In the presence of greatness

I met president-elect Barack Obama in early June 2005 as part of a three-person delegation from the Carter Center’s annual human rights policy forum. Barack Obama was then a junior senator and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a rising star within the Democratic Party.

Our host, President Jimmy Carter arranged for us to meet ranking members of important senate committees to discuss human rights concerns and raise specific issues on which we sought policy change.

We met Barack Obama on a corridor inside the senate building room during a break in the committee hearings of that day. He gave us seven minutes.

I was selected by the group to make the case for additional support for the MONUC peacekeeping forces in the DRC and raise human rights concerns over the laying of the oil pipeline in Chad. He said he’d been up all night writing his new book — The Audacity of Hope — and had a full day ahead. There was some pressure to get going.

Pointed questions

He listened intently, looking right into my eyes as I spoke and when I was done, he asked pointed questions that would help him understand the situations I had described better.

Then he gave me another seven minutes to speak about Kenya and my work. I understood then, what would later be described as his ‘messianic’ hold on people. You just knew that you were in the presence of greatness.

Kenya was then embroiled in a most divisive debate on the referendum on a new constitution. The country was polarised along ethnic and political lines.

The NARC government partners were at each other’s throats. Democracy and its institutions had taken a beating since December 2002. Freedom of the press was under serious attack.

Kenyans were stoking the embers of what would eventually explode in post election violence. President-elect Obama wanted to hear about the ‘root causes’ of the Kenyan crisis.

So he said he had another eight or so minutes to speak about this and possible solutions.

My impression then, and on the two subsequent occasions that I had the opportunity to meet him, both in Washington and Nairobi was of a man of great intelligence and intensity. He cared deeply about ordinary people and their involvement in politics.

He paid attention to what we told him. His senate office stayed in touch with us after we had returned to our countries and he continued to encourage us in our work.

Obama’s election represents hope for humanity. We are all better because of this man. He has shown that it is possible to transcend divisions.

As he says in his book, The Audacity of Hope, he rejects politics that is based solely on identity and victimhood generally. Obama has made all world citizens feel a little bigger.

I am hopeful that we will use his example to rise to higher ground and reinvent our politics in Kenya. That we might learn from the example of his campaign of the value of inclusion and participation.

Learn too, that we can and should give to political causes that have the potential to change our lives. Demand more of ourselves, not just our politicians.

Betty Kaari Murungi is director, Urgent Action Fund-Africa