No dictator in living memory has been a great orator. Dictators cannot be bothered to be of any kind of service to their subjects or mankind in general. Indeed, they hold the populations that they oppress and misrule in total contempt. Distinctive, well-prepared, inspirational, motivational and memorable speech-writing and delivery involve a process of very hard work and commitment.And this holds true whether the orator involved is a preacher giving a sermon or a president marshalling citizens to a national cause.Dictators deliberately deliver speeches that are meant to frighten, scare or even bore people to tears. The idea is reduce their audiences to inaction through lifeless, monotonous and dull soliloquies.
The 1976 Nobel Literature Laureate, Saul Bellow, hit the nail on the head in his novel Humboldt’s Gift when he observed: “Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the authority to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death”. Great speech writing and delivery are key ingredients of good leadership. And in every great leader, there is a great speaker and a great speechwriter. Leaders should frequently deliver inspirational speeches and not boring prepared statements that make their deliverers drone, bray and send audiences to sleep.“Commanding stasis” is a shameful and inept thing for leaders to do to their audiences, even for half-an-hour. It is a terrible waste of time for everybody involved, from a small roomful of people to stadia teeming with crowds.
The most likeable, admirable and awesome thing about American President Barack Obama is not the colour of his skin, or that he is the first man with that pigmentation to be the tenant of the White House. No, the amount of melanin in his skin has nothing to do with it. Obama’s truly inspirational and even motivational speech-making is the secret of his success and gravitational pull both in America and in the wider world.Obama moves people far beyond America with his speeches.
And it is clear that his speeches are well researched, prepared, rehearsed and delivered in a process that involves the most rigorous hard work and commitment. You remember what Obama has said long after he said it. He delivers with conviction, always ending the speeches with a crescendo ‘God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.’ Obama creates a connection with his audience right from the word Go. From his ‘hello everybody’ to the occasional wide smile, to the great quotes and mentioning of names of individuals present, he comes out as a man who is in touch with his audiences.Obama never takes his listeners for granted. Neither do all great leaders. They take the greatest care to make a good, attractive and lasting impression because they believe in what they say, mean what they say and say what they mean. What’s more, they deliver speeches not only for their live audiences but with an eye on posterity and the global audience. Obama comes in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Bacon, Edmund Burke and Caius Julius Caesar.Even if we restrict the list only to African-Americans, Obama still keeps the greatest and most admirable company among orators.He comes in the great tradition of the Rev Henry Highland Garnet, whose heyday was in the 1840s and who is described to this day as having had a “golden throat”. The golden-throated Garnet is most famous for his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” delivered at the National Convention of Coloured Citizens in 1843: “Awake! Awake; millions of voices are calling you! Your dead fathers speak to you from their graves. Heaven, as with a voice of thunder, calls on you to arise from the dust”. Africa too has had its share of world-class speech-makers who moved millions, among them the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah, who were great writers, polemicists and orators even before they entered high office. But this critical genre of leadership is slowly fading away at a time when it is needed most.Remember Obama arrived on the scene in America at the end of the lacklustre George W. Bush decade, with the War on Terror and two hot wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan and amidst the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But he appeared as a beacon light of hope. ‘Yes we Can’ was the clarion call of his political campaigns that revived the hopes of Americans to rediscover the greatness of their nation.
The 1976 Nobel Literature Laureate, Saul Bellow, hit the nail on the head in his novel Humboldt’s Gift when he observed: “Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the authority to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death”. Great speech writing and delivery are key ingredients of good leadership. And in every great leader, there is a great speaker and a great speechwriter. Leaders should frequently deliver inspirational speeches and not boring prepared statements that make their deliverers drone, bray and send audiences to sleep.“Commanding stasis” is a shameful and inept thing for leaders to do to their audiences, even for half-an-hour. It is a terrible waste of time for everybody involved, from a small roomful of people to stadia teeming with crowds.
The most likeable, admirable and awesome thing about American President Barack Obama is not the colour of his skin, or that he is the first man with that pigmentation to be the tenant of the White House. No, the amount of melanin in his skin has nothing to do with it. Obama’s truly inspirational and even motivational speech-making is the secret of his success and gravitational pull both in America and in the wider world.Obama moves people far beyond America with his speeches.
And it is clear that his speeches are well researched, prepared, rehearsed and delivered in a process that involves the most rigorous hard work and commitment. You remember what Obama has said long after he said it. He delivers with conviction, always ending the speeches with a crescendo ‘God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.’ Obama creates a connection with his audience right from the word Go. From his ‘hello everybody’ to the occasional wide smile, to the great quotes and mentioning of names of individuals present, he comes out as a man who is in touch with his audiences.Obama never takes his listeners for granted. Neither do all great leaders. They take the greatest care to make a good, attractive and lasting impression because they believe in what they say, mean what they say and say what they mean. What’s more, they deliver speeches not only for their live audiences but with an eye on posterity and the global audience. Obama comes in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Bacon, Edmund Burke and Caius Julius Caesar.Even if we restrict the list only to African-Americans, Obama still keeps the greatest and most admirable company among orators.He comes in the great tradition of the Rev Henry Highland Garnet, whose heyday was in the 1840s and who is described to this day as having had a “golden throat”. The golden-throated Garnet is most famous for his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” delivered at the National Convention of Coloured Citizens in 1843: “Awake! Awake; millions of voices are calling you! Your dead fathers speak to you from their graves. Heaven, as with a voice of thunder, calls on you to arise from the dust”. Africa too has had its share of world-class speech-makers who moved millions, among them the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah, who were great writers, polemicists and orators even before they entered high office. But this critical genre of leadership is slowly fading away at a time when it is needed most.Remember Obama arrived on the scene in America at the end of the lacklustre George W. Bush decade, with the War on Terror and two hot wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan and amidst the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But he appeared as a beacon light of hope. ‘Yes we Can’ was the clarion call of his political campaigns that revived the hopes of Americans to rediscover the greatness of their nation.
And on the election night after the results were declared Obama sent Americans wild with more inspiration, hope and belief in a new dawn; “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is the place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founding fathers is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
Moving forward, Kenyans will need re-energising by inspirational leaders who will give a message of hope and renewal. Our new constitutional dawn and infrastructural rebirth are both threatened by the phenomenon of a shilling in free fall, looming recession and runaway price hikes inimical to decent living.
No comments:
Post a Comment