If You Really Want to Understand What This Race is About, Look at the Two Candidates' Fathers
The tinsel and tinny sound bites of the conventions pushes us to judge the presidential candidates on the most simple -- and simple-minded -- video-version of their biogs. But amidst all this, we seem to be ignoring the best guide we have to John McCain and Barack Obama's hearts. Both men have written strange, searching books about their fathers. It is in their pages that we can find the clearest -- and most haunting -- clues to their potential presidencies.
At first glance, these slabs of non-fiction -- Dreams From My Father by Obama, and Faith of My Fathers by McCain -- are strikingly similar. They both tell the autobiographical story of an insecure young man who flails around for an identity, and finds it by chasing the ghost of his absent father to a dangerous place far beyond the United States. Yet Obama ended up writing a complex story of colonised people -- while McCain wrote a simple celebration of the coloniser.
Barack Obama Snr was a Kenyan goatherd, born into a country ruled by British white supremacists. He had watched his own father move from job to job -- as chef or butler or servant -- because he would not allow white men to beat him when he made a mistake or got "uppity." He saw his father disappear for six months into a British Guantanamo, because he had been (falsely) accused of being part of the resistance. All around them, some 50,000 Kenyans were being slaughtered by the British in an attempt to put down the rebellion. A favoured tactic was bursting their eardrums. Obama was offered a way out when some American aid workers saw he was smart, and helped him apply to study in the U.S.
There, he met Ann Durham, a poor white girl from Kansas. They quickly got married, at a time when "miscegenation" was still illegal in half of all states, and had a baby. He abandoned them in Hawaii when the baby was two, and the younger Obama only met his father once again, fleetingly.
As he grew up, Obama writes: "I was engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America, and no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant." He tried turning himself into "a caricature of black male adolescence." He tried living as a community organiser in Chicago. And -- when his father died in a car crash -- he tried to find it in Africa, by chasing his memory. But he discovered a father who had failed. Obama Snr. had left children strewn across the world. He had been blacklisted from the Kenyan government for speaking out against corruption; he sank into the bottle, and isolation.
It was in the slums of Kenya that Barack the son realised he was an American, tied inexorably to his country's freedoms and failings. There was no contradiction. He thought of his grandmothers -- one watching her home burned down by colonisers, another hurrying at 6.30am to catch the bus to work in a bank in Hawaii -- and understood: "They all asked the same thing of me, these grandmothers of mine."
The lens through which McCain views the world is radically different. He was born into military royalty, writing: "For two centuries, the men of my family were raised to go to war as officers in America's armed services." He writes of his "pride" in being descended from "the distinguished conqueror" Charlemagne.
McCain's father was mostly absent, away at sea. As a navy child, McCain writes, "you are taught to consider their absence not as a deprivation, but as an honour." But he hungrily sought out stories of his grandfather and father. They were both angry, hard-drinking men, often disciplined for starting fights: his grandfather even drank the alcohol used to fuel torpedoes on his submarine. Warring was all they knew. When the Second World War ended, his grandfather lamented: "I feel lost. I don't know what to do."
Sometimes their strict obedience to the military was put to great causes, like saving the world from Nazism. But just as often, it was used to crush democracy: in 1965, McCain's father led the invasion of the Dominican Republic to destroy the forces loyal to the elected leader and install a fascist thug. In his book, McCain calls this operation "a success".
While Obama's father and grandfather were being whipped and detained without charge, McCain was being taught to revere the people doing it. He writes of his father: "He was a great admirer of the British Empire, crediting it with keeping 'a relative measure of peace' in the world for 'someplace in the neighbourhood of two hundred years.'" This is a view his son holds to this day -- as we can see from the fact that his foreign policy adviser, Niall Ferguson, calls for the U.S. to pick up where Britain left off. He describes his own childhood in the wreckage of Obama's Snr's Kenya as "a magical time" where "scarcely anything had changed since the days of White Mischief".
But McCain feared he would never live up to his father. He too had become a fighting, drinking, bottom-of-the-class Navy brat always on the brink of being thrown out. Then, on one of his first air raids over Vietnam, he was shot down and captured by the Viet Cong. He was held and tortured. They offered to release him early, but US soldiers are told to insist on being released in the order they were captured. So he stayed for five years, and was tortured some more. In Hanoi, he writes, "I fell in love with my country". In its torture cells, he discovered he was worthy of "the faith of my fathers."
When he returned, his father told him the only problem with the war is it wasn't fought hard enough: Nixon and Kissinger should have bombed more civilians, with less restraint. (They killed 3 million.) His son still agrees: he is angry at the "utterly illogical restraints on the use of American power". McCain says of his predecessors: "I still aspire to live my life according to the terms of their approval." It's true. His father's reaction to failure in Vietnam was to urge bombing of Cambodia; his reaction to failure in Iraq is to sing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."
I do not want to exaggerate the difference between Obama and McCain. The U.S. political system is hemmed in by vast blocks of corporate power and geopolitical pressures. Any president can only nudge this system by inches, in either the right or wrong direction -- but when a giant moves by a few inches, the effect is vast.
From his father, Obama learned to eschew "the confidence reserved for those born into imperial cultures" that they should rule the world their way, with "a steady unthinking application of force". He can imagine the mentality of the boy in Basra whose father has vanished into an occupiers' prison, because it happened to his father and grandfather too. McCain learned the opposite from his father: that the natives only ever learn "to behave themselves" at the end of a big stick. So now we have to ask: which ghostly father will America choose?
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Interesting and informative. It was also done on TV in the "Revealed" series on both candidates.
One father ran away from his responsibilities and one father ran toward his responsibilities to both his family and his country. Wonder how Barack would have turned out if he had grown up in south side Chicago instead of just visiting there.
You say that one father ran away from his responsibilities and the other ran to serve his true, but to spite the fact that Barack's father fled from his responsibiities is further testament to how truly exceptional his accomplishments are. Fortunately for Mr. McCain had a wealthy family to fall back on or he might have become an even bigger disaster than he already is.
Excellent article, well thought out- only wish it would get more publication.
Obama's father, stepfather and half-brother - all are Muslims. Obama is 100% Christian though. No commentary, just facts.
I hope that, once elected, Obama faces this insidious form of racism head on - this distancing of himself and our country from all things Muslim.
Being a Muslim is nothing to hide or be ashamed of, is it?
I wish Obama could just say, right now, straight out, that Muslim 'bashing' is racism and should not be tolerated in our country, but alas if he did he would never get elected.
How ironic that a black man must tolerate this form of invidious racism in order to get elected. One step forward, two steps back. Or is that two steps forward, one step back? I guess we'll see after the election.
He has said that.
Obama's father was NOT Muslim at all, and was an atheist or agnostic.
And . . . if he was Muslim??? SO WHAT!!
Yeah, then why bring it up?
Here is an example that may clear this up for some people.
Should we judge American Catholics by what the Irish Republican Army (IRA) does?
Is there any connection between a Catholic in Chicago or Detriot and an IRA terrorist who blows up a building in London?
Of course not.
This "Muslim" argument rests on a foundation of racism--here's how.
The IRA and American Catholics are white and all white people are different---but Muslims are dark and all dark people ARE the same. Attributing defining qualities to a group is racist and does not make sense. No one would draw a connection between an American Catholic and the IRA (which is ironic since Americans have been the primary financial supporters of the IRA since the 1920s).
So, to simplify, what you are saying is - all Muslims are not terrorists? Thanks. Because, unfortunately, it needs saying. Again and again and again.
It seems that every few decades a new scapegoat emerges to carry our sins and our anger. For decades it was communists. Today it's Muslims. Who's next I wonder? If John picks Mitt perhaps Mormons are in for it.
Very insightful. Tragically, a lot of voters *want* to be the brutal unenlightened imperialists.
That's what I'm thinking as well. They relate to John McCain because he is a simple minded war monger fighting for 'democracy and freedom' and, like bush, vanquishing evil. Like some comic book character that always prevails. I think they know John McCain and, sadly, like what they see.
This is part of the challenge for the Democrats. It's not enough to simply point out that McCain is a simple-minded imperialist warmonger still reliving his time in Vietnam; it's changing the minds of the voters who already know that and don't care.
Piercing. Perceptive. Prescient.
Good information. Wish this post could receive more coverage..
Send it to everyone you know. The actions of one person are often the ripple that can create a wave.
McCain's shortsightedness about Vietnam is reason enough to question his fitness for president. We knew in 1966 that we could not win in Vietnam and yet two presidents needlessly prolonged the war. Vietnam and Iraq are the two biggest foreign policy failings of this country and it is appalling that McCain defends both of them.
JC thinks America won in Vietnam. Dont you remember is alternative refrain after POW? it is "I know how to win wars,my friends" Given that Vietnam is the only war he has fought in,by making the above statement one can only assume that he thinks ,he did win Vietnam.
Unfortunately he wants a do-over to prove that he can win wars. Remind you of anyone?
So let me see if I understand your reasoning. Kennedy got us into it in force. Johnson escalated it into about 500,000 men on the ground. McCain supported the democratic presidents and he is out of touch? By your reasoning, then, Gerald Ford was in touch by ending it.
And, worse, would pursue more.
Wow...a very truth-telling and revealing article. Thank you Mr. Hari.
Excellent piece Mr. Hari
I hope everyone is paying attention
Obama / Biden
Wasn't Barack Obama Snr married to 3 different women and had a whole bunch of kids?
So they say,... and your point would be?
Paragraph 5 of this article halfway down.....T
"But he discovered a father who had failed. Obama Snr. had left children strewn across the world."
Failed because he was isolated as he struggles to fight against corruption in Kenya . Was black listed from the Government list of officials in Kenya just like Bush did to some of American Generals who dare to analyse the pros and cons in Iraq,Like he did to supreme court justices who dare to uphold the constitution of the USA.
I can tell you that,most of those Generals and Judges who couldnt stop Bush see themselves as failures,but the truth is this,they didnt fail. The were courageous enough to call the devil the Liar.
BTW,I will rather have O bama fail trying to fight injustice and trying to instil equality than to have JC thinking in the words of his father "What am I gonna do if the wars end"
Para. 5.
RTFA
And this applies to BHO how?
(1 wife - 2 kids)
It doesn't. And neither does the fact that his father, a man Obama never really knew, experienced oppression in Kenya as a child. Obama grew up in a middle class home (in Hawaii!), surrounded by good people that cared for him. His story, with a unique twist, is quite common in the US.
Yes... and he mentions that in the article. Guess you didn't bother to read it.
thank you so much for this piec. thought provoking . PLEASE SEND THIS TO COUNTDOWN.
This is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful pieces I've read....
we forget at our peril the extent to which these men are formed by their fathers. When a man's forebears lament the end of war, where is he going to take his country
Now as everyone is saying, how does this get out to the MSM and in abbreviated (but still viable ) form to the rest of non-blogging America?
get it out there, whatever it takes
thank you Johann Hari
Oh WOW!
What a thought provoking piece.
I think John McCain needs to understand that the swiftboating endured by American servicemen
at the hand of republicans that never served has done serious damange to those who wear
military medals.
They are devalued at this time, and his are not worth a Presidency.
If McCain has no war, or potential for war, then he is just an empty shell. He kind of reminds me of Lt Dan from Forrest Gump in that all of his lineage fought and died in wars and yet he feels like he hasn't done enough because he only saw little action before he was shot down. So now he overcompensates to somehow try to make up what he hasn't achieved in battle. Unfortunately, none of this has anything to do with caring one iota about the American people or serving the countries best interests.
So if elected, he gets to battle his personal demons with someone elses children. Its pathetic and potentally catastrophic for this country.
"If McCain has no war, or potential for war, then he is just an empty shell."
Well, Red, I guess he will be in hog heaven, as we used to say on the farm, because there are a whole bunch of folks in this world who would just love to cap your little democratic self. But don't worry. The McCains of the world will keep you safe.
From whom? You?
Also, according to the press there were 18,000 suspected Al Quaida in 2001, now there is an estimated number of Al Quaida around 200,000, with the number that sympathize at around a million. Does this mean we've won the war on terror??? bwahahahhahahahhaa
Gee, I'm all warm and fuzzy with that ole safe feeling. "That dog won't hunt", as we used to say on my farm...
Excellent post Mr. Hari.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
