There are plenty of lessons to learn from Obama, US

It is confirmed that US President Barack Obama will visit Kenya in July. There is jubilation all around.

A visit by an American President anywhere in the globe is good news. America is no ordinary country. It is the most powerful state in the world politically, economically and militarily.

Therefore, Obama’s planned visit has huge implications for Kenya’s economy. There will certainly be investment inflows, because Obama will essentially be on a business trip; he will be here for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

Such visits invariably confer huge global goodwill on the host country.

Besides the political and economic gains that Kenya is bound to reap from this high-profile visit, there are other ways we stand to benefit. As a nation aspiring to prosper, we need to look critically at the variety of lessons from America.

A cocktail of factors is at the core of America’s success.

HUMBLE ORIGINS

First, American citizens have played a central role in shaping their destiny by jealously guarding the principles of democracy and liberty on which their country was founded.

However, the most outstanding reason America leads the world in numerous aspects is the fact that it has never been short of heroes and heroines, who have stood to be counted during perilous times.

The American Civil War between the North and the South in 1800s was so vicious that it was feared the United States, referred then as the Union, would split permanently into two states.

There were also discriminative laws that entrenched obnoxious racial segregation in which people of colour were considered second-class citizens.

Out of these harsh conditions rose brilliant and charismatic American statesmen.

President Abraham Lincoln was one of them. He is credited with preserving the Union during the Civil War and signing the Emancipation Proclamation that led to the end of slavery in the US. 

He rose from humble origins and through sheer stamina, great character and resilience, he became one of the most celebrated leaders in the history of America.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt played a central role in blunting the adverse effects of the 1930s Great Depression through his New Deal, which comprised a number of ingenious initiatives. 

He also led the US during most of the Second World War.

FDR, as Roosevelt was fondly known, clearly understood the pivotal role that citizens play in nurturing democracy. “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely,” he said.

PLENTY OF LESSONS

America also had a towering civil rights activist in Martin Luther King Jr, whose moving speeches captured the attention of the world and immensely contributed to the end one of the vilest, officially-sanctioned systems of discrimination in the world.

His dream was for a society in which “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character”.

King Jr also urged the citizens to be at the vanguard of transformation of their country, warning that the ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

There are plenty of lessons, too, from the indefatigable Rosa Parks, who literally refused to budge in the bus of segregation.

No wonder she was known in the United States Congress as “the First Lady of Civil Rights”.

She chose to rise up because she was “tired of being treated like a second-class citizen” in her motherland.