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Will Obama forgive Britain for his grandfather’s torture?
David Cohen16.01.09
SIXTY years ago, a Kenyan working for a British Army officer in Nairobi was incarcerated in a high-security prison. The 54-year-old cook had become involved in his country's struggle for independence and his British captors brutally tortured him to extract information about the insurgency that later became known as the Mau Mau rebellion.
According to the cook's family, the British held him for two years during which he was "whipped every morning and evening". "They would sometimes squeeze his testicles with metal rods," they recalled. "They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together. He was lucky to survive. Some of his fellow inmates were mutilated with castration pliers and beaten to death with clubs."
That cook, we now know, was Hussein Onyango Obama, the paternal grandfather of the American President-elect Barack Obama. His beatings at the hands of the British Army, alongside whom he'd served in Burma during the Second World War, had left him, his family say, "prematurely aged", with "permanent physical scars" and "a lifelong loathing of the British".
On the eve of Tuesday's historic inauguration of the first black US President, we may pause to wonder: has the torture of his grandfather affected Obama's feelings towards the British? Might it subtly impact American foreign policy and the primacy of the so-called "special relationship" between the US and Britain?
These questions are perhaps not as fanciful as they may seem. Obama has no obvious link to Britain and is likely to be the least Anglophile American leader in decades. Unlike Bill Clinton, who was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and George W Bush, who venerated Winston Churchill and kept a bust of him in the Oval Office, all Obama has is a grandfather who was tortured by British colonialists.
Obama never met the grandfather his family call Onyango - he died in 1979 at the age of 84 when Barack was still at high school. But in his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, he gives great prominence - 35 pages - to his grandfather's life story as told to him by his stepgrandmother Sarah on his first trip to his ancestral home in western Kenya in 1986, prefacing it as follows: "It had all started with him. If I could piece together his story, everything else might fall into place."
When Sarah had finished, Obama recounts, he dropped to the ground between the graves of his father and grandfather and wept. "When my tears were spent I felt the circle finally close. I saw that my life in America - the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I'd felt as a boy - all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away. The pain I felt was my father's pain. My questions were my brothers' questions. Their struggle, my birthright."
He tells of his grandfather's shocking physical state after his release by the British. "When he returned to Alego he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice. From that day on he was an old man." At another point in his book, he describes sitting on an aeroplane next to "a pale, gangly young Brit still troubled with acne" and feeling a "flush of anger" and wondering, "Was I angry at him?"
If, as Obama poetically puts it, his pain is his father's pain, and by implication his grandfather's, has he internalised his ancestor's embitterment against the British?
Interestingly, some foreign policy briefing papers currently circulating on Capitol Hill raise this very question. Wess Mitchell, co-founder of the independent think-tank the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, says there has been speculation as to whether Obama's putative "submerged psychological grievance" might affect a special relationship that goes back decades - to Ronald Reagan's powerful chemistry with Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair's "third way" consanguinity with Bill Clinton.
The general view is that Britain will be de-emphasised in favour of France and Germany, and that Europe will be seen as less important than Asia, but for economic reasons and not because of anything to do with Obama's grandfather," says Mitchell. "Obama is above all a pragmatist. And on the basis that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, I expect Obama's charm offensive to be directed first towards Germany, whose economy is bigger, and whose sensitivity to Russia has caused it to resist the American plan to expand Nato to the east and incorporate Georgia and the Ukraine. Getting a result at the Nato summit in April will be Obama's first foreign policy objective in Europe."
Other political analysts say Obama's background - white American mother, black African father - has taught him to see racism through both lenses. "He's not going to bear a grudge," says Stryker McGuire, an expert in Anglo-American relations and the former London bureau chief of Newsweek. "He's likely to view the torture in the broader context of the ills of colonialism, and might even see parallels with American abuses of power."
But Richard King, professor emeritus of American history at Nottingham University, wonders what Obama really feels about his grandfather's story. "He's constructed an adult self that handles personal racial situations with such coolness that it's hard to know what he truly feels, but his grandfather's story seems to have deeply affected him and how it gets woven into his performance as President is going to be fascinating to watch."
As Barack tells it, Hussein Onyango Obama was born in 1895 - the year that the 600-mile-long railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria was begun by the British - and grew up, the son of a cattle farmer, in a rural part of western Kenya. As a child he wore only a goatskin around his waist and did not go to school, learning from his father how to herd goats and throw spears and later to be a herbalist.
When he was a teenager, Onyango heard that the white man - the British - had come to Kisumu and went to see for himself, returning months later wearing trousers, shirt and shoes. "What has happened to you?" his father asked. "Why do you wear these strange skins?" The family shunned Onyango and he returned to Kisumu to work for an Englishman, learning to read and write, but he remained estranged from his father for the rest of his life.
In his mid-twenties, he walked to Nairobi, where he was offered a job as a house servant. It was a journey, he later told his family, that took him more than two weeks. "Many times he chased away leopard with his panga, and once he was chased into a tree by an angry buffalo and had to sleep in the tree for two days, but no harm came to him," recounts Obama. In this job, he learned "how to prepare the white man's food and organise the white man's house" and "worked in the estates of some of the most important white men, even Lord Delamere".
Later he took a wife, Helima, but when she could not bear him children, he took a second, Akumu, with whom he had two children, one of them Obama's father. But Akumu was unhappy - Onyango "would beat her severely" as was apparently "normal among Luo men if their wives misbehaved" - and she ran away, leaving Onyango's third wife Sarah to bring up Obama's father from age nine.
During the Second World War, Onyango left his family to serve as cook to a British Army captain and travelled with the regiment to Burma, Ceylon and Arabia before returning home three years later.
As Barack listened to Sarah, now 88, telling him this story, a feeling of "betrayal" came over him, he says. "My image of Onyango was of an independent man, a man of his people, opposed to white rule. What Granny told us scrambled that image completely, causing ugly words to flash across my mind. Uncle Tom. Collaborator. House nigger."
But Onyango's life was about to take a dramatic turn. He'd returned from the war at the age of 50 to find things changing rapidly and his countrymen clamouring for independence. At first he was sceptical it would amount to anything but in 1949 he appears to have got caught up in events and was imprisoned, accused of being "a subversive" and of passing sensitive information to the fledgling independence movement.
In his book, Obama says only that his grandfather "received a hearing" and was "found innocent" after being held "for more than six months", but recently Sarah elaborated, saying that he had supplied information to the insurgents. "His job as a cook to a British officer made him a useful informer for the secret oathing movement which would later form the Mau Mau rebellion," she said.
Sarah added: "He was arrested by two soldiers and taken to Kamiti prison outside Nairobi. This was like a death camp because some detainees died while being tortured. We were not allowed to see him, not even taking him food. He was told he would be killed or maimed if he refused to reveal what he knew of the insurgency. This was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but enemies. My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained. It left him bitterly anti-British for the rest of his life."
At the height of the 1952-1960 Mau Mau rebellion more than 71,000 Kenyans were held in prison camps. Letters smuggled out, several hundred of which are held in the Kenyan archives, describe a regime of "forced labour", "starvation", "sexual violence" and "murder". One British policeman is said to have told the Labour politician Barbara Castle that conditions in some detention camps were "worse, far worse, than anything I experienced in my four years as a prisoner of the Japanese".
The Mau Mau rebellion cost the lives of 12,000 Kenyans and 32 Europeans. Although it failed militarily, it hastened Kenyan independence in 1963.
It appears that Obama never saw a picture of his grandfather. He describes how he rummaged through his grandmother's old trunk and found his grandfather's passbook but that "the box was empty where the photograph had once been". According to Sarah, the "fighting combative spirit" shown by her husband during Kenya's independence struggle lives on in his grandson, Barack.
It's a quality the new American president will need in abundance when he is sworn in on Tuesday. Gordon Brown is unlikely to be the first national leader invited to Washington but it remains to be seen whether Obama's grandfather will, from the grave, dent the special relationship.
Reader views (43)
"Obama has no obvious link to Britain and is likely to be the the least....." Hold on a minute David Cohen!!
How can you say there is no "obvious link to Britain"
When Obama himself declares his 'Citizenship was govern by the British Nationality Act of 1948', admitting dual
Citzenship at birth, CUKC and US citizenship. I would think that if he was born in the US his citizenship would be governed by the US, wouldn't you?
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html
Why don't you take back your Native Son?
- Georgetown, Georgetown, TX
Is the story about Obama's grandpa even true? I read "Dreams from my Father" about a year ago and do not remember any passage about his grandfather being mistreated etc.
- Ramlok, Hartford, Ct
After the way Obama treated your PM - let me say from ALL the Americans that I know. We APOLOGIZE.
We think what Obama has done is a complete disgrace. We great patriots understand the sacrifices GB has made with and for the USA.
You all have plenty of reason to be upset with the USA for what has transpired. When I first read about it I thought it had to be satire...still my head is spinning that we have such an incompetent in the White House.
- Glenn, Sarasota, FL
well done cheryl,from phoenix Arizona USA, lets learn from the past and look forward to the future !!! congraulations to you Mr President, I know your a much bigger man then to be vindictive and please please look after and show the muslim world the way forward by listning to their concerns!!!
- Parvez Akhtar, birmingham uk
I would love Brown to declare to everyone that the special relationship between the UK and US is over!
Pull the troops out of Afghanistan...leave the Americans to fight another Vietnam! Obama, good luck convincing the French, Germans and Italians to send extra military forces to Afghanistan.
- Ian, Reading, UK
So what if we did? The Mau Mau hacked children to death, with machetes. If that`s the reason why, he plans to close Guantanomo,because his Grandad,was put in a concentration camp,(which he probably won`t)it`s childish. And he can`t call us for torture-America does waterboarding. Something that was done by Pol Pot. So he can`t call us.
- David, Manchester UK
It's all good! Let's look to the future and work on that. WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!
- Cheryl, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Everyone should read Chepchumba's post above; quite enlightening. Also, if Obama's Grandfather had been enslaved to white American plantation owners, would there be articles coming out saying he's "anti-white"? I doubt it. And finally, being closely connected with UK forces myself and all which it entails, I no longer care about whether we have a special relationship any more or not. Let's not hear any more about it!
- Phil, London
I am sure that Obama is astute enough (and grown up enough) not to allow something like that to dictate his policital relationship with an entire nation! At least one must hope so. I am just very glad that none of the makers of the silly, petulant and thoughtless comments on this forum are in charge of anything more than a household budget.
- Helen, London, UK
from reading these statements there seems tobe alot of rascist individuals out there on both sides , GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL , you wonder why there are so many problems , educate yourselves
- Adam, essex
I really don’t give a tinker’s cuss what Obama thinks about the British.
Britain’s gained nothing out of its close relationship with the Bush regime (other than two foreign wars and a medal for Tony Blair), I therefore expect we’ll lose very little by being cast adrift by the incoming Obama administration.
- Steven, Sheffield
The British are not self-reflective about their colonial past. They justify it by saying they built railroads and spread democracy, but completely overlook the fact that the world bears deep scars from the British and French imperial legacy (Just look at Gaza and Israel). I hope Obama puts Britain in the cold with its 'special relationship' conceit. The Brits need a long period in the wilderness to reexamine their past.
- Joe, London, UK
Fear and uncertainity can only grip the once advantaged who might see equality as a challenge to status quo.Well, Kate, If you have read Obama's book, your concerns are understandable considering where you are---South Africa.You are horrified by your imaginations of what might come of a once oppressed, bearing in mind that you are still enjoying being white---fear not for change is on the way.The same thing happened when collonialism and later apatheid was unfolding--but hey, we expect better now from the once oppressed for they have a better idea of how it feels.Yeees We Can!!!!
- Hubva, Perth,Western Australia
KATE:
How exactly does a wolf get "BATHED in sheeps clothing?"
LOl @ U
- Country Ferst, Outer Mongolia
WELL USA IS NOW A BIG COUNTRY BUT YES HALF OF THIS LAND WAS STOLEN FROM NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS AND THE OTHER HALF FROM THE ORIGINAL MEXICAN LAND BUT ALL COUNTRIES DID THE SAME AT SOME POINT AND WE CANT CARRY HATE FOR THIS OVERTIME THOSE WAS OTHER TIMES AND THE ONES WHO DID IT WAS OTHER PEOPLE AND NOT TO US SO WE CANT HATE FOR GENERATIONS AND GENERATIONS AND OBAMA I THINK IS SMART ENOUGH KNOW IT, SO DONT WORRY
- ISRAEL, USA
History repeats itself. The world has entered into a very dangerous phase of development. The emerging world is fast becomming the new colonial power - and woe betide the brutality they will unleash on the world. The ethos of most of the new emerging powers is violence, lack of human rights, torture...brutality to women and children - mass rape and the dehumanising of the human spirit.
Ah, the West and Europe, Russia you have all become to soft. You do not learn from history, and so readily take human rights to a crazy level. Just look at the hatred exposed by barbara of Montreal. She is typical of the "emerging races of undemocratic power" They are pure evil. Look what they do to each other, and they are of the same colour.
Shameful - look at the dis-
unity, corruption, hatred, lack of human rights, squalor etc that these "emerging forces" will unleash upon the world.
Possibly Obama has overcome the inbuilt hatred these emerging economies have the the European - but if his statements in his book is anything to go by - he, and many of his ilk - are wolves, bathed in sheeps clothing.
Beware, the world has entered into a time of darkness. There will be more strife in the world than ever before -
- Kate, Cape Town
Totally agree, I would rather we didn't have a 'special relationship' so that we can stand our own and not pander to Americans ignorant view of the world.
- christian, london
The truth hurts but it's worth noting that Britain, Europe and America got established on slavery,piracy,theft,greed and murder.The plantations in America before the industrial revolution manned by slaves,the red Indians killed in the founding of America, the Aborigines in Canada and Australia,the list is endless. Surely, the world should forgive all this. But asking people to forget it is a poke in the eye. Let the people learn where the world has come from, so they can make better judgement tomorrow, and know where the world is going.
- Richard, Middlesex, United Kingdom
He belonged to the Mau Mau who used to go around murdering people by burning them to death or hacking them to bits. He lived until he was 84, that's a very old age for an Afrian living in Kenya in those times. I don't think he would have lived that long if he had been tortured for two years in the way they are claiming.
- Pat, Essex
Who cares about Obama is grandfather or the so called special relationship, most Brits couldn’t care less. All empires whether British, Roman, Spanish, French or American kill and torture their subjects; it is a fact of life. It still happens today, Guantanamo bay springs to mind. By the way Barbara you are living in land that we stole from the Native American Indians and guess what, most Canadians don’t give a hoot.
- stephenD, London, England
It is important to reflect on the past so that we can be wiser in the future. Forgetting is not an option, but forgiving is. But how can forgiveness be obtained when all black people are told is to forget about the past. Just as I cannot forget the concentration camps in the 2nd world war, neither can I forget slavery or colonialism as my history is interlinked with both. Shame on anyone who is flippant in regards to such destruction and evil in its purest form. However what this article and many comments show me, is that a lot of people will experience a very sharp learning curve in the near future.
- Angel, London SE
you british steal from africa, all you could steal,hope that obama hate you,british are still living from stolen stuff,and resources from around the world
- barbara, montreal
Seeing how terribly the British treated Mr Obama's grandfather, it is amazing that his step-mother allowed the UK to furnish her with council housing and no doubt benefits? On the other hand, knowing what happened to British people who received the attentions of the Mau-Mau, perhaps Mr Obama should consider paying them some kind of compensation?
- jonathan montmorency, cooden, uk
Being a teenage American, I have found the reason people have troubles getting the younger generations vote. STOP CARING ABOUT THE PAST IT'S OVER!!!!! Get over it, I'm not saying forget about the past. Learn from it but don't go around worrying what happened 60 years ago, people only grow older and move forward in time.
Random I know but I saw on the news today about how they arrested a man and sent him away for 43 years on drug charges, but only gave him 14 years for trying to kill the police officer arresting him. This is why I've lost all face to any politics and government whatsoever.
- Alex, Newport, North Carolina, USA
as an ex-Indian and currently living in US, I feel outraged by what the British has done to the whole world, the torture,the humiliation they have caused the people of India,South Africa and many other countries needs to be inflicted`on the British people for a long time to come. I would like to see the worst and most devastating things happen to British people and the whole country. Western Europe, US and Israel who are now indulging in the worst atrocities in Iraq,
Afghainistan and Palestine in the name of fighting terrorism deserve the worst and catastropihic future. Thats all my in my prayers everyday.
- Kanan, mountain view
The day europeans become self-reflective will be the day pigs fly.
- David Papaccio, Chicago
I can't believe how many posters write that America leads Britain into war!! How many british or European soldiers are burined on American soil? (sorry, you cannot count immigrants) Answer: ZERO! How many Americans are buried on European soil? About 80,000!!!! These American soldiers were sent to Europe primarily to support Britain! They sacrified their lives for what they thought was a genuine friendship between two nations. What thanks do we get? Hateful caractures of Americans that are light years from reality. It's disgusting. At least with Obama as president, whether he hates the UK or not, it will make it harder for you brits to spread the myth that Americans are the most racist people on earth--just one of the many ugly lies Brits spread about the US. Brits do not deserve the United States as a protector or a friend! It's really sad to see how your hatred for America has turned your country into snarling bastion of fascism.
- Vikram D'Souza, Memphis, Tenn., U.S.A.
I am an American (bi-racial, btw) who has never had any particular affection or interest in the UK (I found this article while googling racism in europe which is the only reason why I'm reading it). I never understood the anglophilia of our politicians (and media) in the US. Based on the comments on here, it's clear the "special friendship" between the brits and Americans is over. I could hardly care less. Ciao!
- Michael Luo, Seattle, Washington, USA
I find it ironic and humourous that we British have put so much effort for so many decades into dehumanising Americans and debasing their culture, and now here we are crying that they may turn their backs on us. Personally, I wouldn't blame Americans if they did turn their backs on us. We hardly deserve their friendship.
- Mary, London, England
All I'm seeing here is people with their own axes to grind and 'guilt complexes by proxy' for the Britain's past, airing their preferred 'what if' scenarios and shoe-horning them into the coming Obama presidency. I somehow very much doubt that the man will have the time for self-indulgent time wasting like this or any of the other fantasies that have hit the headlines about him over the past weeks.
I'm starting to wonder how many people are living in the real world out there these days! Much as I dislike the man's politics, I can't wait for the inauguration to be over and done with so we can get back to some sense of normalcy.
- Rogan, Irving
What special relationship? The one where the UK is at the beck and call of the USA? The one where the UK powers that be will allow the USA to do just as it pleases? The UK that is a yes man for the USA? If that 'special relationship' is no more then good. The UK has been fawning and grovelling to the US for far to long and for what?
- Jamie, London
Sarah only elaborated recently because the story is a made up story. Obama is from the Luo tribe. Ask any British or Kenyan involved in the Mau Mau. There was no chance of the British suspecting a Luo to be a Mau Mau or their sympathiser the Luos were on the British side who were known as gati. They could never have been put in the same cell or would a Luo be close to Mau Mau enough to raise suspicion. Just like the story of Obama's father being sacked by Kenyatta govt. for challenging it being a fake. Obama's dad worked with my father and my father tells me that he was sacked for drunkenness at work and non attendance. He was given an option of even attending work once a week because he couldn't keep up but even that was too much. Kenyans are story tellers. They will give Obama the fairy story he so craves but I wish he doesn't have to believe everything because this people are simply trying to re-write history.
- Chepchumba, London,UK
I too hope hat the special relationship is over. After living in this country for a decade, I have concluded that America's affection for Britain is largely undeserved and certainly unreciprocated.
- Loud American, London
I think overall we have a bunch of things like this we really should apologise for ....
- marke, Houston, Texas
I think Obama would have every right to be aggrieved at what happened to his grandfather. I am sure there are plenty of people around the globe who have similar tales of anger and injustice. And without wanting to sound too "let's apologise for everything", I would imagine most of them have a point. History is written by the victors, supposedly, but the injustices visited on the losers should be given equal hearing - and if the story of Obama's grandfather strikes a blow against our accepted narrative that the Empire was overall a good thing, maybe that will make us face up to a few uncomfortable truths.
- Callum, London
Who cares?
- Rogan, Irving
Why should Britain care? The special relationship has cost Britain far more than it has gained. America does not care what the UK thinks, it only acts in its own selfish interests and uses the UK to push its agenda on the world stage.
- James Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove, NY, USA
"He was told he would be killed or maimed if he refused to reveal what he knew of the insurgency. This was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but enemies"
No wonder Obama wants to close Guantanemo. The parallels are distinctly disturbing
- Stuart, London, UK
uncle obama just forgive and forgate because jehovah loves u so much.
- Evans M Bunda, lusaka, zambia
No 'special relaltionship'? Does that mean we can make up our own mind if it is desirable to run behind America when invading other countries? I hope we are well down the queue to be a 'special friend'
- Roy G, Solihull, ENGLAND
An excellent article and very interesting to read. I feel that Obama's life experiences as outlined are going to make him a more objective president with a greater degree of understanding and compassion. I think that if he believes that there is an importance in maintaining the special relationship with Britain then his character will not allow these experiences to affect him if he is acting in the best interests of the USA. As they say 'the past is no more than a reference book for the future' something I think Obama will fully appreciate.
- Chris, Sussex , England
Hellll NO! He should seek reparations and compensations on behalf of his grand daddy and the forefathers!
- Liz, London SE 28 DR
I hope the "special relationship" is over.Maybe then we will not be led by the nose into every war that the Americans use to impose their so called "democracy" on the rest of the world!
- Alan, Chigwell. UK
