Obama ready to pass on knowledge to future leaders
CHICAGO: Former US president Barack Obama has returned to the public spotlight, saying he hopes to spend the next phase of his life helping to “prepare the next generation of leadership”.
After three months off, Obama -looking rested and sporting a coat with no tie – broke his silence yesterday in his adopted hometown of Chicago, speaking to a packed auditorium of over 400 high school and college students at the University of Chicago.
Greeted with a standing ovation, he was later joined on stage by six students and recent college graduates for a discussion about the need for greater civic engagement among young people.
The 55-year-old Democrat, who ended his two terms at the White House in January – handing power over to Donald Trump – said he was “incredibly optimistic” about the future.
“I’m spending a lot of time thinking: what is the most important thing I can do for my next job?” Obama said in his opening remarks at the university, where he once taught law.
“The single most important thing I can do is to help in any way I can to prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and take their own crack at changing the world.”
Obama took a few questions from the participants on stage, but main- ly listened – and did not offer any substantive commentary on how Trump is doing, in keeping with presidential protocol, which dictates that past residents of the White House do not step on the toes of the current occupant.
Until Monday, he had not given a public speech or an interview since leaving the White House on Jan 20.
He has tweeted a few times and issued a few statements through a spokesman, notably to defend his signature domestic policy achievement, healthcare reform – which Trump’s Republicans are now hoping to dismantle.
“I was glad that (Trump) didn’t come up,” said Raquel Navarro, 22, who was in the audience. “I was hoping to not talk about any of the ridiculousness that students feel is always taking over our news.”
Obama’s silence comes even as Trump lobbed accusations on everything from Syria – with the Republican all but accusing Obama of bearing responsibility for chemi- cal weapons attacks by the Damascus regime – to gang violence in America.
Youth civic engagement and community organising are at the heart of the mission of the Obama Centre, which is to be located on Chicago’s South Side, where Obama started his career as a community activist.
On Monday, he suggested that youth from various walks of life should learn about each other. Just the day before, the United States’ first black president privately met with at-risk youth in the Windy City.
“That creation of empathy then promises a different kind of civic response and political response,” Obama said.
He also injected humour into the discussion, as when he addressed the challenges of a younger generation whose everyday exploits are chronicled on social media.
“If you had pictures of everything I’d done when I was in high school, I probably wouldn’t have been president of the United States,” he joked.