 |  Todayinah Ed. says, in this thread, Barack Obama's father survives his 1982 car crash in Kenya. Our interest of course is to look more broadly at the significance of fathers in our lives, concluding here that Obama could have achieved even more without this personal tragedy. If you're interested in viewing samples of my other work why not visit Todayinah site. |
| Barack Obama |
| November 6 |  |
Editor says, What if Barack Obama's father had survived his 1982 car crash in Nairobi? We explore an even more stellar career, examining the importance of fatherhood in our development.
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In 1995, on this day Times Books published "Dreams from My Grandmother: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by a little known but upcoming Kenyan Government Minister called Barack Hussein Obama II (pictured). The autobiography describes an unhappy, confused period of his life in the continental United States before the author returned to his father's home in Nyang'oma Kogelo, Siaya District and reconnected with his African identity.
The Barack Obama Story, Part 2 - Dreams from my GrandmotherFollowing an unremarkable record of educational achievement, he entered North America's premier professional men's basketball league where he signed for the Chicago Bulls.
His father had been shocked to discover him suffering a profound identity crisis, addressing himself by the anglicized name Barry.
Despite this sadness, the author described his profound sense of love for his white grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham (pictured in 1979).
The strength of his transracial family would ultimately power this African icon to the pinnacles of global leadership. Elected as Kenya's first dual heritage President in 2008, Obama would be uniquely qualified to serve as UN Secretary General, an appointment he received in 2015.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor Watch the Video
© Dreams From My Father by Barack ObamaStory Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: Wikipedia Labels: Barack Obama, Kenya, America, Chicago Bulls, Presidency. Editor says, The death of Obama's grandmother the day before the election broke our hearts, so we wrote this story to celebrate a grandmother's unquestioning love for her grandson.
~ Fascinating! Hillary 08 in Obama's abscence then?
~ Interesting, and rather timely.... :)
~ As Chris says, very timely. Plus I too want to know, does this mean Hillary in 08?
~ It'd be interesting to see how Obama would have done in Kenyan politics. I think his mixed-race ancestry would tell against him heavily---African politics are often tribal-based to an extent that Americans, particularly American blacks, just don't get.
~ Good concept; I can see him becoming Secretary General in OTL after he finishes his term(s) in office.
~ Ah, so this is Obama Part 2--I had thought the "parts" had to be in chronological sequence on the same timeline.
Interesting. I'd been contemplating a version in which Obama was born in Hawaii, as he actually was--but a Hawaii which received its independence in 1946 just as the Philippines did in our history. In that case, he'd have been ineligible for the U.S. presidency, but might have risen to the heights in Hawaii instead.
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November 13
Editor says, What if Barack Obama's father had survived his 1982 car crash in Nairobi? We explore an even more stellar career, examining the importance of fatherhood in our development.
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In 2015, on this day the UN Secretary General Barack Hussein Obama II arrived at the United States deep-water naval base at Pearl Harbour. The former Kenyan President would have absolutely no time to reflect on the personal significance of this odd home-coming, rather he had to focus all his attention on an international showdown with the forty-fourth US President, Hillary Rodham Clinton.The Barack Obama Story, Part 3 - Homecoming Showdown
The crisis had begun the day before Clinton's election in 2008 when General Toshio Tamogami (pictured) lost his job as chief of staff for Japan's Air Self-Defense Force after saying in an essay entitled True Perspective of Modern and Contemporary History that "it is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation [in World War Two]".
The state-run China Daily commented that "The denial of the aggression history by Toshio Tamogami comes in as an element of disharmony, Yet, as long as the Japanese government has a right attitude to this question, the smooth development of ties between the two neighbors will not be derailed by such discordant notes".
However since his election as Prime Minister of Japan during the summer, Tamogami now was the head of government in Tokyo.
Clinton had spent much of her Presidency building good relations with China and was determined to bring Tamogami and Japan's recently rediscovered belligerence to heel.
Yet in Washington, neoconservatives were eyeing the November 2016 election with glee. Retired General David Petraeus had formed a Presidential Committee. Perhaps Tamogami was the strong man that America needed in the region, combatting both the inexorable rise of China, and also the war on terror with the Islamic forces in Indonesia. Because the hanging of Saddam Hussein had taught the neocons a big lesson about the geopolitical value of such regional strong men. America had been forced to watch the great nation of Iran fill the power vacuum created by his departure ...
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© Today in Alternate History, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: CNN Labels: Barack Obama, Kenya, America, Hillary Clinton, Presidency. Editor says, The Tamogami controversy was real, reported in CNN.com Asia on November 3rd 2008 - Japan fires military chief over WWII denial.
Wikipedia reports ~ Tamogami was dismissed due to an essay he published on October 31, 2008, arguing that Japan was not an aggressor during World War II and rather was drawn into the war by Chiang Kai-shek and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had allegedly been manipulated by the Comintern. The essay also criticized the war crimes trials which followed the war and stated that Japan's occupation of parts of China, Taiwan, and Korea had benefited the populations of those countries.[1] Following this publication, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada removed Tamogami from the post and ordered him to retire, since this viewpoint contradicted the government position and was likely to anger Japan's regional neighbors.
We've used this controversy as a lever to explore an America without Obama, one that is both different, and also, very similiar in outlook.
~ Talk about from bad to worse! Are Obama and Clinton again not too fond of each other in this reality? That the neoconservatives would look to Tamogami as their best hope for the region wouldn't well for bi-partisan relations with the Dems and Clinton. Are there plans to continue this?
~ It's only barely inconceivable to think of Japan denying its role as a monster in WWII, since they've spent so much time since then trying to reform their image. Some people (I'm looking at you, Republicans) just don't like remembering that they're the bad guys...
~ Very nice mix of current events along with the Obama vs Clinton business. More detail about how China would react, should Tamogami ever become Japanese PM, would have been nice. Maybe this can be looked at in the next installment ;)
~ An interesting, slightly-alternate take on things. I wonder how Obama would do as Pres't. of Kenya?
~ My take :
1. This assumes that the neocons will have any influence left by 2016.
2. Something serious events would have to happen to allow Toshio to take power after being dismissed; I don't see this happening in a culture like Japan's.
3. No offense, Robbie, but are you implying that Republicans turn a blind eye to Japanese war crimes?
~ I'd like to know more about how Tamogami would go from having been forced out of his government post to being elected Prime Minister. What political developments after 2008 would have brought that about?
~ The irony is Obama and Clinton will probably fight less in this timeline than they did in OTL. :D
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August 27
Editor says, What if Barack Obama's father had survived his 1982 car crash in Nairobi? We explore an even more stellar career, examining the importance of fatherhood in our development.
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In 2006, Housing Minister Barack Hussein Obama II visited Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. "You are all my brothers and sisters," Mr Obama told crowds of excited residents who craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the Minister (pictured). The Barack Obama Story, Part 4 - The Audacity of Hope
"Everybody in Kenya needs the same opportunities to go to school, to start businesses, to have enough to eat, to have decent clothes," he said over a loudspeaker.
At least six hundred thousand people, many without jobs or legal title to the land they inhabited had been given fresh hope for a brighter future. Thw Minister's Community Action Policies had helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization.
Unquestionably, his most significant contribution was in organizing finance for the program. Sponsorship funding had been obtained from sources as diverse as the Chicago Bulls, Irish Rock Band U2 to the United Nations office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.
Obama was creating an international profile that would propel him to the position of UN Secretary General in 2014, and a dramatic confrontation with the forty-fourth President of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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© Today in Alternate History, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: BBC Labels: Barack Obama, Kenya, America, Hillary Clinton, Presidency. Editor says, In this scenario, we explore Obama's rise to global leadership. We imagine his community programs were pursued in Kenya where he returned with his father in 1982. We are most grateful to the contribution from Mr David Atwel of Changing the Times Magazine for his assistance in the development of this post.
~ And so it begins... He'd get my vote that's for sure! ;)
But seriously, this is a good way for Obama to cement his political position in Kenyan politics, leading to greater things to come I'd dare say. Maybe, though, if the "tenant's rights" program was explained more, it may explain better why Obama is able to, not only ensure support of the Kenyan people, but also why he rises to UN Secretary General.
~ I'm no expert on Kenyan politics, but in a lot of Africa, this surge of popularity in an underling would have the local President/Prime Minister very worried indeed...he'd be smelling a coup d'etat in the making, even if the underling in question was actually completely loyal.
~ The Chicago Bulls support him, but no Bono? Where's U2 in all this, I want to know! :)
~ Dang, this is just what I was going to write, LOL. :)
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November 29
Editor says, What if Barack Obama's father had survived his 1982 car crash in Nairobi? We explore an even more stellar career, examining the importance of fatherhood in our development.
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In 2014, the former President of Kenya, Barack Hussein Obama II was confirmed as the ninth Secretary General of the United Nations.The Barack Obama Story, Part 5 - Common Ground
A gleeful Mama Sarah (pictured) proudly accompanied her grandson on his flight from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi. At an official ceremony in New York City, Mr Obama was sworn in as the organization's chief administrative officer under Article 97 of the UN Charter.
The first Secretary General of dual heritage, his upbringing across three continents made Mr Obama uniquely qualified for the challenges that he would shortly face in the role. In Dreams of My Father, he joked that family meal-times in Hawaii were actually like a meeting of the United Nations, with his Indonesian step-father at the head of table.
Twelve months later, and not so far from that family home, Mr Obama would be drawn into a bitter confrontation at the United States deep-water naval base at Pearl Harbour. His adversaries would be the belligerent forty-fourth US President, Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Prime Minister of Japan, General Toshio Tamogami.
Absolutely nobody would describe Tamogami as the product of diversity. Shortly before Clinton's election in 2008, the General lost his job as chief of staff for Japan's Air Self-Defense Force after saying in an essay entitled True Perspective of Modern and Contemporary History that "it is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation [in World War Two]. "
Tamogami experienced a dramatic reversal of fortune in the second decade of the twenty-first century. His re-armament of Japan placed him on a collision course with Mrs Clinton. And it would be for Mr Obama to find common ground between the two.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Dreams From My Father by Barack ObamaStory Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: Wikipedia Labels: Barack Obama, United Nations, Presidency, Kenya, Toshio Tamogami. ~ Obama manages to get them both agree to limit their use of arms maybe? Not without concensions on either side I guess, (Clinton lifts the threatened embargo, Tamogami publically admits he was wrong on World War 2... but doesn't back away from his own beliefs in private).
~ Vert interesting AH. I'm intrigued to see what comes next.
~ Obama could find ways to appeal past Tamogami to the average Japanese in the street---who are NOT interested in more war, thankyouverymuch. They remember all too vividly what the last one was like.
~ That makes five of us. :)
~ Six of us including the Editor :-)
~ Suppose there were a second Korean war, in which Cjhina intervened as in the first? In that case, Japanese militarists might well experience a comeback, especially if the U.S. sought Japanese aid in fighting the war.
~ How about this?
Tomogami's political resurrection came with the outbreak of the Second Korean War in 2013. All at once, it became expedient for the second President Clinton to make common cause with the militaristic Tomogami. in order to preserve Japan as the "vast aircraft carrier in ther Pacific" it had been caalled by U.S. conservaatives for decades. Yet Clinton remained wary of her Japanese counterpart's ambuitions, which included the idea (still unpopular with many Japanese) of developing a nuclear arsenal for his country.
Secretary-General Obama would prove indispensible in brokering the deal which refurbished the Washington-Tokyo alliance, persuading President Clinton to accept the revision of Japan's pacifist constitution to allow a full-fledged military buildup while getting Tomogami to set aside, at least for the present, his nuclear aspirations.
The new arrangement was extremely controversial in Japan, where its announcement nearly led to the fall of Tomogami's coalition government. It would be accepted only after China, repeating its move of sixty years before, launched a massive assault in support of Pyongyang--a million troops, armed this time with sophisticated tactical nuclear weapons as well as top-of-the-line conventional arms.
Under the circumstances, it was all to easy to heed the nationalists' caall for militarization. Tomogami and others echoed American claims that if Seoul fell, the Chinese and North Koreans would strike gagainst northern Japan next, just as the Soviets had been prepared to do in August 1945 berfore ther unexpected end of World War II in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had mooted Western and Soviet invasion plans alike. All at once, what had been called "extremism" was now labeled prudence, and Japan's postwar pacifism was seen as outmoded.
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August 4
Editor says, What if Barack Obama's father had survived his 1982 car crash in Nairobi? We explore an even more stellar career, examining the importance of fatherhood in our development. This story was published in the September 2008 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1961, on this day future world statesman Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student. They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.
Following an unremarkable record of educational achievement in Hawaii and subsequently the continental United States, Obama entered North America's premier professional men's basketball league where he signed for the Chicago Bulls in 1982.The Barack Obama Story
Part 1 - Walking a straight line in a crooked world
In his autobiography "Dreams of My Father" he describes how Barack Obama, Senior survived a near-fatal car crash in Nairobi that very same year. Interpreting this miraculous escape from death as an act of destiny, his father travelled from Nyang'oma Kogelo, Siaya District to find his son in Chicago. He was shocked to find him addressing himself by the anglicized name Barry and suffering a profound identity crisis.
Following a furious argument, his father experienced a change of heart only after he found a scrap of poetry in which his son had written that he was "Walking a straight line in a crooked world".
Writing of his political awakening in "The Audacity of Hope", Obama stated that if not for the re-union with his father, it is unlikely that he would have found the sense of purpose and direction to launch a political career, to become someone - the President of Kenya.
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© Audacity of Hope, Dreams of My Father by Barack ObamaStory Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: Wikipedia Labels: Barack Obama, Kenya, America, Chicago Bulls, Presidency. Editor says, The major sections of this story are repeated unedited from Barack Obama Revealed. There didnt seem much point writing an alt-history about Barack Obama without changing the biggest variable (the tragic death of his father), and the most exciting possibility is a reconnection with his Kenyan identity. The poetry fragment was actually written by Obama as an undergraduate.
~ Oh, Barack Obama? ;) I was expecting him to enter the NBA - but presiding over Kenya places him on the international level of Jomo Kenyatta... way better than being prez over the US... :)
~ Nice work. It's a nice twist on 'real life.'
~ Yes, as Eric said, its a nice article. And it does make one wonder how things could have been different considering the election coming up...
~ Fascinating and rather timely ATL...
~ Not bad. But would his mixed ancestry count against him in Kenya?
~ He might as well be the president of Kenya since he does not work for we the people.
~ Wonder what his goals would be since Kenya already has a national health insurance.
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© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
