Nice article from a former Harvard classmate of Obama - it appeared in an Irish paper today.
Memories of an outstanding and talented classmate - his name? Barack Obama
CHRISTINE BELL
I shared law lectures at Harvard with a certain presidential candidate, one of the cleverest and most charismatic men I have ever met, writes Christine Bell
SITTING IN my constitutional law class in 1989, little did I think that the young man to my right would likely become America's first African-American president. From 1989 to 1990, I studied in Harvard Law School. One of my main classes each day was US constitutional law, with Prof Lawrence Tribe, one of America's most pre-eminent constitutional lawyers. The young man to my right was Barack Obama.
I got some sense of who Obama was. The classes were taught in America's infamous "Socratic style" - through questions and answers between the lecturer and the students. Harvard lived up to the TV image of lively classroom debate that this method generates.
Obama was a talented student, answering often, and challenging and debating with the professor.
Sometimes class would become a two-person debate between the professor and Obama.
At that time in his early 30s, Obama already had the compelling quality for which he is now so famous. He was the singularly most beautiful man I had ever seen: his looks, his body language and his way of talking were all mesmerising.
When he talked, everyone listened. He exuded a quiet confidence and charisma, rather than the arrogant "cleverness" of TV law student programmes. Obama's undeniable charm has been challenged as "celebrity", but what was so compelling was his infectious and intelligent engagement with the issues being discussed.
Obama, then in second year, already had some fame in Harvard Law School mainly because he had just become the first black president of Harvard Law Review , arguably the most prestigious US journal.
Traditionally, the president is one of the highest-scoring students in the School of Law and is often viewed as "the cleverest student". Yet Obama's style in class was one of clarity, calmness, poise and open-mindedness - not too often noted student qualities.
I barely remember anyone else in the class, but Obama was unforgettable.
If someone had been able to tell me then that he was to become the first African-American US president, I would have believed - and perhaps taken out citizenship to vote.
The year 1989 to 1990 seemed a remarkable one. I had gone to Harvard funded by the same Harkness Scholarship that had first taken Alistair Cooke to the US. I was to study the civil rights movement, American constitutional law and theories of justice.
But the year became more significant for the events that unfolded around me, both in Harvard Law School and globally. In the spring term, Harvard Law School erupted in protests for greater diversity of the law faculty staff - most were white men - in an ongoing equality battle.
Staff and students together attended rallies and protests demanding more minority and women tenured faculty, and African professor Derek Bell, who supervised my dissertation, left Harvard at the end of the year in protest at the lack of change.
Globally, the world radically changed: Mandela was released, the Berlin wall came down, and the Cold War ended. But the American economy and big financial institutions had also collapsed (deregulation being accused), and would-be lawyers wondered about their future jobs and how they would pay off huge student loans.
I don't know how Obama was influenced by these events except that it was impossible to avoid the on-campus debate they generated. I imagine that the debates of that year linger with him.
They certainly influenced me to the extent that I still work on equality, conflict resolution and human rights. Interestingly, another colleague that year, studying in another school, was Ed Balls, British education minister and Gordon Brown's right-hand man when treasurer.
So while the whole world has watched this presidential campaign as never before, I have had my own particular interest.
As I followed Obama's pursuit of his dream, I hoped for him to stay true to the person he seemed to be then, with his commitment to fairness, open-mindedness and intelligent discussion.
I worried that there was little space for a candidate who based their campaign on these attributes, particularly when that candidate did not fit the normal profile. I worried that the Obama I felt I knew a little would disappear as he was pushed into a narrow mould not meant for him.
But instead, I watched him reclaim progressive liberalism, innovate in how his campaign was funded and struggle to conduct a campaign without negative campaigning.
Even more refreshingly, I watched him persuade people and counter challenges of inexperience with the same commitment to take the complexity of contemporary problems seriously as I had seen in class.
For what it is worth, the Obama I see on television is the same Obama I saw at law school. The values he says he holds, and the space of moderation and thoughtfulness that he occupies politically, I recognise from those days.
His commitment to reflection, humanity, progressive change and the United States are commitments I would have said he had then.
If Americans are searching for someone who is genuine, then Obama holds true to himself and, in my view, would strive to stay true to the American vision of change that he offers.
As I watch him navigating through the narrow political space of a US presidential election campaign, I can't help thinking that that is pretty much as good as it gets.
Go Barack, go America.
• Christine Bell is professor of international law and co-director of the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1028/1225061111573.html
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