This
is the first of two articles on an interview with President Obama’s
half-brother Abongo “Roy” Malik Obama conducted via Skype with film
director Joel Gilbert. The first article focuses on Malik Obama’s
charge that Barack Obama exploited the family in Kenya for political
purposes and now has abandoned them. The second article examines the
family foundation Malik helped established in Barack Obama’s name and
allegations Malik managed funds for the Muslim Brotherhood.
“He says one thing and he does another,” said Malik Obama, speaking
from his home in Kisumu, Kenya, via Skype with filmmaker Joel Gilbert.
“He’s not been an honest man, as far as I’m concerned, in who he is and
what he says and how he treats people,” Malik said of his half-brother,
noting their relationship was once “very close.”
Gilbert, producer of the documentary “Dreams From My Real Father,”
which presents a theory that Obama’s mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who
was a member of the Communist Party, was the president’s biological
father, asked how that made him feel, as the oldest brother in the
family.
Malik
explained the original title of the book was “Where My Father Lies
Buried,” a title later changed to “Claims of Inheritance” before it was
published as “Dreams.”
Malik said Barack sent him a copy of the pre-publication manuscript
that included Barack’s handwritten edits, because “he felt like as a
representative of his dad, his only elder brother, I should go through
the book just to make sure that everything was OK.”
“It was a tedious process, and so I just did the best I could,” Malik
said.
Unwelcome
Malik said the problems with his relationship with his half-brother
began when Malik attended the first presidential inauguration, Jan. 20,
2009.
Gilbert asked him if he felt treated with honor.
“No,” Malik answered. “I didn’t feel like we were actually welcome and
treated well. I didn’t feel that we were really a part of his program.
Gilbert commented that the way the family was treated sounded “very
awkward.”
“Yeah, not even then, even up til now, it’s like that,” Malik answered.
“If I need to see him, then I have to really make an effort and when I
go, I do go, then I go in through the back door or at night. This last
visit when I went my aunt died in Boston, I really was crushed and
broken.”
In “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama explained that he first
learned his father in Kenya had died when he was attending Columbia
University in New York City and his Aunt Zeituni called him from Kenya
with the news.
Gilbert asked Malik if he had asked President Obama for some funds to
help bury Zeituni in Kenya.
“Yes I did,” Malik responded. “I told him that she’s our aunt, she’s
your father’s sister, she loved you very much, and we need to do
something for her. We need around $20,000, and he said that was too
much and that it seemed like she deserves what she got.
DNA test?
In the Skype interview, Malik Obama acknowledged he had watched a DVD
copy of Gilbert’s documentary, “Dreams From My Real Father,” which the
filmmaker sent to him.
In the film, Gilbert posits his theory that the “Frank” mentioned 22
times in “Dreams from My Father,” now known to be Communist Party
agitator Frank Marshall Davis, is Barack Obama Jr.’s biological father.
Gilbert says the emphasis of his film is Davis’ influence on the young
Obama as a mentor, but he maintains there is strong evidence to support
his theory that Davis was the real father.
Gilbert’s circumstantial evidence for a Davis paternity – including
intimate
magazine photos
he believes Davis took of Ann Dunham and mention of Davis’ reference in
a novel to a sexual relationship with a teen – has been challenged, but
Gilbert contends the theory still is plausible.
He argues further that “the body of my entire film is about many pieces
of evidence.”
Regarding the nude photos, he disputes the contention that the model in
the photos was published before Ann Dunham came to Hawaii. Davis’
photos appeared in many titles of vintage men’s magazines throughout
the 1960s, he said, and publication dates listed in a 1998
retrospective collection are inconsistent with original magazine dates.
He argues further that Ann Dunham’s front teeth and recessed teeth are
a match to the magazine model.
Regarding the reference to an “Anne” in Davis’ novel, “Sex Rebel,”
hand-written letters have surfaced in which Davis confirms the book was
autobiographical “non-fiction.”
In the interview, Gilbert asked Malik if
he believed Barack Obama Jr. had a resemblance to Davis.
“There’s a great
resemblance,” Malik agreed. “I think Frank Marshall Davis and Barack do
look alike.”
Malik referenced the facial moles and pigmentation spots that appear to
indicate a genetic link between the two men.
Gilbert then asked Malik if he thought Obama Jr. resembled Obama Sr.
“Not really, I don’t,” Malik replied. “Your movie definitely puts a lot
of questions in my mind.”
Gilbert asked Malik if he would “like to see or do a DNA test one day
to know for sure.”
“That would really prove whether we are related or not,” Malik
responded. “Yes. I would be willing to do that. I don’t know how I’d
deal with it, if it really came out that he is a fraud or a con.”
“It might be the reason why he made such a big deal about you
politically, but personally he doesn’t feel the bond,” Gilbert
suggested.
“I’m agreeing,” Malik said. “Yeah, I agree with that, because it’s hard
to understand how somebody can make such an about turn and make a big
play about where he comes from and then once he gets what he gets,
wants nothing to do with that place anymore.
“We need an explanation, and if you can provide the explanation, it
would be better for all of us so we won’t be hanging, hoping for
nothing,” Malik continued.
“That’s what I really feel for my people … because they keep hoping.
Maybe they’re hoping for nothing,” he said. “Because he doesn’t mention
it [his African family roots] anymore, where he comes from or who his
relatives are. He doesn’t say any of those things anymore.
“It’s really disappointing, Joel, but that’s life. We live with it and
move on, and we wait for the truth to come out.”
Gilbert asked Malik what he would like to see happen next in his
relationship with President Obama.
“I’d like to see him be for real, not be so deceptive,” Malik answered.
“He should live up to his word and be the leader that we expected him
to be,” he said. “If he truly is my father’s son, then he needs to
behave in a way that if my father was back, was alive, he would be
proud of him, because although my dad went through what he went
through, he would never abandon his family.”
[Full]
