Did Barack Obama give America a third world tint?

A polished lawyer and scholarly type; an American in every respect that matters, outgoing US president Barrack Obama’s identity had two special features.
First, as everybody knows, is the fact that Obama is black, or African-American (if you prefer, since it seems ‘black’ may go where ‘Negro’ went. Obama marks an important point in American history as the first African-American to become the ruler of that powerful nation.
However, focusing on Obama’s identity reveals a feature that makes him stand out as an even more unique figure within the African-American type.
Virtually all the other great African-American figures trace their connection with Africa through the history of slavery, humiliation, extraordinary anguish, terrible sea journeys, slave markets and origins in African villages that are so distant in time that they are almost mythical. The authenticity of their African-American identity is engraved with this history.
In contrast, Obama is African-American through a narrative that directly links him to an Africa of very recent times. He probably has more close Kenyan relatives of his generation and his father’s generation going about their affairs in East Africa than in the US.
Any pain or trials in Obama’s journey were in the context of relatively free men and women making the choices they made, not impositions by systematic institutionalised bondage.
In a sense, Obama (and American voters) denied the archetypal descendants of America’s tragic black history an opportunity to seize the high moment.
Given this background, is there something about Obama’s legacy that reflects his living African connection?
Do you remember what Obama’s catchword, “Yes we can”, was specifically about?
It is all right if you, like me, have forgotten; because the phase took on a generalised relevance wherever a resolve to take collective action to achieve positive things was needed.
Is it improving racial relations and bringing equal justice to all Americans? Is it reducing the gap between the rich and the poor in America and across the globe? Is it averting conflict and the threat of terrorism? Is it addressing the challenge of global warming and other environmental concerns?
Rhetorically: Yes we can!
On many issues, president Obama could only score averagely as any other president might have done.
Like over Guantanamo Bay, which remains open (albeit with fewer inmates) eight years after he promised to close it. In the face of international terrorism and the peculiarities of non-state combatants, the ‘establishment’ was stronger than Obama’s idealism. He had no clear practical alternatives to the non-lawful mechanisms the Bush administration had invented and located (outside America) at Guantanamo Bay. Even a white president with his ideas would probably get the same results.
But where Obama failed miserably, or where he succeeded astoundingly, we might find his African identity an important factor.
Middle Eastern attitudes are not always kind to blacks or women. (Israel’s Golda Meier was an exceptional lioness). President Obama and (initially) Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State did not make an auspicious combination.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin may also have found Obama oddly “small”, or “weak”, or too Third World, to consider an equal when planning or fighting serious wars.
Enter Iran and Cuba. Emaciated by sanctions, they could listen to a small, weak (or non-belligerent) reasonable American. They would probably not so readily listen to someone they would describe as a typical White Christian arrogant American “bully”, and he would have probably not found the motivation or humility to make the moves Obama made. Iranian and Cuban negotiators perceived Obama as respectful; up to a point, he was even ‘one of them’. Perhaps America was not such an alien monstrous entity after all.
Two deals were struck; a US-led multi-national agreement limiting Iran’s developments in the nuclear sphere, and the restoration of diplomatic and other US relations with Cuba.
Whatever the risks (especially regarding Iran), Obama could count the two as foreign policy successes and partly thank his “Third World” identity as having been of value in the protracted processes, even if he leaves behind an America that Donald Trump believes does not look great enough.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator. [email protected].