Obama hopes fame, family combine to produce results

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.-- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama hopes the combination of his fame and his family will make his tour of Africa more than just another visit by an American politician.

With his face on magazine covers and people speculating about a run for higher office in 2008, Obama gets more media attention than almost any other politician. He jokes that he can't match Angelina Jolie, but he can still bring that spotlight to Africa for a little while and maybe catch the eye of Americans who would otherwise ignore the continent.

At the same time, Obama hopes Africans will pay more attention to his message because his late father was Kenyan--a goatherd who managed to study in America and return to his home country as an economist.

Obama says he wants to stress that Africans ultimately must be responsible for helping themselves, from insisting on honest government to elevating the role of women to setting aside tribal conflicts.

"Maybe they'll be willing to listen just a little bit more to some of my comments because of that connection," he said.

The Illinois Democrat was leaving Friday for a 15-day trip that will take him from South Africa to Kenya to Chad, with a few other stops along the way.

Robert Bates of Harvard University said Obama's trip could be significant.

"I think there are bridges to be built there, and he's the right man to do it," said Bates, a professor of government science and part of the university's Committee on African Studies. "It's a good productive place to be if your instincts are attuned to the possibilities of the future as opposed to what's been happening in the past, and I think Obama has that capacity."

Bates said Africa is likely to be important to the world economic picture in decades to come. New oil deposits are being found there, it has tremendous natural resources and some of its countries have the technology and human resources to enter the world market.

China, and India to a lesser degree, are investing in Africa and gaining more influence there, he said. Al-Qaida and other extremists have also taken root in some spots.

"It's a very active place right now. There are reasons for us to be there and paying attention to what's going on there," Bates said.

Obama, the only black member of the Senate, plans to visit the island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades by a racist South African government. He will talk to AIDS victims and refugees driven from their homes by civil war. He will visit the site where the U.S. embassy was bombed in Nairobi, killing 248 people.

The trip also includes more personal stops.

Obama will visit Kogelo, the Kenyan village where his father grew up. His grandmother told Nairobi's The Nation newspaper that she is eager to see Obama but will be treating him more like a relative than a visiting dignitary.

"I don't see why the heavens should come down just because Barack is coming to Kenya and Kogelo," Mama Sarah Obama said. "Our culture demands that when a grandson goes visiting his granny, he should eat a lot of eggs and that is what we will prepare for him."

The senator also plans to visit a group of Kenyan women age 50 and older who have adopted children suffering from AIDS and are making a success of it with the help of a "microcredit" program supported by his personal funds from a children's book deal. It lets the women obtain small loans so they can buy such items as sewing machines or bicycles to start small businesses.

"The key for me on this trip is to try to make sure the focus is on the people we meet, the stories we hear, the policies that are being put forward and not just that this is an episode of 'Biography,"' Obama said.

Obama said he wants to talk about solutions instead of simply fretting about problems. He wants to know which AIDS programs work and which don't and to hear where American money is being spent well.

"A lot of times, our aid policy and our foreign policy has been driven by charity as opposed to a sense of full partnership. We've been willing to send food when people are starving, but we haven't necessarily been willing to engage in trade that would give people more economic opportunity," he said.

But he also wants the trip to be about more than where to send money and how America can help.

Obama said African nations must rise above their tribal division, must elevate the role of women and improve their education. They must also fight corruption and increase service to their citizens.

He promised to talk about America's "rule of law and transparency and checks and balances that I think are important to development and are missing, or at least underdeveloped, in parts of Africa."

This is Obama's third trip to Africa.

He went first after college, visiting his father's grave and hoping to connect with relatives he had never met. He returned, accompanied by his future wife, as a graduate of Harvard Law School about to start his career as a civil rights attorney.