President of the United States Barack Obama waves as he left Malaysia on Monday
NOT for nothing is America seen the world over as a truly great country, however grudgingly. A land of opportunity, so vast north to south, so expansive coast to coast and attached to an assortment of territories.
Its diversity makes it a meld of faces, everyone bringing to the table a rainbow mix of drive and desire forming a potent potpourri in the Land of the Free.
My first awed awakening with the power of this great nation was through the Front Cover of Time magazine – only later did I delve deeper in the centrefold of Playboy.
This was the time of great tumult of the Vietnam War.
Who could not be moved by the powerful images of deathly drama brought to a world audience and told in black and white pictures? Air power was eloquently depicted through the diamond flight of Hueys with vigilant gunners poised to blast some peasant hamlet from 1,000 feet.
Its aerial reach of interdiction was emphasised by the mushroom ball of red pyrotechnics dumped on a Cong hut by a pair of screeching Phantoms delivering napalm smack center to the enemy’s kitchen.
And for me, Nick Ut’s the Pulitzer-prized image of Kim Phuc fleeing Operation Rolling Thunder sans a single stitch planted the seeds of my own personal passivism.
From that day onwards, my ears always pricked up when Uncle Sam made headlines. I also took some pleasure that together with Malaysia and Liberia, we share that distinctive red-and-white band design. I don’t think I have to look far for the political sympathies of the vexillographer who steered the heraldic direction.
The power of news
I became a voracious consumer of news from American sources, little realising then the extraordinary power of print on the shaping my journey from post puberty.
Perhaps because the news was delivered at a far more sedate pace than it is today, my own perspective of American actions in Vietnam took some time to shape. At first it was simply a matter of whooping up with glee each time a sucker punch was delivered to the ‘enemy’.
The initial gungho became tempered when the bloody gore started to feature a bit more prominently.
Something simply was not quite right, nothing was plainly black or white, when big white men beat the bloody daylights of malnourished, barefoot and bedraggled men half their size and bludgeon them into submission.
Then one day Newsweek featured some campus protest with the catchy chant – “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids you killed today?” In retrospection, I now realise why parents the world over tear their hair worrying at the songs list downloaded by their kids. Not understanding nuances, I merrily parroted the chorus during recess thinking this was some nursery rhyme in the same mould of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'.
And hey; LBJ did actually come this way. Were I born a lot earlier, perhaps I would have been in the media contingent to welcome him – the first time ever someone so important from the US came this way for a State visit.
Interestingly, he left behind a lasting legacy – Felda Labu was conveniently renamed Felda LBJ; ...what can Malaysia give a man, nay a nation that has everything, SOMETHING! Never mind it is an agricultural experiment aimed at local agrarian reform.
But sadly, the 2nd and 3rd generation beneficiaries do not appreciate this Tun Razak-envisioned and World Bank-approved poverty-eradication initiative – ask them Who, What or Why the name LBJ was commandeered from and they’d struggle for an answer.
Worse, one university graduate who hails from that very same Felda Settlement loudly told me when asked what LBJ in Felda LBJ stood for; she confidently answered – London-by-Johnson!
I don’t blame her; just the education system which we defiantly claim is the BEST in this and the TOPS in that! Just look at the `Hare-in-the-Spotlights’ stare of our so-called top civil servants and ministers who muddle their tenses on the world stage.
Until today, they still believe the plural of kin is kins and that one aircraft is double the power of two aircraft(s).
Please Sirs; get your tenses right before your Perth flight.
Back to Barack the man. Some mainstream media chose to ignore his message of equal opportunity for all.
For those who know the Malaysian political landscape, news that only one mainstream media house was given the task of official host media was inevitable and understandable – though always debatable.
The result was the emphasis of coverage was on form, not substance. The information department was less particular about being prompt with the issue of passes for the various venues but more on how media should be dressed!
For those endowed with sight but chose not to see, the sight of big, bulky, positively white Caucasian guys, and gal swarming round Obama as part of his protection detail puts our view of race in this country into some perspective.
Just to add a bit of spice, some NBA team owner decided to let his mouth loose about his girlfriend being colour-blind about her choice of intimate friends just as Obama was about to face the media at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in Kuala Lumpur.
To America’s eternal credit, those white boys and gals with Magnums and Kochs cocked and ready would no doubt unthinkingly put themselves to take a bullet for their black boss.
There was a time when Obama’s biological father or his forebears would have found their way to the shores of the Great US of A in slave ships and travelled the path of Kunta Kinte.
Instead, their energies have been harnessed, their contributions corralled to become an indispensable fabric of life. Given the freedom to bloom, one even rose all the way to the top to become the President of the United States.
The emergence of a Malaysian Obama perhaps would be a vindication of all the time, energy and resources spent the past three days.
