26 Books

I’ll come out and say it straight away: Barack Obama’s election was the most exciting political event event I’ve ever witnessed. Here is a very intelligent black man who genuinely wants to do what’s best for the American people being made president after the eight years of corruption and idiocy from the Bush White House that has driven the world economy into disaster and sent thousands of people off to die in indefensible wars. Thank God.

Dreams from My Father

Obama Barack
Broadway Books 2004, Paperback, 464 pages, £14.95

There was little word of actual policy during his campaign so I read this book, some time ago no, to try to get an idea of what he’d done before. This is not the book to read if that’s what you’re looking for.

Written when Obama was still at Harvard, this is a memoir of a boy, confused about his background because he’s a different colour to his grandparents and his mother, who he lives with, trying to decide what to do with his life. He lives in Hawaii, Indonesia, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, going from a young boy to a young man in the process. He’s influenced more by his grandparents and stepfather than his mother, who seems to be a fairly distant figure. He contrasts the culture in America and Indonesia, then again in Kenya when he goes to meet his birth father’s family, and tries to find his own place within each one.

For the most part it’s very well written. There’s a density to the text and a constant flow of exposition and explanation that carries you along as you read and feels as though there’s a great flow of information pouring into you. Imagine Jane Austen as a modern American man talking about race and you’ll get some idea of the style.

As I read, quite slowly in short bursts, Obama was spending his first months in power. He’d promised to close down Guantanamo Bay, we cheered, then there was the banking collapse and the car industry troubles, the focus on Afghanistan rather than Iraq. Things went a litle quiet for a while, there was a new dog, I began to wonder if he was going to get anything done. The news came that Guantanamo wasn’t going to close after all and Obama started to look like a bit of puffed-up optimism rather than an effective left-wing (for America, anyway) politician.

I felt naive for projecting my own hopes onto the text. A man who’d worked as a community organiser and decided to become a lawyer so he could make a contribution, rather than earn a lot of money, would surely be an entirely different kind of president, I’d thought, but here he is, backing down over one of the United States’ most glaring human rights abuses that he’d made one of his first-day priorities on gaining office.

Bugger it. Spin and rubbish. Tony Blair all over again.

I limped along through the final sections looking for something to be optimistic about, but this book is a mirror. It’ll tell you whatever you like about the man. Either he’s a socially-minded reformer or a cynical opportunist telling the Democrats what they want to know. I put it down feeling just that bit worse about the world.

Now, though, I’m cocking an ear again. Weak though the plan might be, there’s a universal health care plan slowly battling its way towards the statute books in Washington. He might not be as exciting as he first appeared, but if he can turn himself into Nye Bevan then he’s OK by me. I’m sure he’ll be very relieved to hear that.

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