I. Obama’s Roots in Polygamy and the Ford Foundation 15as we proceed. Since Obama accords so much importance to his own African background, it is
legitimate to follow him back to his grandfather.
GRANDFATHER OBAMA FROM KENYA:
UNCLE TOM OF BRITISH COLONIALISM
Obama’s grandfather was named Hussein Onyango Obama, who was born about 1895 in Kandu
province, Kenya, and died in 1979. He practiced traditional polygamy and had at least three wives:
Helima, who was childless; Akumu, who was the mother of Sarah Obama and Barack Hussein
Obama, Sr.; and Auma Obama. He also claimed to have married a woman in Burma when he lived
there as the servant of a British officer during World War II. Grandfather Obama belonged to the
Luo tribe. For those who may be scandalized by the idea that the candidate belongs to a tribe, we
can establish this fact by referring to Obama’s own writings. In Dreams from My Father, Obama
travels to Kenya. Here he meets a vendor, an old woman, who tries to make him pay the tourist
price for a necklace. One of Obama’s relatives intervenes to help him avoid paying the inflated
price reserved for foreigners. The dialogue goes like this: ‘“She says that you look like an American
to her.” “Tell her I’m Luo,” I said, beating my chest!”’ (Dreams 310) So Obama, based on his own
memoir, has a strong sense of tribal identity.
The Luo or Lwo people are a Nilotic group from the eastern Sudan whose language (sometimes
called Dholuo) belongs to the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Luo are one of the most numerous
ethnic groups of East Africa, and specialize in agriculture, livestock raising, and fishing. Their
demographic center of gravity is the northeastern shore of Lake Victoria. They currently inhabit
areas of five nations, including the southern Sudan, northern Uganda, eastern Congo, western
Kenya, and part of Tanzania. The Luos are tall and thin Nilotic peoples of haughty and aristocratic
bearing, like the Tutsis. Folklore attributes to the taller Nilotics like Tutsis and Luos the desire to
dominate the shorter Hutu and Kikuyu peoples. Michelle Obama, in the initial transcripts of her
infamous “whitey” tape of July 2004, reportedly takes a strong position in favor of the Tutsi, which
is the very essence of the overall line of Anglo-American imperialism in this part of Africa, which
has always been to support the Tutsi against the Hutu. Some famous Luos include the Kenyan
politician Tom Mboya (assassinated by a Kikuyu in 1959), former Uganda president Milton Obote,
and the infamous butcher Joseph Kony, the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a new dark ages
terrorist rebel group which operates in Uganda. The traditional ideological profile of the Luo is that
they are clever but sometimes lethargic, and addicted to show-boating. The Luo are currently
receiving US-UK imperialist support against the majority Kikuyu people in the tribal-ethnic power
struggle unleashed inside Kenya. The Luo represent one of the micro-nationalities which Zbigniew
Brzezinski intends to liberate in the course of his “dignity” campaign against the nation-state. The
advantages for the imperialists of backing the Luo are obvious: if an independent Kurdish state
would carve Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, a Luo state would carve Sudan, Uganda, Congo, Kenya,
and Tanzania.
OBAMA’S LUO TRIBE: SMART, LAZY, SHOWBOATERS
What kind of people are these Luo? Modern Americans have an idea of the ideology or
mentality of the French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Chinese, and so forth, but what are Luos like?
A standard work on Luo mentality is A.B.C. Ocholla-Ayayo’s Traditional Ideology and Ethics
Among the Southern Luo (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1976). Ochollo-
Ayayo is a Luo writing a profile of the mentality and culture of his own people. Since Obama has