janbtucker.com Blog

When the Republican presidential nomination race was just getting underway for the 2008 primaries, Bill Clinton warned people not to count out Mike Huckabee. They’re both from Arkansas, had both been Governors of the state and if there’s one thing you can say about Bill Clinton, it’s that he’s extremely intelligent. That was also his opinion of Mike Huckabee. So assuming arguendo that Mike Huckabee got elected president of the United States, something I wouldn’t be exactly thrilled about, at least he always seemed to be just how Clinton described him, intelligent.

Until he made his mondo bizarro statements about President Barack Obama supposedly growing up in Kenya.

Huckabee said on national television, responding to a question about those who claim that Barack Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii, that “I would love to know more, but what I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example’s very different than the average American.” He went on to say that his view of the British would be skewed because of the way he would have learned of the Mau Mau rebellion from his father and grandfather.

I wouldn’t be so shocked if Huckleberry Finn said that, but Mike Huckabee? I also wouldn’t be so worried about the possibility of Huckabee’s election to the presidency if I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. Now he claims he misspoke.

One thing that the pundits haven’t gotten around to pointing out about the absurdity of what he was saying is that Obama’s father was of the Luo tribe. The Mau Mau rebellion was a creature of the largest Kenyan ethnic group, the Kikuyu. Anybody who knows anything about Kenya knows that. Furthermore, it’s not like every Kikuyu even liked what the Mau Mau were doing. Kenya’s first post-independence President, Kikuyu leader Jomo Kenyatta put it bluntly: ”We are determined to have independence in peace, and we shall not allow hooligans to rule Kenya. We must have no hatred towards one another. Mau Mau was a disease which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again” (—Speech by Jomo Kenyatta, April 1963).

The Kikuyu constitute about 22% of Kenya’s population. They were the most effected by land grabbing by the Europeans under British rule which was why they revolted. The Luo, the second largest group in Kenya are about 13% of the population. The vast majority of Luo are Christians. They were for the most part uninvolved in the Mau Mau revolt.

It really is scary when American politicians think that they can say any ridiculous thing that comes to mind, especially when the lightning speed of the internet can lead to misconceptions and national insults to other countries instantaneously. Right now in Africa, a lot of people are probably shaking their heads about the stupidity of Huckabee’s comment.