KOGELO, Kenya, 6 March 2008 — American shock jocks, dirty tricks masterminds and political bloggers: Beware the wrath of an 86-year-old Kenyan villager.
A frown replaces the dimpled beam of Sarah Hussein Obama, grandmother of US Sen. Barack Obama, when asked yesterday about recent attacks on her grandson that include the spreading of rumors that he is secretly a Muslim and the repeated use of his middle name — Hussein — by a radio host at a rally of the Republican presidential candidate.
“Lies are told that don’t have anything to do with what Barack is about,” she said in the local Luo language, her gray hair smoothed neatly under a head wrap. “I am very against it.”
Obama and fellow Sen. Hillary Clinton are close in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination after inconclusive results from caucuses on Tuesday. The closely fought race has inspired some Hillary supporters to try to portray Obama as dangerously foreign.
In recent weeks, two Hillary volunteers in the state of Iowa resigned after forwarding e-mails falsely saying he was a Muslim and a threat to national security.
Matt Drudge, who publishes the political blog the Drudge Report, said that he was e-mailed a widely circulated picture of Obama in a turban and robe by the Clinton campaign. “Bringing such pictures that are trying to imply that not only is he a foreigner, he is a Muslim, is wrong, because that is not what he is,” scolded Sarah.
The photo was taken when he was presented with the outfit while on a visit to his late father’s native Kenya, where many of the family still live. Hillary campaign officials have said they did not condone any such dirty tricks.
Obama’s grandfather had converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism and taken the name Hussein, Sarah said, but his children had inherited only the name, not the religion. Each person should be able to choose how he or she worships, she said.
“In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents,” she said. She, too, is a Christian.
The intense interest generated by the race for the Democratic nomination — between two candidates who would either be the first female or the first black president — has thrust Obama’s Kenyan family into the spotlight.
Four-wheel-drive vehicles packed with journalists bounce over the rutted red roads, and students at the local high school named after him don’t even turn anymore to watch as crews unload satellite equipment under a mango tree.
Each twist and turn of the race is closely scrutinized, says his half sister Auma. The family gathered in his grandmother’s house on Tuesday night to watch the results come in, she said, on a television donated by a family friend — the grandmother’s own simple house does not have one of its own.
“Barack’s done extremely well and we’re very proud of him,” Auma Obama said when asked for a reaction to the losses on Tuesday. “This is like a football match. The game continues.”
