U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama was given a hero’s welcome as he returned to the Indonesian village where he spent part of his childhood.
Mr. Obama, who arrived in Jakarta today, spoke in Indonesian to thousands of students at the University of Indonesia. He prompted laughter when he said: “Pulang kampung, nih,” meaning “I’ve come home to the village.”
Obama vowed — as he did when he was elected president in 2008 — to try and repair relations between the West and the Muslim world in a bid to end the “years of mistrust.”
He also said the country with the largest Muslim population in the world “was a shining example to others.”
His speech was an update to a major address he gave 17 months ago in Egypt where he declared a ‘new beginning’ in U.S.-Muslim relations after the tensions over the September 11, 2001, attacks and the former President George W Bush’s response to them. [link]
But since his Cairo speech, tensions have remained on both sides.
Despite having to cut short his visit due to fears of ash from a volcano eruption, Obama and his wife Michelle, who wore the traditional head scarf, visited the Jakarta’s national Istiqlal Mosque. They took off their shoes as a sign of respect as they strode along a carpet laid out for them across the brick courtyard.
Obama, who was known as “Barry” when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta, studied both Islam and Christianity according to his grade 3 teacher.
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His teacher, Effendi, remembers Obama as a “fat, curly-haired, curious boy”.
Mr Obama attended classes on Islam while the Christians attended classes on Christianity, said Effendi. Barry, he said, was alone among the pupils in that he insisted on attending both. [link]
Effendi said Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, often objected to the school teaching young Barry the Koran.
“His mother did not like him learning Islam, although his father was a Muslim. Sometimes she came to the school; she was angry with the religious teacher and said ‘Why did you teach him the Koran?'” said Effendi.
“But he kept going to the classes because he was interested in Islam. He would also join the other pupils for Muslim prayers.”
Barry attended the Menteng One school from ages 6 to 10. Even as a youngster, he knew where his journey through life would lead him.
A childhood friend told the New York Times that Barry once asked a group of boys if they would rather be a president, a solider or a businessman when they grow up.
He said that, although a president would have nothing, the solider could have weapons and the businessman could have money.
None of the other boys said they wanted to one day be president.
‘Then Barry said he would become president and order the solider to guard him and the businessman to use his money to build him something.
We told him: ‘You cheated. You didn’t give us those details.’
‘But we all became what we said we would,’ he added. [link]
