Obama's Church
http://www.aina.org/news/20080116124901.htm
At the core of the Democratic front-runner's faith -- whether lapsed
Muslim,
new Christian or some mixture of the two -- is African nativism, which
raises political issues of its own.
In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago,
he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is
a
code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks.
It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger
American
society by pooling their money, patronizing blackonly businesses and
backing
black leaders. Such racial separatism is strangely at odds with the
media's
****trayal of Obama as a uniter who reaches across races.
The code also warns blacks to avoid the white "entrapment of black
middle-classness," suggesting that settling for that kind of "competitive"
success will rob blacks of their African identity and keep them "captive"
to
white culture.
In short, Obama's "unashamedly black" church preaches the politics of
black
nationalism. And its da****ki-wearing preacher -- who married Obama and his
wife and now acts as his personal spiritual adviser -- is militantly
Afrocentric. "We are an African people," the Rev. Jeremiah Wright reminds
his flock, "and remain true to our native land, the mother continent."
Wright once traveled to Libya with black supremacist Louis Farrakhan to
meet
with terrorist leader Muammar Qaddafi. Last year at a Chicago gala, Wright
honored his old pal Farrakhan, who's fond of calling whites "blue-eyed
devils," for lifetime achievement.
It comes as little surprise then that Wright would think Israel a "racist"
occupier of Palestinians, while describing the 9/11 attacks as a "wake-up
call" to "white America" for ignoring the concerns of "people of color."
Wright makes the Rev. Jesse Jackson look almost moderate and patriotic.
Yet
this is whom Obama picked to baptize his daughters, plus to act as his
"sounding board" during his presidential run.
The candidate already has heeded his church's "nonnegotiable commitment to
Africa," spending an inordinate amount of his campaign time on the Kenyan
crisis, for one. Obama has close family ties to Kenya, and even founded a
school in his ancestral village -- the Senator Obama School.
In the bloody conflict there, which already has claimed some 700 lives,
Obama appears to have sided with opposition leader Raila Odinga, head of
the
same Luo tribe to which Obama's late Muslim father belonged.
Obama's older brother still lives there. Abongo "Roy" Obama is a Luo
activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must
"liberate
himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urges his
younger brother to embrace his African heritage.
Beyond family politics, these ties have potential foreign policy, even
national security, implications.
Odinga is a Marxist who re****tedly has made a pact with a hardline Islamic
group in Kenya to establish Shariah courts throughout the country. He has
also vowed to ban booze and ****k and impose Muslim dress codes on women --
moves favored by Obama's brother.
With al-Qaida strengthening its beachheads in Africa -- from Algeria to
Sudan to Somalia -- the last thing the West needs is for pro-Western Kenya
to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.
Yet Obama interrupted his New Hamp****re campaigning to speak by phone with
Odinga, who claims to be his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan
President
Mwai Kibaki.
Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S.
interests?
It's a valid question, and one voters deserve to have debated regardless
of
the racial and religious sensitivities. Thanks to a media blackout of
these
issues, the electorate has yet to benefit from a thorough vetting of
Obama.
We have to wonder how much of the national agenda Africa would consume
under
an Obama administration. Of the six "world threats" Obama lists in stump
speeches, at least half of them concern that chronically troubled Third
World continent.
Yes, some of his African priorities are noble, such as fighting AIDS and
genocide. But how much U.S. aid, resources and presidential time would he
devote to them? How much is enough? If Bill Clinton was America's "first
black president," would Barack Hussein Obama be our first president for
Africa?
Then there is the issue of his Muslim past. Obama, 47, was raised by two
Muslim fathers and attended Islamic cl***** in Indonesia.
He denies being Muslim, however, and says he "embraced Christ" while
answering the altar call 20 years ago at Trinity. (Contrary to anonymous
e-mail rumors circulating, Obama never took the oath of office on the
Quran.
He used a Bible, and Vice President Dick Cheney swore him in during his
Senate ceremony.)
This merely raises another concern, beyond that of the controversial
church
he chose to baptize him. If Obama were ever Muslim, even as a youth, he
would now be viewed as an apostate, which in radical Islam is punishable
by
death. As Mideast expert Daniel Pipes has noted, a President Obama could
be
the target of a fatwah.
Still, his Muslim heritage is not the signal issue before the electorate.
It's his Afrocentric church, which preaches black socialism and black
nativism, and his family ties to an African tribe that's fanning the
flames
of Marxism and militant Islam in a country once considered strongly
democratic and a friend of the U.S.
"I believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to
spur
social change," Obama has asserted. He also says his faith has led him to
question "the idolatry of the free market."
If a President Obama's foreign and domestic policies are anything like the
Afrocentric doctrine he's pledged to uphold, Americans will pay a hefty
price, including those among the growing black middle class.
Investors Business Daily
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