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Huge Victory! Thundering Spring OBAMANIA Brings Change in America. Mc Never Comes Back as Third term for the WAR Machinery Preempted! But the Question Remains Unanswered Whether Obama is BLACK Enough for the Dream of Martin Luther King! Would the American President Overcome AMERICANISM as well as Zionist Corporate Imperialism Unipolar! Indian FREEsenSEX Stumbles with NEWS Breaks form Washington as Ruling Hegemony is Uneasy with the BLACKLASH Ahead! Indian People Defy Brahminism worshipping SUN in CHHATHPUJA Welcoming the SPRING! How Long We Black Untouchable Indigenous and Minority Communities would Remain ENSLAVED with Inherent Inequality Injustice! Global Ruling Hegemony Could Not Digest the SHOCK so Easily as Markets Tumbled!
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 101
Palash Biswas
India greets Obama on extraordinary win
New Delhi, Nov 5 (PTI) India today greeted Barack Obama on his election as the 44th US President with the government and political parties hoping to further strengthen relations with the world"s oldest democracy. President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sent congratulatory messages to the 47-year-old Obama and invited him to visit India “as soon as possible".
Students, professionals and politicians welcomed the election of the US" first African-American President as “historic" and said they looked forward to heralding of an era of a “less confrontational" America.
The Indian industry, particularly the software sector, hailed the victory of the first-time Illinois Senator and played down fears of an adverse impact on the flourishing outsourcing business.
“Your extraordinary journey to the White House will inspire people not only in your country but also around the world," Singh said in his message to Obama, who rose from a small-time community worker to become the most powerful man in the world.
“We look forward to strengthening the partnership between India and the US and continuing the close engagement that we have developed in recent years both in bilateral cooperation and in addressing global issues of common concern," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.
Obama"s extraordinary journey to the White House drew cheers from political parties of all hue, including the Left and the Right.
Congress, BJP and Left parties termed Obama"s victory as historic. PTI
Markets tank, Sensex closes 511 pts down
Mumbai, November 5: Snapping its five-session winning streak, the benchmark Sensex on Wednesday dropped over 500 points in a volatile trading which saw brisk selling on oil " gas counter. The barometer on the Bombay Stock Exchange opened higher by over 300 points, later came under selling pressure and closed the day lower by 511.11 points, or 4.81 per cent, at 10,120.01 points.
Brokers said profit selling at existing levels brought the bellwether index down.
During the day, the 30-share index just fell short of 11K level at 10,945.41 but it also dipped to almost below 10K level at 10,051.52 points, mirroring the high volatility.
The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty also tanked 147.15 points, or 4.68 per cent, at 2,994.95 points.
Reliance Industries, the heaviest among the Sensex club, tumbled by 12.76 per cent to Rs 1,269.45 on reports that the firm has shut five of its polyester units. With RIL losing , the sectoral index suffered the most among all indices by shedding 637.40 points, or 9.44 per cent at 6112.11 points.
Markets retreat on day after Obama victory Bizjournals.com - 35 minutes ago US stock markets dipped Wednesday morning, only hours after Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African-American to be elected president of the United States. Reaction to Obama elected 1st black US president The Associated Press Obama victory signals new push for unity Christian Science Monitor Washington Post - BBC News - Chicago Defender - San Diego Union Tribune all 177 news articles »
Reuters Insight: Obama and India (01:20) Analysis Nov. 5 - India will look to Barack Obama, the newly elected President of the United States on issues of regional stability and more importantly the health of the US economy which directly affects India.
Greg Beitchman, Editor for Reuters Media gives us an analysis.
The question remains unanswered whetehr Barrack Obama Hussein Obama is BLACK enough for the dream of Martin luther King! Smashing through the country"s “colour line," Barack Hussein Obama was on Wednesday elected 44th president of the United States, a position that will vest unparalleled global power in the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother. As the world watched in awe and admiration, Obama got an overwhelming mandate in the electoral college - 338 votes to Republican John McCain"s 158 - exorcising the lingering ghosts of racism 145 years after the US abolished slavery.
Thundering OBAMANIA Spring brings Change in America and Mc would never return to fuel the Zionist facist Corporate Imperialist War machenry! The Pepole Of America, the heritage of Democracy ensured the Final KILL for the Racial Ruling Hegemony. It is rhetorically a Win against Apartheid and Manusmriti!Barack Obama swept to an historic election victory that made him America"s first black president but pleaded for time to heal and transform the global superpower.Obama, 47, will be inaugurated as the 44th US president on January 20, and inherit an economy mired in financial crisis, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a nuclear showdown with Iran.
Despite all the things he"s not, despite all the positions he will take that we will have to fight against, despite all the people he will bring to his administration who oppose all we stand for (along with some who will have open ears and be on the right side of many issues), this really is an historic victory that most of us never thought would happen in our lifetime. And it opens many doors for us, a space we haven"t had in a very long time. Now we have to work to undo as much as possible all the horrors that the neo-cons have perpetrated and the ones Bush-Cheney will enact before they leave office…no easy task. Not to mention that this victory occurs when the economic structure of capitalism is falling apart, which may make this a pyrrhic victory in the end. We all have a lot of work cut out for us.While the country took a huge step forward in electing Barack Obama, Florida stayed mired in the muck with the reelection of all three of the most reactionary Cuban-American members of Congress, Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers, who all faced the first serious challenge to their careers. And in California, at bedtime, prospects did not look encouraging on some of the local elections and the state-wide measures regarding gay marriage, abortion rights for teens, and a few other local issues.
Gloab Ruling Hegemony could not digest the SHOCK so easily as markets Tumbed! Stocks are down in early trading, as Wall Street focuses on the troubled economy following Barack Obama"s election to the White House. Although the Analysts claimed the market expected an Obama victory, and Wednesday"s selling was part of a trading pattern known as “buy on the rumor, sell on the news."
World leaders hailed Obama"s historic triumph but there were also calls for the global superpower to change the way it does business.
Celebrations erupted in capitals around the world. A national holiday was declared in Kenya - where Obama"s father was born - to welcome the first black US president.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called for the election to usher in a “new deal" between the United States and the rest of the world to tackle the global financial crisis and other troubles.
Investors were also cashing in some of their gains from Tuesday"s big rally, which sent the Dow Jones industrials up more than 300 points on expectations that battered stocks would enjoy a traditional yearend rally. Analysts say investors are focused on the economy rather than the election. They"re awaiting a report that"s expected to show that the service sector, like the manufacturing sector, shrank in October.
The Dow is down about 152 points, or 1.59 percent, to the 9,472 level. Broader market indexes are also down more than 1.5 percent.
European stock markets endured heavy falls in early trading on Wednesday while Asian shares closed sharply higher after Democrat Barack Obama was elected US president.
Less than an hour after the start of European trade, London was down 1.62 per cent, Frankfurt lost 1.29 per cent and Paris shed 1.69 per cent. Madrid fell 1.27 per cent and Zurich slipped 1.54 per cent.
“There is an element of ‘buy the rumour, sell the news" that is driving some profit-taking to kick in," said Martin Slaney, head of derivatives at financial spread betting group GFT in London.
Earlier the Tokyo stock market ended the day up 4.46 per cent, Hong Kong jumped 3.2 per cent and Sydney won 2.9 per cent following an overnight Wall Street rally and on hopes that Obama"s policies would help to overcome a global financial crisis, dealers said.
Forty-five years after civil rights icon Martin Luther King laid out his “dream" of racial equality, Obama"s election broke new barriers and may have helped heal some of the moral wounds left by slavery and the US civil war.
When he launched his campaign on a chilly day in Illinois in February 2007, Obama forged a mantra of change which powered him throughout the longest, most costly US presidential campaign in history.
Senator Obama solidified traditional Democratic states and cut deep into the Republican territory which his rival needed to control to win the White House .
Obama"s win was greeted with euphoria across the United States and reverberated around the world.
New York"s Times Square exploded in joy at a moment of healing for America"s racial scars and a crowd gathered outside the White House. In Kenya, where Obama"s father was born, President Mwai Kibaki declared a national holiday.
Democrats also made huge strides in Congress, and will hold an unshakeable monopoly in power in Washington.
After a bilious campaign, McCain was gracious in defeat, and noted that his election was a moment to cherish for African Americans.
Would the American President Overcome AMERICANISM as well as Zionist Corporate Imperialism Unipolar! Indian FREEsenSEX Stumbles with NEWS Breaks form Washington as Ruling Hegemony is Uneasy with the BLACKLASH Ahead! Indian People Defy Brahminism worshipping SUN in CHHATHPUJA welcoming the SPRING! How Long We Black Untouchable Indigenous and Minority Communities would remain ENSLAVED with Inherent Inequality Injustice!
It is quite a Coincidence that United states of America smashed the racial Barriers created by age old apartheid. Barrack Obama left behind the History of Civil War and Assasinations while Indians worshipped the SUN GOD in Folk Rituals without any Priest. Sun the source of Energy and Life. Indigenous People worldwide worship Sun God!
Barrack Obama seems to be an Incarnation of SUN God! The Black Untouchables , Racial groups and generation Next consisted of the US People who brought the Change!Obama"s inauguration will complete a stunning ascent to the pinnacle of US and global politics from national obscurity just four years ago and close an eight year era of turbulence under Bush.
Obama is promising to renew bruised ties with US allies, and to engage some of the most fierce US foes like Iran and North Korea. He has vowed to tackle climate change and provide health care to all Americans.
His presidency also marks a stunning social shift, with Obama, the son of Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, the first African American president of a nation still riven by racial divides.
Is it the beginning of the much wanted CHANGE in Galaxy order!
Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level, Obama smashed through racial barriers and easily defeated Republican John McCain to become the first African-American destined to sit in the Oval Office, America"s 44th president. He was the first Democrat to receive more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
“It"s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America," Obama told a victory rally of 125,000 people jammed into Chicago"s Grant Park.
President-elect Barack Obama told ecstatic supporters on Tuesday that “change has come to America" and called on all Americans to unite and meet pressing challenges.Taking the stage in his home city of Chicago after defeating his Republican rival John McCain following a bitter election campaign, Obama told an enormous outdoor victory rally that the road ahead would be tough.
“Our climb will be steep," Obama said to the crowd of more than 200,000 supporters who crammed into the rally at Grant Park in his home city of Chicago.
“We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."
On the other hand, in Pune of India, Fearing backlash from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), North Indians in the city have cancelled the Chhath Puja celebrations on Tuesday, and are now going to Mumbai to attend the rituals.
The Supreme Court had some strong words for governments on the failure to tackle violence arising out of the anti-north Indian campaign of Raj Thackeray saying political will was needed to combat it.
“Can it be done through an order of this court? It is a political question not a court issue. If there is a political will it can be tackled,” a bench of Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvi observed on a petition seeking action against those indulging in the hate campaign.
Meanwhile, in line with RJD president and Union railway minister Mr Lalu Prasad"s call for resignation of elected representatives from Bihar against the anti-north Indian violence by MNS in Maharashtra, the party legislators and parliamentarians have started submitting their resignation letters to the party leadership.
“75 per cent” of the RJD’s MPs, and 35 of its 55 MLAs and eight of 15 MLCs have submitted their letters of resignation, Mr Shyam Rajak, party spokesman, told . He said that all RJD MPs and state legislators would submit their resignation by 15 November. Union ministers Mr Premchand Gupta and Mr Akhilesh Singh were among those who have put in their papers.
Meanwhile,Anger and ecstasy during Chhath Puja, devotees across the country offered puja and simultaneously the Marathi vs non Marathi debate got more and more violent.
A day after the Maharashtra Sadan was attacked in the national capital allegedly by Rashtrawadi sena, the Shiv Sainiks have now hit back. The office of the Rashtravadi Sena burnt down by angry Sainiks
“Some people came here and vandalised our office. Now we are going to show them what we can do,” says president, Rastrawadi Sena, Jai Bhagwan Goyal.
Concerned with the increasing rhetoric and lack of action by the political class, public interest litigation had been filed in the Supreme Court. The judiciary had some advice for the politicians.
“If there is political will then attacks can be stopped",” said the Supreme Court.
“Delhi, Mauritius and everywhere Chhath is celebrated and no body can stop it. Even in Mumbai people are celebrating Chhath,” says Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav.
On ground zero in Mumbai, where Raj Thackeray"s shadow looms large during Chhath Puja, North Indians came out in large numbers in celebration. At all major venues there was heavy police presence.
The fact that a festival associated with North India has passed peacefully in Mumbai brings some hope to all those who are concerned about the change in the city"s cosmopolitan character.
A Solar Deity (also Sun God(dess)), is a deity who represents the sun, or an aspect of it. People have worshiped these for all of recorded history. Hence, many beliefs have formed around this worship, such as the “missing sun" found in many cultures . Sun worship is a possible origin of henotheism and ultimately monotheism.
I was quite unaware of the Fol Tradition in Uttarakhand. In 1980, while I bagen my career as a professional journalist and based myself in the Coalfields of Jharkhand , I came to know all about Chhath Puja. But it was only after my marriage, when Sabita came into my life, I got a real opportunity to participate in the pure Indian folk festival. We stayed in the house of shrivasatvas in Water Board colony, Hirapur Dhanbad. The family had a Deaf and dumb teenager named Madhu. He used to be very close to us and cared very much for Sabita. The mother of the house convinced us to participate in Chhath Puja. We accompanied the family to Bekar Bandh Pond. We gave ARGHYA, the offerings to the setting Sun. Then again the we worshipped the rising SUN!
It was the first Ritual we completed without a Brahmin and there was no caste or class divide. It was free of untouchability. I got the gist that the Chhath puja is the best expression of our indigenous aborinal energy and life!
We witnessed the same thing in United states of America. We may feel the warmth of DEMOCRACY and citizen`s empowerment which Enabled a Black Man with middle muslim name with a Black family entering the most Powerful House of this Universe. African americanism is the best thing emerged on the Election day which heralded a new age for the Black Untouchbles worldwide.
I still reside amongst a slum inhibited by the discarded labour Community belonging to a local Locked out factory Kanch Kal in Sodepur. The entire population belongs to either Eastern UP or Bihar. Every year, they celebrate Chhath puja and we may not remain aloof! it begins with lauki Bhat and Kharna.
Today we had a gret inflow of THEKUA and fruits at home from every home of the locality!
Chhath Pooja" a family festival for every Bihar born Hindus has its unique religious importance and reminds us of high cultural heritage of Bihar. It is a worship to “Sun God", who is a source of light to life of entire living being and abundance of energy to nature, The recompense of prayer to “Sun-God" has many profits in, human life and even Muslims and Christians are not left uninfluenced of the same. They also equally participate in this holy celebration in Bihar. This festival is celebrated with great austerity and penance. The people of Bihar and Eastern Utter Pradesh offer their prayer to “Sun-God" with highest devotion. It is no denying fact that not only this world but the entire universe has importance of existence of “Sun-God".
Chhath or Dala Chhath is a Hindu festival, unique to Bihar, Jharkhand state, India and Terai, Nepal. This festival is also celebrated in the northeast region of India, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and some parts of Chhattisgarh. Songs for Chhath festival sung by Padma Shri Bihar Kokila Prof. (Smt) Sharda Sinha are very popular.The word chhath denotes the number 6 in Hindi and the festival begins on the sixth day of the Hindu lunar month of Kartik, which corresponds to months of October-November in the Gregorian calendar. The festival of Chhath begins a week after Diwali. Chhath is the holiest Hindu festival of Bihar and extends to four days. This festival has particular significance in Bihar, but it is also celebrated in Uttar Pradesh and nearby areas. Even in Tamilnadu, the migrants from the north celebrate Chhath beside the sea beach.
The study of “Rigved" “Atherved" and reference of “Ayurved" enlighten us of importance of worship to “Sun-God". The worship to “Sun-God" brings all desired fruits in life of the devotees. It relieves from many pains " grief of.the life* The leprosy and white spots on skin, i.e. “Charaka" are cured by worship of “Sun-God". Womens desirous of geting a “Son" is blessed with such expectation. Mother Kunti on worship of “Sun-God" was blessed with powerful son “Karna".
The prayer to “Sun-God" is a historical phenomenon in whole country. The famous temples of “Sun-God" in Multan, Kashmir, Chittod, Moghera " Konark are the evidence of the same. “Chhath Pooja" has very strict rules and procedures. The devotees cook their “Foods" and “Prasad" with dry wood on new oven made of brick and soil. Garlic " Onions are kept away from reach. Rock Salts, Pure Ghee, Sugar etc. are used. The devotees sing folk songs in groups. The observing fast for complete 3 days and strict rules of worship demonstrate innocence religious sentiment high faith and discipline in people of the region. The festivity, excitement " happiness are worth seeing and enjoyed by people of all walk of life
This celebration is made compulsorily at bank of river, pond, lake, canals etc* with great rejoicement. The whole family participates in carrying various materials to the above site. The women devotees stand in mid-water with oblation of Takua “Khaboni" Kasara-"Laddu of rice powder", Sugarcanes, Radish, Sprouted Gram, Kidney bean, Turmeric, Coconut, Orange, Sweet lime, Banana and other fruits in winnowing bamboo basket and relatives " visitors offer “Ist Libation" of raw Milk/Water to “Sinking Sun" and again at next morning at the same site the devotees and visitors offer prasad and “2nd Lidation" to “Rising Sun". Visitors touch the feet of devotees and get prasad. No one hesitate in demanding prasad from even a strangler.
Chhath is a festival dedicated to the Sun God, considered to be a means to thank the sun for bestowing the bounties of life in earth and fulfilling particular wishes. Worship of the sun has been practiced in different parts of India, and the world from time immemorial. Worship of sun has been described in the Rig Veda, the oldest Hindu scriptures, and hymns praying to the sun in the Vedas are found.
In the ancient epic Mahabharata, references to worshipping of the sun by Draupadi, wife of the Pandavas, are found. It was believed that worshipping of the sun would help cure a variety of diseases, including leprosy, and also ensure longevity and prosperity of the family members, friends, and elders. It is also believed that Chhath was started by the great Danveer (alms giver) Karna, sired by the Sun God, who became a great warrior and fought against the Pandavas in the Mahabharata war.
The Morning Worship Dala Chhath, Jamshedpur-JharkhandAlso called Dala Chhath - it is an ancient and major festival. It is celebrated twice a year: once in the summers (May-July), called the Chaiti Chhath, and once in the winters (September-November)around a week after Deepawali, called the Kartik Chhath. The latter is more popular because winters are the usual festive season in North India, and Chhath being an arduous observance, requiring the worshippers to fast without water for more than 24 hours, is easier to undertake in the Indian winters.
Chhath being mainly a Bihari festival, wherever people from Bihar have migrated, they have taken with them the tradition of Chhath. This is a ritual bathing festival that follows a period of abstinence and ritual segregation of the worshiper from the main household for four days. During this period, the worshiper observes ritual purity, and sleeps on the floor on a single blanket. The main worshipers, called Parvaitin (from Sanskrit parv, meaning ‘occasion" or ‘festival"), are usually women. However, a large number of men also are the main worshiper. The parvaitin pray for the well-being of their family, for prosperity and offspring. They usually can perform Chhath only if it is passed on to them from their older generation. However, once they decide to do it, it becomes their duty to perform it every year, the festival being skipped only if there happens to be a death in the family that year.
Watercolour drawing showing theChhath festival being celebrated on the banks of the Ganges at Patna, by an anonymous artist working in the Patna style, c.1795-1800On the eve of Chhath, houses are scrupulously cleaned and so are the surroundings. One the first day of the festival, the worshiper cooks a traditional vegetarian meal and offers it to the Sun God. This day is called Naha-Kha (literally, ‘Bathe and eat"!). The worshiper allows herself/himself only one meal on this day from the preparation.
On the second day, a special ritual, called Kharna, is performed in the evening after Sun down. On this day also, the worshiper eats his/her only meal from the offerings(Prashad)made to the Sun God in this ritual. Friends and family are invited to the household on this day to share the prashad of the ritual. From this day onwards, for the next 36 hours, the worshiper goes on a fast without water.
A Typical View of the Chhatt Ghat in a village in Bihar(Jagannathpur:Muzaffarpur).The evening of the next day, the entire household accompanies the worshiper to a ritual bathing and worship of the Sun God, usually on the bank of a river or a common large water body. The occasion is almost a carnival. Besides the main worshiper, there are friends and family, and numerous participants and onlookers, all willing to help and receive the blessings of the worshipper. Ritual rendition of regional folk songs, carried on through oral transmission from mothers and mothers-in-law to daughters and daughters-in-law, are sung on this occasion. The same bathing ritual is repeated on the following day at the crack of dawn. This is when the worshipper breaks his/her fast and finishes the ritual.Chhath being celebrated at the crack of the dawn on a river bank is a beautiful, elating spiritual experience connecting the modern Indian to his ancient cultural roots.
The folk songs sung on the eve of Chhath mirror the culture, social structure, mythology and history of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Nowadays, modern Chhath songs, largely Bollywood filmy remixes have caught on, but the old tradition still goes strong with a great degree of sanctity. The three main linguistic regions of Bihar: the Maithili, the Magadhi, and the Bhojpuri, and all the various dialects associated with these, have different folk songs; but all dedicated to Chhath, they have an underlying unity. The minor nuances of the Chhath rituals, such as in the Kharna ritual, vary from region to region, and also across families, but still there is a fundamental similarity.
Unlike last year when North Indians in the city got together to celebrate the occasion, this year, about 200 of them, all members of the Maharashtrian Uttar Bharatiya Ekta Manch, are travelling to Mumbai. There are about 4 lakh North Indians in the city.
“We decided not to celebrate the puja in the city this year solely because we wanted to avoid any kind of tensions of problems. Last year, the occasion was something not many were aware about. This year, however, it has become a subject of constant discussions. So, we do not want to take any risks," Sangeeta Tiwari, president of the ekta manch, said. The association has about 3,000 active members.
Tiwari’s views are echoed by another member, Ravi Tiwari. “We want to keep the puja low profile. It’s a religious festival and we don’t want to politicise the issue. Hence, we are going to Mumbai," he says. The authorities have promised protection during the puja in Mumbai, where the occasion is celebrated on a larger scale.
Calling himself a Maharashtrian at heart, Tiwari said his great grandfather had moved to Pune before Independence. “This association is only to bring Hindi speaking people together. We are all Maharashtrians since we have been living here for a long time. The name of the association only proves that," he says.
Tiwari added that most members have travelled to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to celebrate the puja. Chhath Puja is a festival celebrated about six days after the Diwali mainly in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. “According to legends, Karna of the Mahabharata, who was sired by the sun god, first started the tradition of the puja. Performed mainly by women, the puja involves worshipping the sun god while standing in running water, a river or a lake, either during sunrise or sunset," explained Sangeeta.
Nowadays, the ritual is observed chiefly in the evenings, as it is a convenient time for people to get together. “Earlier this year, the association had organised a programme at the Shaniwarwada on the occasion of Holi.
But, the event was disrupted. It was attended mainly by the poor people, especially hawkers, who had to bear the brunt, as they were beaten up," Sangeeta. “Therefore, this time we did not want to take any risks. Comparatively, going to Mumbai is a safer bet."
Another member of the association, on condition of anonymity, said, “We are absolutely clueless about why Raj Thackeray would oppose something like Chhath Puja, which is a religious festival like other. all At heart, we are all Maharashtrians having lived here for so long. Doesn’t this matter?"
Sanjay Nirupam a journalist by profession, a man of vision not less then any way from “Sanjay" of Mahabharata who can foresee every thing that would take place in times to come, an energetic youth with self built credibility in social and political arena. The entire world is self centered and only interested to recognize the importance of “Rising Sun" but it is the people of Bihar, who equally offer respect and homage to “Sinking Sun". It depicts-high cultural heritage of state to offer respect and service without any selfish motive. Shri Nirupam a Bihar Putra has proved this by his honest, selfless, sincere, tireless and dedicated service. I also have some duty for :people of Bihar and whole Nation at large. There are over 10 Lakhs people of Bihar in Mumbai. They are unorganised, their deteriorating living condition and employment position mostly worry him. In order to reduce the gap between each other and promote sense of co-operation at the hour of the need amongst them selves under the banner of “Bihar Front" he organised 1st “Chhath Pooja"a very popular festival in Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh for joint celebratation at “JUHU BEACH". The sanctity of worship to “Sun-God"i.e. “Chhath Pooja" is imported within him from his “Janma Bhoomi" which is also celeberated in own family with full righteous and devotion. It is a prayer to “Sun-God"for prosperity of man kind and blessings to the nature. The over whelming response and appreciation lead him to move further in his mission and celeberated Pooja since. The gathering Of over Two Lakhs people in the “Chhath Pooja" celeberation in the millenium year with several dignified non-resident Behari visitors from Russia, Holland, Malaysia, Mauritius and many other countries gives him hearty satisfaction and high encouragement to do more and more such activities, The sucesseful cultural progra. mme and folk songs by renowned singer a Lata Mangeshker of" Bhojpuri songs in Bihar, Smt. Sharada Sinha Smt. Vijaya Bharti, Dr. Neeta Singh and attendance of Cine-lion-Bihari Babu Shri. Shatrughan Sinha and several Bihar born dignitaries ftom educational cultural, social, constructive and political field, bureaucracy " judiciary etc. and food distribution to over 2 Lakhs people were the item of attraction at the occassion. This was a unique religious celeberation of people of Bihar participated and enjoyed by the people of various regions, Shri. Nirupam admits that this was possible only with help and support of functioneries of “Chhath Pooja"., Samanbaya Samity. Their past experience, tireless work, dedications and desire to do better, brought this eye catching success.
Shri. Nirupam an enthusiatic person by nature says he has million miles to travel in his mission and has desires to celeberate “Chhath Pooja" 2003 in still better manner and appeal all Bihar born devotees to register their names and Address with suggestions on short-comings in festivity and arrangements, which shall receive positive attentions and welcome participation of all in making the holy function of “Chhath Pooja" all success. The arrangement are also being made to make “Chhath Pooja"-Samagri" available in stalls of “Bihar Mela" demonstrating various products of Bihar proposed to be organised for Two days on the occasion. Those interested to send their contribution for the “Pooja" may send their cheque/P.O. /D.D. in the name of Bihar Front A/c. “Chhath Pooja"
Barack Obama captures the imagination of the world
Obama, whose campaign was marked by moments of soaring rhetoric, took stock of what it meant to be elected the first black U.S. president.
“It"s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day," Obama said.
“It"s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America," said the 47-year-old Illinois senator.
The atmosphere at the victory celebration was electric, as the crowd chanted Obama"s election slogan"Yes, we can" and elated supporters and campaign staff hugged one another.
Obama paid tribute to his defeated rival as a patriot, hailing McCain"s status as a former prisoner of war in Vietnam and saying he hoped to work with him.
“He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader," Obama said.
People in the crowd put their cameras up high to get a shot of Obama, or called friends and family on cell phones to share the moment.
“It is incredible that this is happening in my lifetime," said Julie Mierwa.
Some, however, voiced concern that maybe Obama had promised too much.
“I don"t know whether he has over-extended himself and if he will be able to live up to the expectations of him. But today is his day. It was incredible," said Jass Hylton.
Outside the rally, there was bumper to bumper traffic and locals cranked up their radios to hear Obama"s address.
Chicago officials put the crowd at the rally at more than 200,000.
His name etched in history as America"s first black president-elect, Barack Obama turned Wednesday from the jubilation of victory to the sobering challenge of leading a nation worried about economic crisis, two unfinished wars and global uncertainty.
“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep," Obama cautioned.
After an acrimonious campaign, Obama and McCain were gracious in their moments of victory and defeat. “He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine," Obama said of the Vietnam war veteran McCain and called him “brave and selfless."
McCain, in turn, praised his rival"s inspirational and precedent-shattering campaign. “We have come to the end of a long journey," he told supporters in Phoenix, Arizona. “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him but offering our next President our goodwill."
The disenchantment with Bush gave the Democrats a majority in the Senate and the party has picked up almost a score of seats in the House of Representatives, boosting Obama"s capacity to promote his agenda.
Obama"s extraordinary feat a mere 43 years after the blacks won full civil rights - and a long 138 years after they got the vote - in a large measure stemmed from what the New York Times called his “improbable, unshakable conviction that America was ready to step across the colour line".
It was a realisation of the dream of the assassinated civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. Forty-five years ago, he had declared his dream that one day people would be “judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character".
Images: Obama`s leap of faith fired by Mahatma
Obama acknowledged Mahatma Gandhi"s inspiration just as King had done. “In my life, I have always looked to Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration, because he embodied the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things," Obama wrote in an article. “That is why his portrait hangs in my Senate office; to remind me that real results will not just come from Washington, they will come from the people."
India and Obama - in a nutshell
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday congratulated Obama and said: “Your extraordinary journey to the White House will inspire people not only in your country but also around the world."
Column: Dangers of Indo-Pak re-hyphenation
News of Obama"s win set off celebrations by supporters around the country and the world, from Times Square in New York to the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, civil rights leader Martin Luther King"s home church, and to New Delhi.
“Most Americans here that I spoke with expressed a sigh of relief," Sharon Lowen, an American danseuse who lives in India and practises Indian classical dance, said in New Delhi, where Indians joined Americans in celebration. “They were earlier shy to be branded as Americans - with Obama"s victory we are proud now to be Americans."
African-Americans in the US wept and danced in the streets Tuesday night, declaring that a once-reluctant nation had finally lived up to its democratic promise.
The Rev Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader and onetime presidential contender, joined the celebrations in Chicago, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Polls special
“This is a great night. This is an unbelievable night," said US Representaive John Lewis of Georgia, who was brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during a voting rights march in the 1960s.
Others exulted in small towns and big cities. And white voters marvelled at what they had wrought in turning a page on the country"s bitter racial history, the Times said.
President Bush, whose long shadow loomed heavily on the McCain campaign with the election becoming a kind of referendum on his eight-year rule, too called Obama to congratulate him on his victory.
“I promise to make this a smooth transition," the President said to Obama. “You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations, and go enjoy yourself."
Obama became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to receive more than 50 percent of the popular vote, and made good on his pledge to transform the electoral map.
He overpowered McCain in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania - four states that the campaign had spent months courting as the keys to victory.
The Democrat easily won most of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states that normally back Democrats, including New Hampshire, and ran strong in states that are normally solid for Republicans, such as Virginia, Indiana and Florida
After an improbable journey that started for Obama 21 months ago and drew a record-shattering $700 million to his campaign account alone, Obama scored an Electoral College landslide that redrew America"s political map. He won states that reliably voted Republican in presidential elections, like Indiana and Virginia, which hadn"t supported the Democratic candidate in 44 years. Ohio and Florida, key to President Bush"s twin victories, also went for Obama, as did Pennsylvania, which McCain had deemed crucial for his election hopes.
With most U.S. precincts tallied, the popular vote was 52.3 percent for Obama and 46.4 percent for McCain. But the count in the Electoral College was lopsided — 349 to 147 in Obama"s favor as of early Wednesday, with three states still to be decided. Those were North Carolina, Georgia and Missouri.
With just 76 days until the inauguration, Obama is expected to move quickly to begin assembling a White House staff and selecting Cabinet nominees. Campaign officials said Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel was the front-runner to be Obama"s chief of staff. The advisers spoke on a condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made.
With these moves and many others to come upon him quickly, Obama planned a low-key, everyman day-after in his hometown of Chicago. The president-elect was taking his two young daughters to school, and then heading to the gym, with little else on his schedule.
The nation awakened to the new reality at daybreak, a short night after millions witnessed Obama"s election — an event so rare it could not be called a once-in-a-century happening. Prominent black leaders wept unabashedly in public, rejoicing in the elevation of one of their own — at long last.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had made two White House bids himself, said on ABC"s “Good Morning America" that the tears streaming down his face upon Obama"s victory were about his father and grandmother and “those who paved the fights. And then that Barack"s so majestic."
“He"s going to call on us, I believe, to sacrifice. We all must give up something," Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and leading player in the civil rights movement with Jackson, said on NBC"s “Today" show.
Speaking from Hong Kong, retired Gen. Colin Powell, the black Republican whose endorsement of Obama symbolized the candidate"s bipartisan reach and bolstered him against charges of inexperience, called the senator"s victory “a very very historic occasion." But he also predicted that Obama would be “a president for all America."
Bush, whose public approval ratings have plummeted in the waning days of his presidency, was mostly behind the scenes in the last weeks of the historic campaign. He called Obama to congratulate him late Tuesday and scheduled a midmorning statement in the White House Rose Garden.
Democrats expanded their majority in both houses of Congress.
In the Senate, Democrats ousted Republicans Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and John Sununu of New Hampshire and captured seats held by retiring GOP senators in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado. Still, the GOP blocked a complete rout, holding the Kentucky seat of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Minnesota seat of Norm Coleman, who had been challenged by Democrat Al Franken, and a Mississippi seat once held by Trent Lott — three top Democratic targets.
In the House, with fewer than a dozen races still undecided, Democrats captured Republican-held seats in the Northeast, South and West and were on a path to pick up as many as 20 seats.
When Obama and running mate Joe Biden take their oath of office on Jan. 20, Democrats will control both the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.
“It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said the American people “have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America." She scheduled a midday news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday to elaborate.
After the longest and costliest campaign in U.S. history, Obama was propelled to victory by voters dismayed by eight years of Bush"s presidency and deeply anxious about rising unemployment and home foreclosures and a battered stock market that has erased trillions of dollars of savings for Americans.
Six in 10 voters picked the economy as the most important issue facing the nation in an Associated Press exit poll. None of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was selected by more than one in 10. Obama has promised to cut taxes for most Americans, get the United States out of Iraq and expand health care, including mandatory coverage for children.
Obama acknowledged that repairing the economy and dealing with problems at home and overseas will not happen quickly — alluding even in the first blush of victory to the possibility of a second term. “We may not get there in one year or even in one term," he said. “But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there."
McCain conceded defeat shortly after 11 p.m. EST, telling supporters outside the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly."
“This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and the special pride that must be theirs tonight," McCain said. “These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."
Obama faces a staggering list of problems, that he called “the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century." He spoke of parents who worry about paying their mortgages and medical bills.
“There will be setbacks and false starts," Obama said. “There are many who won"t agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can"t solve every problem."
The son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, the 47-year-old Obama has had a startlingly rapid rise, from lawyer and community organizer to state legislator and U.S. senator, now just four years into his first term. He is the first senator elected to the White House since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Bush called Obama with congratulations at 11:12 p.m. EST. “I promise to make this a smooth transition," the president said. “You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself." He invited Obama and his family to visit the White House soon.
Obama won California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
McCain had Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. He also won at least 3 of Nebraska"s five electoral votes, with the other two in doubt.
Almost six in 10 women supported Obama nationwide, while men leaned his way by a narrow margin, according to interviews with voters. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.
The results of the AP survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.
In terms of turnout, America voted in record numbers. It looks like 136.6 million Americans will have voted for president this election, based on 88 percent of the country"s precincts tallied and projections for absentee ballots, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University. Using his methods, that would give 2008 a 64.1 percent turnout rate.
“That would be the highest turnout rate that we"ve seen since 1908," which was 65.7 percent, McDonald said early Wednesday.
Is Obama Black Enough? By Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates Thursday, Feb. 01, 2007
For all the predictable outrage Joe Biden"s recent comments about Barack Obama elicited, the gaffe put a spotlight on one of the more unfortunate forces fueling Obamania. Ever since Barack Obama first ascended the national stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, pundits have been tripping over themselves to point out the difference between him and the average Joe from the South Side. Obama is biracial, and has a direct connection with Africa. He is articulate, young and handsome. He does not feel the need to yell “Reparations now!" into any available microphone.
But this is a double-edged sword. As much as his biracial identity has helped Obama build a sizable following in middle America, it"s also opened a gap for others to question his authenticity as a black man. In calling Obama the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," the implication was that the black people who are regularly seen by whites — or at least those who aspire to the highest office in the land — are none of these things. But give Biden credit — at least he acknowledged Obama"s identity.
The same can"t be said for others. “Obama"s mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan," Stanley Crouch recently sniffed in a New York Daily News column entitled “What Obama Isn"t: Black Like Me." “Black, in our political and social vocabulary, means those descended from West African slaves," wrote Debra Dickerson on the liberal website Salon. Writers like TIME and New Republic columnist Peter Beinart have argued that Obama is seen as a “good black," and thus has less of following among black people. Meanwhile, agitators like Al Sharpton are seen as the authentic “bad blacks." Obama"s trouble, asserted Beinart, is that he will have to prove his loyalty to The People in a way that “bad blacks" never have to. Obama, for his part, settled this debate some time ago. “If I"m outside your building trying to catch a cab," he told Charlie Rose, “they"re not saying, ‘Oh, there"s a mixed race guy."" Obama understands what all blacks, including myself, know all too well — that Amadou Diallo"s foreign ancestry could not prevent his wallet from morphing into a gun in the eyes of the police.
For years pundits excoriated young black kids for attacking other smart successful black kids by questioning their blackness. But this is suddenly permissible for presidential candidates. Beinart"s good black/bad black dynamic is the sort of armchair logic that comes from not spending much time around actual black people. As the New Republic points out, Sharpton has an overstated following among black people. In 2004, when Sharpton ran for President, his traction among his alleged base was underwhelming. In South Carolina, where almost half of all registered Dems were black, both John Kerry and John Edwards received twice as many black votes as Sharpton. But this hasn"t stopped media outlets from phoning Sharpton whenever something even remotely racial goes down. And it hasn"t stopped writers from touting Sharpton"s presumed popularity among black people, as opposed to “palatable" black people like Obama.
The black-on-black argument seemed to be bolstered by recent polls showing Obama significantly trailing Hillary Clinton among black voters. But reading into poll numbers that way is a clever device, hatched by mainstream (primarily white) journalists who are shocked — shocked! — to discover that black people aren"t as dumbstruck by Obama as they are.
What they fail to understand is that African-Americans meet other intelligent, articulate African-Americans all the time. In almost every cycle since 1984, at least one of these brave chaps has run for President. Forgive us if we don"t automatically pledge our votes to Obama and instead make judgments based on things besides skin color — like, heaven forbid, issues. Joe Biden may have misspoken — and in the process probably destroyed any remote hopes of winning the nomination — but he spoke truthfully for a lot of his ilk; Obamania is rooted in the belief that 50 Cent, not Barack Obama, represents the real black America.
Back in the real world, Obama is married to a black woman. He goes to a black church. He"s worked with poor people on the South Side of Chicago, and still lives there. That someone given the escape valve of biraciality would choose to be black, would see some beauty in his darker self and still care more about health care and public education than reparations and Confederate flags is just too much for many small-minded racists, both black and white, to comprehend.
To the surprise of many whites and dismay of his supporters, Barack Obama trailed Hillary Clinton among black Americans by a 40-point margin in a recent Washington Post-ABC poll. It is possible to read this as a positive development: black Americans have transcended racial politics and may now vote for the person they consider the better candidate, regardless of race. The sad truth, however, is that Obama is being rejected because many black Americans don"t consider him one of their own and may even feel threatened by what he embodies.
So just what is the nature of black American identity today? Historically, the defining characteristic has been any person born in America who is of African ancestry, however remote. This is the infamous one-drop rule, invented and imposed by white racists until the middle of the 20th century. As with so many other areas of ethno-racial relations, African Americans turned this racist doctrine to their own ends. What to racist whites was a stain of impurity became a badge of pride. More significantly, what for whites was a means of exclusion was transformed by blacks into a glorious principle of inclusion. The absurdity of defining someone as black who to all appearances was white was turned on its head by blacks who used the one-drop rule to enlarge both the black group and its leadership with light-skinned persons who, elsewhere in the Americas, would never dream of identifying with blacks.
Black identity was historically progressive in another important respect: from very early in the 19th century through the civil rights movement, it was strikingly cosmopolitan. Black leaders took a deep interest in oppressed peoples throughout the world. The Pan-African movement and early black nationalism were part of emerging notions of black solidarity. Blacks took deep pride in the Haitian revolution, and black American missionaries played an important role in the Christianization of Jamaican and other West Indian blacks. Black Americans were also open to the inspiration of black immigrants: W.E.B. DuBois"s father was Haitian; James Weldon Johnson"s mother, Bahamian. One of the first mass movements of African Americans was led by a Jamaican, Marcus Garvey, in the "20s. An impressive number of black leaders and civil rights icons–Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Louis Farrakhan, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, to list a few–were all first- or second-generation immigrants. Before them, West Indian leaders paved the way toward involvement with city politics, especially in New York. And this cosmopolitanism extended also to non-African peoples; Martin Luther King"s engagement with Mahatma Gandhi is the most famous example. Like so many other West Indians, I have personally experienced this remarkable inclusiveness in the traditional practice of black identity. Becoming a black American meant simply declaring oneself to be one and engaging in their public and private life, into which I was always welcomed. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1587276,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar
Obama’s Indian hand From Hindi to Malayalam, no poll stone left unturned K.P. NAYAR
Obama sheds a tear in North Carolina as he talks about his grandmother Madelyn Dunham who died on the eve of the election. (AP) Washington, Nov. 4: Barack Obama’s decision during the presidential campaign to appeal to the native instincts of Indian Americans may have played a big role in the outcome of Tuesday’s election to the White House.
Determined not to leave anything to chance, Obama began a unique appeal to Indian Americans in Hindi and Malayalam to vote for him soon after he was formally nominated as his party’s presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.
On his hugely popular website, barackobama.com, the frontrunner to be the next President put out a one-page manifesto in Hindi and in Malayalam that listed his positions on key issues that affect Indian immigrants to the US.
Using his personal organisational strengths as a community organiser in his youth in Chicago’s poor suburbs, Obama then directed his aides to print this statement in the two Indian languages as leaflets and widely distribute those through Indian community organisations across America.
Motivated by this special appeal to native sensitivities, several Indians in the US campaigned for Obama in this election.
Obama’s strategy was to particularly target young Indian Americans, many of whom have moved away from the traditional support given by their well-to-do parents for Republican candidates in previous elections.
Such support proved crucial in states like Virginia where Obama hoped to benefit from changing demographics.
Catherine Pallivathuckal, 23, comes from a family of Democratic supporters. Catherine, who works in an actuary in Connecticut, took a week’s leave from her work, flew to Ohio at her expense, checked into a hotel, rented a car and campaigned for Obama in Cleveland.
Catherine, whose parents come from Kerala, had voted in the last presidential election in 2004 as an absentee voter from Bangalore where she was then studying.
This year, she plunged headlong into Obama’s campaign after returning to the US and taking up her first job in Connecticut. The Obama campaign readily accepted her offer to campaign as a volunteer in Ohio where the Democrats were in need of campaigners.
Anita Palathingal of New York also similarly flew to Ohio and campaigned for Obama. Anita has been involved in progressive causes in New York for several years.
She works for a magazine in Manhattan that deals with labour issues, but she found that while New York will overwhelmingly vote for Obama, Ohio was in the balance and Obama’s campaign needed people for the get-out-to-vote efforts.
John McCain at Nevada on his way to his home state Arizona where he declared ‘I am going to be the President of the United States’. (AFP) Last Sunday, the two Indian American girls were rewarded by Obama with standing room right behind him at a rally in Cleveland that was watched nationally on television because singer-song-writer-guitarist Bruce Springsteen and his wife sang at the event.
The rally was so huge that Catherine and Anita were told by the organisers to arrive at the venue at 10am for the programme that began at about 4pm.
Ohio is a key battleground state which catapulted George W. Bush to the White House in 2004. This year Obama is trying to wrest the state from the Republicans.
No Republican has won the presidency in the history of American elections without winning Ohio, which has 20 crucial members in the electoral college which will choose the next President.
Obama’s manifesto in Hindi and Malayalam told Indians in America that he has a record of demanding comprehensive laws that allow easier immigration to the US. It said he views with sympathy the plight of those who are in the US without proper immigration documentation.
The Hindi and Malayalam manifesto promised that if elected president, Obama will strengthen the H-1B visa scheme under which tens of thousands of Indians are in the US as nurses, teachers and computer programmers, among other similar jobs.
The manifesto also assures Indian Americans that as President, Obama will work for a balance between guarding the security of America’s national borders and ensuring that immigrant families are not divided on account of US laws, leaving wives and children in India while the husband is allowed to work in the US or vice versa.
Barack Obama’s true colours As a mixed-race child growing up in Hawaii, Barack Obama stood out from an early age. Toby Harnden goes there to meet the family friends and schoolmates of the man who would be America’s first black President
WONDER YEARS: (down from below) With mother Ann Dunham; playing with grandfather Stanley Dunham on a Hawaii beach; a young Barack with his grandparents on graduation day
As the sun sank over the Pacific Ocean behind him, Frank Marshall Davis looked up from his rickety front porch and saw his friend Stanley Dunham approaching. The grizzled old black man could see that Dunham was bringing along his grandson, whom he had been waiting to meet — a caramel-skinned boy of nine called Barry Obama. It was the autumn of 1970.
In a couple of days, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois may become the first black man to be President of the United States. Central to his appeal is his message of racial reconciliation, drawn largely from his own remarkable life story and extended family spread across the globe.
His quest to come to terms with his identity as an African-American essentially began with Davis that day in Honolulu nearly 38 years ago.
Hawaii imbued Obama with the laid back, almost preternatural calm that has underpinned his political career. It insulated him from the racial tensions of inner cities on the American mainland while also posing a conundrum about his blackness that would take him back there in search of an answer.
Frank Marshall Davis had been a noted poet, journalist and radical activist who had once been investigated by the congressional House Un-American Activities Committee. By 1970 Davis, then 65, was living in obscurity but he was a familiar sight on Kuhio Avenue, just off Honolulu’s teeming Waikiki Beach. Dunham was one of many frequent visitors to Davis’s house. Dawna Weatherly-Williams, then 22 now 60, from California, had recently moved to Hawaii with her black husband. She had struck up a friendship with Davis and was chatting with him that late autumn afternoon as Dunham and Barry approached.
Although Dunham was white, he and Davis were in many ways kindred spirits. Both were originally from Kansas. At the age of five Davis had survived an attempted lynching at the hands of a group of older white boys. Dunham, eight years Davis’s junior, insisted that the racism he had witnessed on the mainland was one of the reasons why he had headed west. Both men had eventually arrived in Hawaii in search of a happiness and success that somehow always just eluded them, ending up as salesmen struggling to make a decent living.
The grandson Dunham had brought along to meet Davis represented something else that they shared. The boy was the product of an unlikely union between Dunham’s only daughter, Ann, and Barack Obama Sr, a brilliant and charismatic Kenyan economics student by whom she had become pregnant at the age of 18. Within three years of their hastily arranged wedding (Barack was born less than six months later) the couple had parted, when Obama Sr — who, it emerged, already had a wife and two children back in Kenya — chose a scholarship to Harvard over his new family.
Obama would visit El Dorado, Kansas, the oil boom town where his grandfather was born, at the height of his Democratic primary battle with Hillary Clinton. He told me and other reporters crammed into the aisle of his “-Force One” campaign plane that he was returning to “the roots of my life that connect to the broader story of the country”, adding, “Those values of hard work and some of those small town virtues are ones I think we need to rediscover.”
The candidate’s ability to move easily in both black and white milieus — and everything in between — has been a central part of his magnetism. In Chicago, Obama married a strong black woman called Michelle Robinson, a descendant of slaves whose family had lived through the civil rights era.
For both Davis and Obama, Hawaii provided a breathing space at the end and the start, respectively, of their adult lives. The fact that Hawaii, which became the 50th and newest American state in 1959, had never banned interracial marriage — unlike 16 other states as late as 1967 — was one of the things that drew Davis to the island paradise in 1948. He had just married a white Chicago socialite; only in what he was to describe as a “rainbow land of beautiful colour mixtures” would their union be considered unremarkable.
Sitting on a wooden bench in Honolulu’s Makiki District Park this summer, Weatherly-Williams chain-smoked as she recalled Davis meeting Obama for the first time that day in 1970.
“Stan had been promising to bring Barry by because we all had that in common — Frank’s kids were half-white, Stan’s grandson was half-black and my son was half-black,” she said.
Dunham and his grandson were on their way home from Punahou, the private school that Obama was to describe in his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father as an “incubator for island elites”. He had just taken entrance tests in English and mathematics.
“Barry was well-dressed, in a blazer I think,” Weatherly-Williams said. “He was tired and he was hungry. He had a full face — it wasn’t pointed like it is now.”
Obama had spent the previous three years in Indonesia with his mother, Ann, an anthropologist who specialised in rural development, and her second husband, Lolo Soetoro. He had returned to Hawaii shortly after his mother gave birth to her second child, Maya, in 1970, and was living with his white grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, whom he knew as Gramps and Toot or Tutu (Hawaiian for grandma). Ann returned to Hawaii in 1972 after her marriage broke up; when she resumed her field work in 1974, Obama moved back in with his grandparents.
For Dunham (who had so wanted his daughter to be a boy that he had named her Stanley Ann), Barry was the son he never had. Ann Dunham believed her son could do anything, while his absent father, via letters, made clear that greatness was expected of him. Obama remarked to his biographer David Mendell, the author of Obama: from Promise to Power (2008) that “there was no shortage of self-esteem”.
While his strong sense of his own worth has led to accusations of arrogance and aloofness, it also underpins Barack Obama’s star political persona. “Sure Barry’s got a bit of an ego,” said Mark Heflin, a Punahou friend. “To be President of the United States you’ve got to have some ego.”
Obama stood out at Punahou. Most fellow pupils were white, and although there were significant numbers of Oriental, Polynesian, Samoan and native Hawaiian children there was only a tiny handful of African-Americans. In his memoir, Obama recalled an initial “sense that I didn’t belong” that continued to grow. A visit from his father when he was 10 — the first time he had seen him since he was two and the last before Barack Sr was killed in a car crash in Kenya in 1982 — served only to unsettle him further.
On one level, Punahou was an idyllic setting for any child. His grandfather saw that entry to Punahou would give Obama a leg-up in society. After school, his grandmother would watch him from their cramped 10th-floor apartment as he practised basketball until dark.
The Dunhams were of modest means, Madelyn, a bank manager, being the main breadwinner. They scrimped and saved to help pay the Punahou fees. At Punahou, Obama was pitched in with the offspring of the wealthy but could see how his grandparents struggled. The ease with which he mixes with people at either end of the social spectrum reflects this.
In the old school yearbooks, the young Obama is always grinning. There’s Barry flashing a peace sign beside seven other pupils of varying hues beneath a blackboard with the words “Mixed Races of America” scrawled on it and a picture caption that reads, “Whether you’re a Tamura, a Ching, or an Obama, we share the same world.”
Later on, he looks composed and self-assured. There he is wearing a white Saturday Night Fever outfit with a carefully tended afro. The basketball team photos show that the puppy fat fell off and his physique was transformed into a lean, athletic frame. “He was a happy-go-lucky guy,” Kelli Furushima told me outside the Chowder House restaurant near Waikiki Beach that Obama frequents on his annual holiday in Hawaii, during which he always takes time out to play Scrabble with his sister Maya. “I was one of the cheerleaders that would watch the guys play ball after school. I never really saw him with a steady girlfriend but a lot of girls liked him because he was fun and athletic and tall and dark and handsome in a really cute way.”
By Orlando Patterson Thursday, Feb. 08, 2007 But Obama’s memoir records a string of racial slights at Punahou, some minor and unintended, others more serious: a ruddy-faced boy who asked if his father was a cannibal; a 12-year-old whom he rewarded with a bloody nose after he had called him a coon; a tennis pro who warned him his colour might rub off if he touched the match schedule.
When he was 14, Obama and two other black pupils, Rik Smith (a year older and now a California doctor who specialises in geriatrics) and Tony Peterson (two years older and now working in Tennessee for the United Methodist Church), would meet weekly on the steps of the Cooke Library to discuss things that were on their minds. “We talked about race as a social issue,” Peterson said.
LIKE A STAR: Obama meets supporters on the campaign trail ‘We talked about the effects of race… Not out of a deep sense of pain — you know. In Hawaii, we were in a smaller minority but we weren’t a hated minority. There was a respect for black people because the Hawaiians felt a sense of kinship with us.”
Mark Heflin played on the Punahou basketball team with Obama (nicknamed Barry ’Bomber on account of his impressive double-pump drop shot). He said, “Barry had a good style, he was charismatic even back then, and he seemed to flow between lots of groups.”
Peterson explained: “For Barry, this was the beginning of asking what it means to be a black man in America. His experience had been mainly with his white grandparents and his white mom. In Hawaii, there’s lots of cultures around but he didn’t have a strong connecting point to anyone in black culture. I was a safe link to that. Rik and Barry were bi-racial. I was from a military family but I’m thoroughly black. Like most kids trying to discover who they are, for him that was a big issue.”
Basketball was another route into black culture for Obama. This was the era of Julius Erving, better know as Doctor J, a dazzling star who played the game with both ferocity and grace. In his memoir, Obama remarked that half his white basketball friends ‘wanted to be black themselves — or at least Doctor J’.
Unfortunately for Obama, the Punahou coach, Chris McLachlin, was a traditionalist who emphasised the fundamentals of the game, rather than Obama’s flamboyant ‘street’ style. Obama, who protested that this was a ‘white’ method of play, was kept on the bench by McLachlin much of the time.
“He was on a real stacked team, one of the best teams I have ever had,” McLachlin, currently recovering from a stroke, told me as we sat in his living-room, a stone’s throw from Punahou. “He would have started on any other team in the state. He was that good. He just loved the game, would play it 24/7 if he could. First to arrive at practice, last one to leave.”
Obama has continued to play basketball regularly. His wife’s brother was a college basketball star, and during the 2008 campaign it has been a ritual each voting day for Obama to shoot hoops with a close group of aides.
Obama found he could meet other blacks by playing at the Hawaii university courts where, he would write in his memoir, “a handful of black men, mostly gym-rats and has-beens, would teach me an attitude that didn’t just have to do with the sport”. He continued: “That respect came from what you did and not who your daddy was… I was living out a caricature of black male adolescence, itself a caricature of swaggering American manhood.”
At the same time, Obama was also going around with his non-black friends from Punahou, several of them from the basketball team and sometimes accompanied by his grandfather. “Gramps was my buddy,” said Joe Hansen, who was one of the five or six friends who would “‘pile into the apartment and just hang out and watch basketball or do whatever” at weekends. “He was never that authority guy, you know: ‘Don’t do that, don’t do this’ type of thing. He was more like one of the guys, easygoing, and he kind of ran around with us. Tutu was much quieter. I’d say she was the disciplinarian.”
Obama was to write that he “learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds”, but occasionally the two would collide. Once Obama invited Hansen and another friend, Tom, who was half-white and half-Chinese, to come along with him to a party. “We stuck out like a sore thumb because we were white and still in high school and this was a college party. People came up to us saying, “Who are you. Why are you here?” and we were saying, “Er, we came with Barry.” It was awkward.”
In his memoir, Obama writes of taking two white friends, “Jeff and Scott”, to a black party and recalls their asking to leave early because they felt uncomfortable: “In the car, Jeff put an arm on my shoulder, looking at once contrite and relieved. “You know, man, that really taught me something. I mean, I can see how it must be tough for you… being the only black guys and all.” I snorted. “Yeah. Right.” A part of me wanted to punch him right there.”
Obama also wrote of becoming involved with drugs: “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young, would-be black man.” His 1979 yearbook entry depicts a pack of Zig-Zag cigarette papers and a matchbook and offers thanks to “Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang” — choom being Hawaiian slang for marijuana.
But former Punahou pupils doubt that Obama was ever seriously involved in drugs. “He was so not a druggie,” Bernice Glenn Bowers laughed. “There’s no way he could be what he was on the court and be a druggie.”
Obama’s grandfather had identified Frank Marshall Davis as someone who could help the boy solve the puzzle of how he, brought up by white people, could relate to a future as a black man. In his memoir, Obama portrays Davis — he never identifies him by his full name — as living “his old Black Power dashiki self” in “the same Sixties time warp that Hawaii had created” and which his mother, spiritually at least, had never left.
His visits to Davis were irregular, but he nevertheless gravitated there at moments of doubt: when he was departing for university; when his grandmother, to her husband’s dismay, had expressed a fear that a black youth might mug her. Frank’s verdict was: “Your grandma’s right to be scared. She’s at least as right as Stanley is. She understands that black people have a reason to hate.” An American university, he told Barry, who was about to go to the small liberal arts college, Occidental College in Los Angeles (where he began to call himself Barack), was a place where the price of admission was “leaving your race at the door” in order to become a “well-trained, well-paid nigger” but “a nigger just the same”.
Obama seems to have taken most of this with a pinch of salt. If the totality of Davis’s writings is anything to go by, he probably also received more sober counsel. In 1944 Davis railed against racism in all its forms, the persecution of Jews and the internment of the Japanese in Hawaii. “It is my contention that whoever is born and reared in America or becomes naturalised should be known only as an American,” he wrote. “Forget whether he has blue eyes or red hair or thick lips or a chocolate complexion. He is an American.”
Kathryn Waddell Takara, a University of Hawaii professor writing a book about Davis called The Fire and the Phoenix, believes that the old poet helped Obama to begin reflecting on his ethnicity and nurtured a sense of possibility in him. “Just the way that Barack Obama carries himself, walks and talks shows he is one of the rare Americans who has this kind of acceptance not only of himself but of others. He’s not weighed down by the shackles of history.”
Tony Peterson said he had “heard echoes of the conversations we used to have” in Obama’s soaring 2004 Democratic convention speech, which launched his national political career. “In particular, the bit about eradicating the slander of a black kid with a book acting white. That’s the kind of thing we used to talk about. I remember we talked about whether we would see a black President in our lifetime. I don’t think any of us thought we would.”
In late January, on his campaign plane as we flew from Kansas after the El Dorado visit, I asked the senator about the wanderlust in his family that he had chosen to reject. “Part of me settling in Chicago and marrying Michelle was a conscious decision to root myself,” he told me. “There’s a glamour, there’s a romance to that kind of life and there’s a part of that still in me. But there’s a curse to it as well. You need a frame for the canvas, because too much freedom’s not freedom.” He laughed and added, “I’m waxing too poetic here.”
Dawna Weatherly-Williams recalled how she had watched the 1974 film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, in which an old lady and former slave describes how blacks searching for the person who would lead their people to freedom and equality would hold up babies and ask, “Is you the one?”
In 2007 the talk show queen Oprah Winfrey would allude to Miss Jane Pittman and hail Obama as “the one”, later prompting John McCain’s campaign to mock him for having a messiah complex.
Weatherly-Williams pointed towards the horizon to the north, where Stanley Dunham, who had been a US Army sergeant in the Second World War, was buried in the Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, which overlooks Pearl Harbour, in 1992. Then she gazed to the south, towards St Louis Heights, from which Davis’s ashes had been spread five years earlier. The house on Kuhio Avenue has long since been razed and is now occupied by a multi-storey car-park. “I can still see it there, like a ghost,” she said. “Stan felt a similar way about Barry being the one and that’s why it would be so darn cool for him to see what’s happening now. Look what you produced, Stan. I think he and Frank are up there now, cracking jokes and toasting Barack.”
Ra in his solar bargeA “solar barge" (also “solar bark", “solar barque", “solar boat", “sun boat") is a mythological representation of the sun riding in a boat. The “Khufu ship", a 43.6-meter-long vessel that was sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC, is a full-size surviving example which may have fulfilled the symbolic function of a solar barque. This boat was rediscovered in May of 1954 when archeologist Kamal el-Mallakh and inspector Zaki Nur found two ditches sealed off by about 40 blocks weighing 17 to 20 tonnes each. This boat was disassembled into 1,224 pieces and took over 10 years to reassemble. A nearby museum was built to house this boat. [1]
Other sun boats were found in Egypt dating to different pharonic dynasties.[2]
Examples include:
Neolithic petroglyphs which (it has been speculated) show solar barges The many early Egyptian goddesses who are related as sun deities and the later gods Ra and Horus depicted as riding in a solar barge. In Egyptian myths of the afterlife, Ra rides in an underground channel from west to east every night so that he can rise in the east the next morning. The Nebra sky disk, which (it has been speculated) features a depiction of a solar barge. Nordic Bronze Age petroglyphs, including those found in Tanumshede often contains barges and sun crosses in different constellations. A “sun chariot" is a mythological representation of the sun riding in a chariot. The concept is younger than that of the solar barge, and typically Indo-European, corresponding with the Indo-European expansion after the invention of the chariot in the 2nd millennium BC.
Examples include:
Trundholm sun chariot of the Nordic deity, Sól, drawn by Arvak and Alsvid Greek Helios riding in a chariot,[3] (see also Phaëton[4]) Sol Invictus depicted riding a quadriga on the reverse of a Roman coin.[5] Vedic Surya riding in a chariot drawn by seven horses The sun itself also was compared to a wheel, possibly in Proto-Indo-European, Greek heliou kuklos, Sanskrit suryasya cakram, Anglo-Saxon sunnan hweogul (PIE *swelyosyo kukwelos).
[edit] Female and male
The warrior goddess Sekhmet, shown with her sun disk and cobra crownSolar deities are popularly[who?] thought of as male counterparts of the lunar deity (usually female); however, sun goddesses are found on every continent (e.g. Amaterasu in Japanese belief) paired with male lunar deities. Among the earliest records of human beliefs, the early goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon carried a sun above their head as a symbol of dignity. The sun was a major aspect of Egyptian symbols and hieroglyphs, all the lunar deities of that pantheon were male deities. The cobra, the lioness, the cow, the dominant symbols of the most ancient Egyptian deities, carried their relationship to the sun atop their heads; they were female and their cults remained active throughout the history of the culture. Later a sun god was established in the eighteenth dynasty on top of the other solar deities, before the “aberration" was stamped out and the old pantheon re-established. When male deities became associated with the sun in that culture, they began as the offspring of a mother. Feminist examination of some of the earliest religions of Western cultures concluded that a sun goddess, often, driving her chariot bearing it across the sky daily. Sól is the goddess after whom the sun and Sunday are named in English.
Some mythologists, such as Brian Branston, contend that sun goddesses are more common worldwide than their male counterparts. They also claim that the belief that solar deities are primarily male is linked to the fact that a few better known mythologies (such as those of late classical Greece and late Roman mythology) rarely break from this rule, although closer examination of the earlier myths of those cultures reveal a very different distribution than the contemporary popular belief. The dualism of sun/male/light and moon/female/darkness is found in many (but not all) late southern traditions in Europe that derive from Orphic and Gnostic philosophies.
In Germanic mythology the Sun is female and the Moon is male. The corresponding Old English name is Si?el (/"s? jel/), continuing Proto-Germanic *Sôwilô or *Saewelô. The Old High German Sun goddess is Sunna. In the Norse traditions, every day, Sól rode through the sky on her chariot, pulled by two horses named Arvak and Alsvid. Sól also was called Sunna, Sunne, and Frau Sunne, from which are derived the words, sun and Sunday.
In J. R. R. Tolkien"s mythology, the sun is the last fruit of Laurelin, the golden tree of Yavanna; set within a vessel crafted by Aule her spouse; and guided by Arien a female Maia. Among the names for the sun are Anar, the Fire-golden, and Vása, the Heart of Fire. In Tolkien"s mythology the moon is guided by a male Maia named Tilion[6]
[edit] Missing sun motif
Amaterasu finally emerges from the caveThe missing sun is a theme in the myths of many cultures, sometimes including the themes of imprisonment, exile, or death. The missing sun is often used to explain various natural phenomena, including the disappearance of the sun at night, shorter days during the winter, and solar eclipses. Even the Greek myth of Gaia as Demeter and her daughter, Persephone or Kore, imply that the latter was a sun goddess who went missing, bringing on winter when her mother failed to keep the earth bountiful as she searched for her missing
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