A few months ago a German friend began reading this book written by Barack Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois. I asked her why she opted for a book written by a politician which I thought would be a constant attention beggar if not boring. She said that she admires the democrat leader besides the book has a lot to do with cultural differences. After a while, I came across with the book at a local bookstore. Despite the fact that the front cover had some family pictures to make the book more forthcoming, it still looked somehow serious to me. After a brief hesitation I purchased it. I finished the book quickly and am glad that I read an entirely honest book on race, cultural differences, social status, religion, traditions and most importantly sense of belonging to more than one place. The latter one, throughout the book, in fact loaded me up with tremendous amount of insight on where I fell right in. I unquestionably recommend it to those who were born in a particular setting and relocated in another part of the world and are now living the "divided life" style just the way it's described in the book. I was able to relate the stories as a Turkish-American who is living in the States while her roots are laying in Turkey.

His African father and white American, extremely self-preserved, mother had a brief marriage back in 60's. He wrote of his mother as a reserved, attentive and well-educated woman who encouraged him gain his social and racial identity and be what he wanted to be in life. When his father finished studying in America, he returned to Africa leaving Barack and his mother behind with her parents. Growing up without a father seemed to hurt him all through his boyhood maybe even during his adulthood. The moment I began reading the book I appreciated the grandparents' behavior, though, for never letting down the African father in front of his son. It was heart breaking knowing an interracial boy sorting through life-size worries and handling them courageously with or without help of grandparents. No matter what, the grandparents loved the young Obama dearly, nourished him and provided him with life skills.

I am not totally against the fact that his grandfather kept calling him Barry instead of Barack while he lived with them in Hawaii. Especially back in those days life must have been way too hard for a mixed-cultured individual. I do understand the concern and I have called my OWN self with a couple of more Americanized first names in order to have the ordinary first impression.  The idea of calling him with a more familiar American name than an African one might have made young Barack fit in and not so much stand out.   Later in life he embraced his own name, Barack, which means "blessed" in Arabic.

His inspiring life story began in Hawaii, followed by a fulfilling and enjoyable habitation in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather and later back in the States. The comparison  between the lives of  Indonesians and poor blacks back home, also later during his Kenya visit, the resemblance between an ordinary Kenyan  and  poor blacks' way of living in Chicago were distinctly observed and profoundly well written.

He was just to-the-point in writing his community organizing works in Chicago. He sectioned out lives of blacks in relation to blacks, whites, changing society, and religion. It was all very clear that the color of one's skin may very well be the determinant of how one lives his or her life.  The author, certainly well fed the reader in reflecting societal shortcomings due to racial differences while honestly sharing all the racial bias situations that he came across during his community organizing period and hoping to help eradicate racism, poverty and corruption from Chicago.  

His Kenya trip was full of relatives, siblings, unfamiliar faces and places. He began discovering his great grandfather all the way down to his own father and lots of traditions in a mere couple of weeks.  This trip has its own heavy philosophy in which he looked closely into the mode his elders had lived their lives weaved into sets of strong beliefs and traditions. The more he learned about his ancestors the more he became familiar with his own. More and more he realized that his father, the Old Man, lived a "divided life" all through his life and consequently he felt perhaps living like Kenyan in the States and American in Kenya! This fact was no stranger to me either! As a person coming from a distinctive culture along with a set of traditions and beliefs, after so many years, I am still trying to weave my foreign upbringing with American way in the context of mainstream lifestyle while raising two beautiful children trying not to deviate too much from the mother culture.  

It is somehow comforting to find out how some beliefs can be common throughout the place.  One that I liked to share now took me back to my childhood which, without a doubt, must have known in a similar way in other parts of the world as well. Here it goes: In Turkey, most of us grew up hearing  "Cici cocuk olmazsan oculer seni goturur". In Turkish it means "If you dont behave, the scary creatures will come get you". This is the type of fear message most of my generation received growing up back home. The similar axiom in this book is about "night runners" in Kenya. Those fearsome beings would be very active at complete darkness and would come get those not-so-nice people; be it kids, elders, women or men.

In a way this book helped me come to terms in uncovering my own foreignness in the land that I am living presently while painfully helped me discover the irony of now feeling foreign to my homeland.  

This book could easily find audience among very diverse populations such as interracials, internationalists, African Americans, legislators, historians, travelers, self-helpers and spiritualists. For those of you who are into community organizing work, do consider getting a good grasp of this book. Mr. Barack Obama is an intelligent and talented public servant full of brilliant ideas who is indeed readily inspirational with his beautifully painted mixed-cultural background.

I first and foremost recommend this book to those individuals who have been living a "divided life" like myself.

"Oh, Father, I cried. There was no shame in your confusion. Just as there had been no shame in your father's before you. No shame in the fear, or in the fear of his father before him. There was only shame in the silence fear had produced. It was the silence that betrayed us. If it weren't for that silence, your grandfather might have told your father that he could never escape himself, or re-create himself alone. Your father might have taught those same lessons to you. And you, the son, might have taught your father that this new world that was beckoning all of you involved more than just railroads, and indoor toilets, and irrigation ditches, and gramophones, lifeless instruments that could be absorbed into the old ways. You might have told him that these instruments carried with them a dangerous power, that they demanded a different way of seeing the world. That this power could be absorbed only alongside a faith born out of hardship, a faith that wasn't new, that wasn't black or white or Christian or Muslim but that pulsed in the heart of the first African village and the first Kansas homestead - a faith in other people." (Page 429)

Enjoy.

Fatos Simsek, November 2005, Raleigh, NC