A Fellow Student from Kenya and Barack Obama
From 1974 to 1978, I spent four years in Vancouver
pursuing doctoral studies at the University
of British Columbia.
During this period, I stayed in a rented room near the university in the home
of a Canadian Lady by the name of Olive Cuthbert. She was a retired nurse who
had spent part of her younger days in Malaysia. She said the Malaysians
had looked after her well and she wished to help students from developing
countries to return the favor. She had since rented out two furnished rooms on
the first floor of her Vancouver
home to such students on very favorable terms. I stayed with her all through my
four or so years of study while the occupant of the other room changed over the
years. There was one from Fiji,
then Kenya and finally from Nigeria. Since
we shared the kitchen and much else in the home we all became good friends
during our stay.
The most interesting of my friendship in this home was with
the Kenyan student. His name was Mwaghazi Mwachofi Mwashimba, a Muslim Kenyan
from Mombasa and Nairobi. He had an impressive and charismatic
personality much like that of President Barack Obama and friends said that I too was good looking with a charming personality. He had completed a
graduate program at the Wharton School in USA
and then joined the University
of British Columbia for further
graduate studies. The two of us became such good friends that our land lady
became worried we were developing homosexual tendencies and advised that we
should get married to our respective girl friends soon. However, Mwaghazi returned
to Kenya
before the academic year was over without
completing his graduate program because he was recalled by Kenya government, he was on a government scholarship and had already availed it fully at Wharton.. We exchanged a few letters later by snail mail
but have lost contact since.
Nevertheless, as per my habit I have never been a blind
supporter of any one in life and I believe no wise person should be for it is
in the nature of humans that they are a combination of strengths and weaknesses
and the best of human understanding develops when one recognizes both. The weakness I noted in Barack Obama
was in the value he placed on his words. This was something Mwaghazi suffered
from too. It was not his words about Gitmo (about which I have bugged him several times on twitter) or his wavering stances on pull out
and surges from Afghanistan or red lines of Syria but the habit perhaps spreads
to his personal life as well as noted
from his action on a matter of pet dogs for his kids. Some would recognize this
as a small matter, a part of life, pragmatism or flexibility but reared in the
epics of the Himalayas, I view this more seriously. Perhaps the most famous ancient epic of South and South East Asia is the Ramayana. It is a story of a royal
family that lived by the motto
Raghukul rit sada chali ayee
Pran jai par Vachan na jai
Pran jai par Vachan na jai
This is in Hindi and translates as – This has always been the custom of our family, life may go but must
words once spoken must be adhered to. The entire epic of Ramayana is a story
that unfolded into wars, losses and victory because of this basic principle to
the extent that because the King had promised one of his queens that he would
honor any two of her requests whenever she asked, he even had to exile his most
beloved son Rama to the forests for fourteen years as destitute hermit. He
lost his life in the sorrow of that soon after but said on his death bed
Raghukul rit sada chali ayee
Pran jai par Vachan na jai
In the forest Rama’s beloved wife who had insisted on accompanying him, was kidnapped by the
demon like King of Sri Lanka. However, Rama found help from an angel god in the
forests come to earth in a monkey like body with a tail (called Vanar in ancient literature, a species that does not exist now but seems somewhere between monkeys and humans in physical appearance yet perhaps exceeding humans intellectually and in both verbal and physical ability) called Lord Hanuman and was
eventually able to rescue his wife from Sri Lanka. Lord Hanuman is the favorite
guardian angel and god of many Asians including this author. Barrack Obama, who has spent some of his early years in Asia reveres him too and carries an emblem
of Lord Hanuman in his pocket at all times. We have all had our personal and private experiences that has led to this belief.
Returning to the topic of this note, despite noting this
shortcoming this author remained an ardent fan of Barack all through the years
because as pointed out, it is in the nature of humans to combine weaknesses and
strengths in their personality or else all would become like gods and angels
themselves. However it is only over the last year that this author’s support
for Obama has taken a beating and the reason for that is mentioned next and
last.
They say power corrupts all and it is perhaps only a few
like Bernie Sanders of USA, Jose Mujica of Uruguay,
Narendra Modi of India and
Jeremy Corbyn of UK
in recent times that have kept themselves aloof from the temptations of wealth
despite their long service as law makers. Most others fall for the trappings.
Barack Obama’s support of trade deals like TPP and TTIP are most worrisome.
Some notes that this author came across on the net suggested that it was
because Obama was trying to increase corporate contributions to his library
foundation. What is even worse is his outright support and endorsement for
Hillary Clinton and not Bernie Sanders or even remaining neutral in the ongoing
Presidential race. The Clintons have amassed a huge fortune through unethical if
not illegal means i.e. by trading influence for lecture fees and donations to a
foundation controlled by the family aside from the fact that they have a whole
lot of other undesirable baggage, the less said of here the better.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya#/media/File:Elephants_at_Amboseli_national_park_against_Mount_Kilimanjaro.jpg |
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