no day-dream of sincere commitment and action from obama meant by forwarding that article. but, i felt happy watching him on tv at white house on the day of martin luther memorial day with comments around me about his daughters like "mm..still to whiten"..."black, but good looking". we too are eligible for happiness at times without the burden of anticipations.. :) On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 10:42 AM, damodar prasad <[email protected]>wrote:
> Salim, > > Now let us give B.H. Obama some room to commit some "errors", I mean, human > fallibilities. The other day I saw a mail fantazising Obama as a feminist. > The day before he was an "orientalist" with his strongly held belief in > Indian superstitions. Another day another "ism" will be cast on him. Our > deep wishes are actually about our own conditions; our own expectations. > > Obamamania that spreads through the net in non-eurpoean countires is > something similar to the joyous moment when the prisoners know that their > extremely cruel and brutal jailer has been transferred, a more gentle one > has taken charge. > > The change is welcome but the rules remain the same. > > Neverthless, the first step in his hopefully lang career was to close down > Guantanamo. The term is well-begun. > > By the way read this piece by Robert Fisk. > > Robert Fisk: So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza > > http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-so-far-obamas-missed-the-point-on-gaza-1488632.html > > It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone > in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from > Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of > Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East > envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to > "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered > innocents" the Arabs had in mind. > > There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks > he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps > Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept > alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full > partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means. And it > was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the > Israelis. > > But for the people of the Middle East, the absence of the word "Gaza" – > indeed, the word "Israel" as well – was the dark shadow over Obama's > inaugural address. Didn't he care? Was he frightened? Did Obama's young > speech-writer not realise that talking about black rights – why a black > man's father might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago – would > concentrate Arab minds on the fate of a people who gained the vote only > three years ago but were then punished because they voted for the wrong > people? It wasn't a question of the elephant in the china shop. It was the > sheer amount of corpses heaped up on the floor of the china shop. > > Sure, it's easy to be cynical. Arab rhetoric has something in common with > Obama's clichés: "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play ... loyalty > and patriotism". But however much distance the new President put between > himself and the vicious regime he was replacing, 9/11 still hung like a > cloud over New York. We had to remember "the firefighter's courage to storm > a stairway filled with smoke". Indeed, for Arabs, the "our nation is at war > against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred" was pure Bush; the > one reference to "terror", the old Bush and Israeli fear word, was a > worrying sign that the new White House still hasn't got the message. Hence > we had Obama, apparently talking about Islamist groups such as the Taliban > who were "slaughtering innocents" but who "cannot outlast us". As for those > in the speech who are corrupt and who "silence dissent", presumably intended > to be the Iranian government, most Arabs would associate this habit with > President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (who also, of course, received a phone call > from Obama yesterday), King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and a host of other > autocrats and head-choppers who are supposed to be America's friends in the > Middle East. > > Hanan Ashrawi got it right. The changes in the Middle East – justice for > the Palestinians, security for the Palestinians as well as for the Israelis, > an end to the illegal building of settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab > land, an end to all violence, not just the Arab variety – had to be > "immediate" she said, at once. But if the gentle George Mitchell's > appointment was meant to answer this demand, the inaugural speech, a real > "B-minus" in the Middle East, did not. > > The friendly message to Muslims, "a new way forward, based on mutual > interest and mutual respect", simply did not address the pictures of the > Gaza bloodbath at which the world has been staring in outrage. Yes, the > Arabs and many other Muslim nations, and, of course, most of the world, can > rejoice that the awful Bush has gone. So, too, Guantanamo. But will Bush's > torturers and Rumsfeld's torturers be punished? Or quietly promoted to a job > where they don't have to use water and cloths, and listen to men screaming? > > Sure, give the man a chance. Maybe George Mitchell will talk to Hamas – > he's just the man to try – but what will the old failures such as Denis Ross > have to say, and Rahm Emanuel and, indeed, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton? > More a sermon than an Obama inaugural, even the Palestinians in Damascus > spotted the absence of those two words: Palestine and Israel. So hot to > touch they were, and on a freezing Washington day, Obama wasn't even wearing > gloves. > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:24 PM, salimtk <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Obamas bring new era of history to the White House >> Barbara Ferguson | Arab News >> >> >> WASHINGTON: For more than two centuries, the United States presidency has >> not been vastly more diverse than leaderships in other countries. >> >> But when Barack Obama became America's 44th president on Tuesday, few had >> time to dwell on the journey America's First Family had made as they walked >> into the White House. It was their family's final step in its journey from >> Africa and slavery to a White House built partly by slaves. >> >> Now the Obamas have turned that history upside down, with a Technicolor >> family that looks almost nothing like their overwhelmingly white, >> overwhelmingly Protestant predecessors. *The family that produced Obama >> and his wife, Michelle, is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and >> Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; >> African languages, including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases >> of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina low country.* Very >> few are wealthy, and some — like Sarah Obama, the step-grandmother who only >> recently got electricity in her metal-roofed shack in Kenya — are quite >> poor. >> >> Obama story is hugely different from the second President Bush, who grew >> up with wealth and privilege. Aside from Obama's top-quality education, >> America's new president came to politics with none of his predecessor's >> advantages: No famous last name, no deep-pocketed parents to finance early >> forays into politics and, in fact, not much of a father at all. Obama built >> his political career from scratch, with best-selling books and long-shot >> runs for office. He and his wife Michelle were only financially able to pay >> off all their college debts a few years ago. But how far they have come. >> Only five generations ago, the first lady's great-great-grandfather, Jim >> Robinson, was born a slave on Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, South >> Carolina. >> >> His son, Fraser, ran a lunch truck in Georgetown. In turn, his son, also >> named Fraser, struck out for Chicago in search of something better. Unable >> to find work, he left his wife and children for 14 years. As a result, >> Michelle Obama's father was on welfare as a child and started working on a >> milk truck at 11. After serving in the Army in World War II and finally >> securing a job as a postal clerk, Fraser Robinson Jr. rejoined his family. >> His son — Michelle Obama's father, Fraser Robinson III — wanted to further >> his education but became weighed down with debt and dropped out of college >> after a year. He worked in a city boiler room for the rest of his life, but >> did manage to help send his four younger siblings to college; then his two >> children, Michelle Obama and her brother, to Princeton. For all of the vast >> differences in the Obama and Robinson histories, a few common threads run >> through. Education is one of them. As a young man, Barack Obama's father >> herded goats; then won a scholarship to study in the Kenyan capital. From >> there he graduated from the University of Hawaii, then gained his graduate >> degree in economics at Harvard University. >> >> Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before >> dying in an automobile accident in 1982. >> >> When Barack Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, his mother woke him up >> for at 4 a.m. for English lessons while at the same time, she earned herself >> a PhD in Anthropology. (His mother, Ann Dunham, then pursued a career in >> rural development championing women's work and micro credit for the world's >> poor, and as a consultant in Pakistan.) >> >> Meanwhile, in Chicago, Michelle Obama's mother was bringing home math and >> reading workbooks so her children would always be a few lessons ahead in >> school. It is these details that add significance to the millions who >> crowded the National Mall in Washington, from hearing President Barack >> Obama's rousing speech promising "a new way forward" to the tiniest little >> details — such as the color of First Lady Michelle Obama's day coat and >> inaugural gown that gave the resounding theme of the inauguration of the >> 44th President of the United States on Tuesday. >> >> >> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
