ball got kicked farther down the road to the next climate conference.
ABORIGINE FILM EARNS TOP INTERNATIONAL AWARD
Few first-time feature filmmakers are greeted with the kind of accolades bestowed upon Australian director Warwick Thornton whose Aborigine film featuring two indigenous children won the Camera d’Or first film prize at Cannes Film Festival in May 2009. Samson and Delilah’s stars Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson are both young first-time actors. The movie is filmed in and around Alice Springs where Thornton was born and raised.
Thornton an Aboriginal man himself began making short films after graduating in Cinematography from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. He comes from a family of film-makers and actors. His mother Freda Glynn co-founded and was the first Director of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and while at Imparja Television was for a short spell, the only female chair of a television network in the world. Thornton’s sister Erica is also a well-known film writer and director, while his brother Scott played the role of Gonzo in the film. The film is a tale of survival and love story. The film tells the story of two 14-year-old natives of a remote Aboriginal community who steal a car and in order to escape their hard lives, travel to Alice Springs.
Previously, two of Thornton’s films Payback and Nana won awards at the Telluride and Berlin International Film Festivals. In November, Samson and Delilah also went on to win Best Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Entering in the foreign-language category, it swept the prestigious Australian Film Institute’s 82nd Academy Awards, winning prizes for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound and Member’s Choice Awards. Newcomers Marissa Gibson and Rowan McNamara also jointly won the Young Actor Award for their compelling performances.
The film offers a snapshot of the difficult existence of indigenous Australians who were driven off their traditional lands by white settlers. As it was then, many of these are still condemned to lives of poverty in the outbacks today. In 2008 the government of Australia offered an apology for the past injustices against the Aboriginal population of the country by successive administrations. Speaking in parliament, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was sorry for policies and laws that “inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss” in a speech broadcast live on Australian television. That was the easy part. Reversing the effect of those policies might prove more difficult to do. For Aborigines, Thornton’s achievements are an inspiration and a pointer to the great potential of a people.
THE CHRISTMAS DAY BOMBER
Transatlantic passengers travelling from Amsterdam to Detroit on 25 December received a most unusual Christmas present. As the North West Airlines flight 253 prepared to land, there was an explosion towards the rear of the plane’s cabin and a fire broke out under a passenger’s seat spreading quickly to the plane’s wall. The seat’s male occupant made no attempt to extinguish the flames enveloping his blanket-covered body. A Swedish man sitting across the aisle from him jumped across his neighbour to the burning seat. His next actions could be described as either brave or foolhardy. He yanked off the scorched blanket, snatched the device away from the man and used his bare hands to put out the fire from the burning clothes. The extent of the risk he took became obvious later when it was discovered that the underpants he took from the man’s hands were filled with enough explosive material to bring down the aircraft. Asked what he had under his blanket, the passenger said almost impassively “explosive device”.
The subdued passenger was led off the craft to the hospital by security personnel upon arrival in Detroit, where he was treated for third-degree burns. Authorities later identified him as Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab a 23-year-old Nigerian. Abdulmutallab a former mechanical engineering student at the University College London is the scion of the multimillionaire former chairman of First Bank Nigeria PLC Dr Umaru Mutallab said to be one of the richest men in Africa. According to information, Alhaji Mutallab two months before the incident allegedly gave the authorities in Nigeria information that his son had disappeared (see release by the Mutallab family on next page) and went on to report to the United States embassy his suspicions that his son had become radicalised and might have travelled to Yemen, where his wife is reportedly from. Based on his warning Mutallab expressed his surprise that they would even give his son a visa at all but as it turned out, Mutallab was issued the visa several years before.
Describing himself in an online forum as “… depressed and lonely”, Umar first gave vent to his extremist views while a student at the prestigious British School in Lome Togo. Recalling a classroom discussion about the Taliban, a former teacher of Mutallab said Umar expressed support for the group while other Muslim students thought differently. Mutallab was said to have been a model student with a saintly aura and comportment. Mr Abdulmutallab won a place at University College London to study mechanical engineering and stayed there for three years from 2005. Upon completion of his studies at UCL in June 2008, he obtained a four-year multiple-entry visa for the United States from the American Consulate in London and visited Houston for a couple of days a few months later.
Noting his deepening extremist views, a rift developed with his family when they tried to discourage him from going to an Arab country purportedly to learn Arabic. He went first to Egypt while his mother encouraged him to go to Dubai where it was hoped that the liberal atmosphere would dampen his views. He eventually left for Yemen which he previously had visited for a year in 2004, asking his mother to stay away from him as he had found a new life and was breaking all family ties. His father later alerted the US Embassy in Nigeria, Nigerian security and the Saudis in an attempt to locate his son. The family last had contact with Mr Abdulmutallab in October when he was in Yemen. Sources close to the family say a team is being assembled to manage the legal and public relations fall-out of this debacle.
Abdulmutallab claims that he was part of an AlQaeda plot hatched in Yemen, where a Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki put him in touch with the group which gave him the bomb and instructions on how to detonate it. The Americans for their part admitted that they received a tip-off from the father but said they had put Umar on a watch list containing about five hundred thousand other people. Appearing on this watch list did not automatically qualify him for the more restrictive no-fly list which would have precluded his travelling to the United States. This latest development could not have come at a worse time for the West African Nation of Nigeria whose government has in more recent times set up a global campaign to re-brand the country’s image which has been severely tarnished by cybercrime, corruption and drug trafficking. The Country with an estimated population of 160 million people has equal proportions of Christians and Muslims who have lived in relative harmony although pockets of unrest have occasionally sprung up in the Muslim north. These disturbances were reportedly sponsored by foreign extremists. AbdulMutallab lived in his home country only for short spells of about two months a year since his teenage years.
In light of the Christmas day incident, US President Barack Obama has directed that the procedures governing the handling of names on terrorist watch lists be reviewed. Furthermore, international passengers now have to endure even more intensive screening before boarding aircraft adding hours to travel time. Most passengers however consider this inconvenience a small price to pay for keeping flights safe.
