The Washington Post Reported that when Barack Obama, Sr. first arrived in Hawaii he was interviewed by the Hawain Press, the reporter Hirozawa relays Obama’s comments, “he would study business administration and wanted to return to Kenya to help with its transition from tribal customs to a modern economy.” He was concerned, he said, about his generation’s disorientation as Kenyans rejected old ways yet struggled with “westernization”.”
Obama did not mention his opposition to the “Westernization” of Kenya in the interview - Obama was, in fact, a Marxist.
The Washington Post went on to report that, “Taking a room at the Charles H. Atherton branch of the YMCA, not far from campus, Obama quickly adapted to the rhythms of student life. One of his frequent hangouts was the snack bar in an old Army-barracks-style building near his business classes. It was there that he met the Abercrombie brothers, first Neil and then Hal, who had escaped the darkness of Buffalo to attend graduate school in Honolulu, and their friends Peter Gilpin, Chet Gorman and Pake Zane. They were antiestablishment intellectuals, experimenters, outsiders, somewhere between beatniks and hippies, and they loved to talk and drink coffee and beer. Neil Abercrombie went on to become a Democratic Congressman from Honolulu, Hawai.
The Washington Post went on to elaborate on Obama’s Press interview with Hirozawa, “When asked if people questioned him about Kenya, he laughed and said: “Oh, yes. People are very interested in the Mau Mau rebellion [a long-standing uprising against the British] and they ask about race relations in Kenya. I tell them they’ve improved since the rebellion but are not perfect. They also ask if Kenya is ready for self-government. Some others ask me such questions as how many wives each man has back home, what we eat, how I dress at home, how we live, whether we have cars.”
He [Obama] did not answer those questions in the story. Nor, on one matter, was he forthcoming with his friends at the university. Neither newspaper readers nor his fellow students knew that he had left a son and a pregnant wife back in Kenya.
Obama “pontificated on Kenya and nationalism and colonialism and his fears about what might happen.” “He was very concerned that tribalism would trump nationalism,” Neil Abercrombie said. “And that people like himself would not be properly recognized, would not be fully utilized, and there would be discrimination and prejudice. Jomo Kenyatta [Kenya's first post-colonial leader] was a Kikuyu, and Barack and Mboya were Luo, and Kikuyu were going to run things. We’d get into it, that deeply” said Abercrombie.
This writer won’t speculate on whether Abercrombie’s memory is faulty, or the Washington Post’s writers notes were in accuate, however, the historical facts are this ….. When Obama Sr. arrived in Hawaii in June 1959, future President Kenyatta was in jail in Kenya. This was a matter of discusssion in local and Internation Press. The Bristish did not call and end to the “State of Emergency” in Kenya until November 1959. Kenyatta was not released from jail in Kenya until July 1961, after Obama Sr. had finished his second year of studies in Hawaii. In June 1962 Barack Obama Sr finisjed his studies at the University of Hawaii, with honors and according to a report in the Honolulu-Star-Bulletin, departed Hawaii for Harvard on June 22, 1962. It wasn’t until May 1963 before Jomo Kenyatta would be elected the first President of Kenya, 11 months after Obama Sr had left Hawaii. In December 1963 Kenya was granted independence. In the spring of 1964 Obama Sr completed his Masters degree at Harvard and returned home to Kenya. In December 1964 Kenya becomes a Republic. While Abercrobie and Obama may have discussed Kenya, the discussion as described, did not place in the time frame reported.
