Obama Visit
Mar 17th, 2010, in News, by Patung
Howling opposition and worshipful support of the visit of president Obama to Indonesia.
President Barack Obama is expected to make a belated arrival in Indonesia on 23rd March, without his family and after several postponements, first visiting his old hometown of Jakarta for two days, where from aged 7 to 11 he was known locally as “Barry” Soetoro, later moving on to Bali.
The fringe but very well motivated and organised pan-Islamic socialist group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) has been noisiest in its opposition to the upcoming visit, staging many protests around the country.
Khoiri Sulaiman of the East Java HTI said Obama’s visit would only serve to deepen the subjugation of Indonesia to American economic and political interests, while other HTI spokesmen declared welcoming the American president to be religiously forbidden, or haram. rakyatmerdeka kompas
However the mainstream face of overtly Islamic politics in Indonesia, the Justice Party/Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS), is supportive of the visit, with party chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaq, once scurrilously rumoured to have been an Afghan war veteran inilah, saying tvone
As a guest of the nation we say “Welcome”. We support better understanding between our two countries, for a better Indonesia.
In a similar way the representative of mild-mannered conservative traditionalist Islam, Nahdlatul Ulama’s (NU) leader Hasyim Muzadi, emphasised the religious onus on Indonesian Muslims to be good hosts to guests, kafirs or not, especially considering that Obama had made efforts, however imperfect, to improve US relations with the Muslim world. antara
Meanwhile, at an extreme to the HTI’s loathing and an example of the semi-worshipful attitude to the US president among some in Indonesia, is one of Indonesia’s oldest, most pre-eminent bloggers, Enda Nasution, who penned an article where Obama is given as writing in the first person about his feelings returning to the place he called home for four years as a child. The piece ends, bizarrely or not: enda.goblogmedia.com
Tapi mudah-mudahan juga. Akan ada kesempatan untuk saya…..mencium bau yang pernah saya hirup dulu. Untuk makan, makanan yang pernah saya rasakan dulu.
Karena kali ini saya tidak hanya datang.
Kali ini juga. Saya.
Pulang.
(But hopefully I’ll have the opportunity as well to smell the smells I knew before. To eat the food I tasted before. Because this time I’m not just visiting. This time. I. Come home.)
Still on the burning issue of what local dish Obama will first sit down to, the US Embassy, – not losing any opportunity to use the visit to promote itself and the image of the US in Indonesia, – has among other efforts created an application on FaceBook to enable popular voting on the food issue, and also what colour or style of batik the president will wear while in the country. facebook
Rambutan, Rendang, Bakso, Durian, Nasi Goreng
51 Comments on “Obama Visit”
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Oigal says:
You are not really on this bc nonsense are you Ross?
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ET says:
while other HTI spokesmen declared welcoming the American president to be religiously forbidden, or haram.
All in the name of ‘the religion of peace’. Salam alaikum.
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enda says:
Any day I see my name pinned as the opposite extreme of HTI is a good day hehehe
Thanks for the mentioned.
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Ross says:
Oigal, the establishment media went after McCain with guns blazing to make sure his actual qualifications for candidature – he was born in the Canal Zone, I believe – but deride any serious investigation into Barack Husein’s scene of nativity ( I use that phrase with reference to how U.S. school-kids are now being forced into singing hymns in the Godhead’s praise)
And Obama’s lawyers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to quell demands for him to produce the genuine, long-form, birth certificate.That alone should make us suspicious, never mind all the other cover-ups on his back-ground.
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HTIbaby says:
What is the Obama app called? Anyone got a link to it? I want to check it out.
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Borneo says:
Ross, are you still hoping for McCain to be the President of the United States? Even though this Barry has won the election over ONE year ago? Are living in the past? GOP has nothing to show except for financial mess, two wars, US bad reputation around the world, and tea party. GOP has lost its value or relevance. GOP party is a close minded, conservative bull**** Are you still not getting it? GOP lost, get over it.
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Not a very cogent argument, Borneo. And ‘conservative bullshit’ is oxymoronic!
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Hi Enda, glad you weren’t offended.
What is the Obama app called? Anyone got a link to it? I want to check it out.
In the footnotes, http://apps.facebook.com/obamaabroad/indonesia/
Obama wayang:
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Birthers are insane conspiracy theorists. They’re cut out of the same cloth as the people who don’t believe we landed on the moon.
Folks, his mother was a U.S. citizen born in Kansas. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF HE WAS BORN ON THE MOON!!! The child of a U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen regardless of where he or she was born. If he had been born in Mexico, he would not be Mexican, he would be American. If he were born in Kenya, he would not be Kenyan, he would be American. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone (not the Philippines) which would have made him just as “ineligible” as Obama. As the child of an American citizen it is wholly irrelevant where that child is born.
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That alone should make us suspicious, never mind all the other cover-ups on his back-ground.
Oh Ross..Ross..Ross..Time for a good lay down and watch a bit of Glen Beck..
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There are none so blind as those that will not see…
Oigal, you are a lost cause, unwilling to look behind the establishment media’s spinnage. Try The Obama Nation, by Jeremy Corsi.
Borneo, your ranting tone suggests you would be happy if any far-left wing-nut of Obama’s sort were in the White House, eligible or not.
I was, admittedly, incorrect in the amount spent resisting probes on his b/cert. Not hundreds of thousands, but over a million. But look at all his lies, his attempts to weasel out of his close alliance with the terrorist Ayers, and you get a disturbing picture of somebody for whom that prescient novel The Manchurian Candidate could have been written.
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Oigal, you are a lost cause, unwilling to look behind the establishment media’s spinnage.
Laugh, me a lost cause?
You are whining about an election won and lost over a year ago, where the voters choice was elected (unlike the previous bankrupted and ex-drunk choice), in a country not your own. As for the media, I must admit you have point, the absolute bias of the Fox network is unbelievable.
I do agree he’s a bit of a fraud tho, since he has turned out to be more Bush lite and Democrat.
As for the Ayers thing, I think BO had a point when he said
he was being unjustly linked to “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old.
It’s long bow to suggest that Obama is an Ayers supporter, perhaps a small time Chicargo political animal who adopted the view I don’t care who you are as long as I can use you but thats a long way from the Manchurcian Candidate.
Ok I am repeating myself…are you serious about the media and this birthing nonsense?
You would better off looking at the Bush, Halliburton, Saudi links for a real conspiracy. -
Aduh, you’re a tad testy today, Oigal!
Not whining, merely concerned with realities. Since this whole thread is about Obama, who is indeed running a country not my own (or yours?) then who are we meant to talk about? Osama?
B Husein O has tried very hard to skate over his extremely close association in very recent years with Ayers, whose crimes were a long time ago but who remains unrepentant. Obama was not unjustly but very clearly linked to Ayers, not 40 years ago, but during Husein’s launching onto the Illinois political stage, and since.
Would you say it was whining if somebody objected to Angela Merkel embracing an unrepentant concentration camp killer? There is no differemce at all.Fox, yes, about the only example of big media that ISN’T biased in the extreme towards the left. No wonder you have such stilted views if you think there is a fair balance in what the ‘main-stream’ media report. Read their more candid stuff and they are quite open in their confession of slanted journalism. They still perpetuate old lies and old smears. if you relied on the msm you’d still think the National Guard were at fault in the Kent State shootings.
The Bush election results? How often have Democrats stolen elections…go back to Cook County when JFK got in.
Why has Obama’s Justice Department let thugs off the hook who were openly intimidating voters with night-sticks?Exactly who did win the elections in 2000 and 2004? Do the arithmetic.
Good God Almighty, would you rather have had that climate liar Gore in the White House, or Kerry, who warned off the investigators who wanted to tell the truth about MIAs in Nam?
If Bush hadn’t got in, Iraq would not just have held a free election. The Taliban would still be denying girls any education in Afghanistan.For a liberal, you are pretty soft on tyrants and primitve Islamism.
Today, at least…maybe you’ll feel better tomorrow. -
BrotherMouzone says:
@Ross
Exactly who did win the elections in 2000 and 2004? Do the arithmetic.
Good God Almighty, would you rather have had that climate liar Gore in the White House, or Kerry, who warned off the investigators who wanted to tell the truth about MIAs in Nam?I’d rather have had Kermit the Frog in the White House than the Toxic Tool. Just imagine how different those eight years would have been… full of song and dance numbers rather than two unwinnable wars and a country on the verge of bankruptcy.
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So now you have the ‘toxic tool?’ Are you happy?
Never has a more evil, deceitful pliant enemy of all that made America good been in possession of so much power! -
Trip postponed until June, what a tease.
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Kermit the Frog might have been fun. At least Miss Piggy was always proud of her country.
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Much as I think Ross has plunged off the conspiracy ledge the above statement is just nonsense.
Just imagine how different those eight years would have been… full of song and dance numbers rather than two unwinnable wars and a country on the verge of bankruptcy
How many songs and dances do you think the Iraq Kurds would be performing or the poor village girls in Afganistan? Unless you are talking the squirming after a chemical bombing of Kurdish villages or the writhing after another town square beheading.
The GFC had Sweet FA to do with the government unless you want to blame a lack of regulation which was a systematic issue rather than blue or red one.
It is debatable if the US and other should have gone into those wars but to pretend everyone was picking roses and skipping off to school is absurd fantasy. If anything, those wars are a direct and damning condemnation of the Islamic Middle East and the complete of the hypocrisy of their “brotherly” statements.
One can just hope that the US doesn’t decide to balance the budget by withdrawing from the world because it will be sad and long wait if we have to rely upon the brothers and chinese to act in anything resembling a civilised and helpful fashion.
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Odinius says:
Nicely written blog article there!
Not sure PKS is “the mainstream face of overtly Islamic politics in Indonesia,” though. That would be Muhammadiyah.
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Borneo said:
Birthers are insane conspiracy theorists. They’re cut out of the same cloth as the people who don’t believe we landed on the moon.
Yup. Never mind that the state of Hawaii–a US state, though that fact may be elusive to our dear birthers, perhaps because many of them still fly that other flag with the orange and the diagonal crosses–has officially certified that he was born there!
But who needs facts when you can just be batsh*t crazy instead?
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Pity they still hide his formal, long-form, birth certificate, then, is it not?
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Unfortunately, Ross, that’s just another shade of untrue. Sorry to see you’ve been duped by this crap.
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I think the key part of your report is that ‘state laws bar the release of any (original) birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest in it.’
Obama certainly does, which makes it all the stranger that he has not asked for it and published it which would have quashed the whole controversy overnight. Instead about a million bucks has been spent fighting those who challenge his status.
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Let’s see Ross, they have displayed copies on TV, they have made available original certification from the State of Hawaii….And they have even produced the extract from two papers in Hawaii with his birth notification in 1961, which are public record for even you to access…
which makes it all the stranger that he has not asked for it and published it which would have quashed the whole controversy overnight.
Actually it has been quashed and there is no controversy except under the tin foil hats
Now it is possible that the evil doers have been plotting this since 1961 but if that’s the case then Fox Mulder would have exposed them by now. BESIDES if you are going to put a plant in the whitehouse, lets get a crazy sanke handling WASP, easier to find…OOPS already did that.
Seriously Ross I can understand you not liking his politics and I find yours repugnant to say the least, but until now I have never had you out there with snake handlers and tinfoil hat wearers.
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Oigal,
Maybe what this comes down to is your discomfort with a BLACK man in the WHITE house ??
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Original ‘certification’ is what you get in a truncated form, not the real original, which Obama has spent a fortune to resist producing. That’s what makes me suspicious.
Anybody can put a little announcement in the papers, esp. if they want to have the much-prized status of citizen for their youngster.
Given all the other things he has been at pains to deny or hide, why are you so keen to swallow his story on this issue? -
Oigal said:
Much as I think Ross has plunged off the conspiracy ledge the above statement is just nonsense.
I think he’s being facetious, but it does bring up the legitimate point of what would have been different had Gore won in 2000.
I simply don’t see any scenario in which the US and allies DON’T invade Afghanistan. However, I do see the aftermath of the invasion–given low priority by the Bush admin, which allowed the Taliban to come back and the war to erupt again–as having been quite different.
I don’t see the US invading Iraq, had Bush not won. No connection to 9/11 and very little impetus for military action outside of neo-conservative circles.
I don’t see the US cutting taxes for the wealthy on the assumption that its surplus will last, only to see that surplus evaporate and the tax cuts remain, running up huge deficits–paid for by loans from the Chinese and Japanese central banks.
I do see the current recession happening, but probably less severe because the government would have much better finances.
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Chris says:
As well as visiting his old primary school in Menteng (Jakarta), perhaps he could also meet his long lost twin brother, the deputy governor of Maluku Karel Ralahalu:
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Assmad you really are a Dikki
Eeer…If you are going to troll at least start with a gem of fact, it helps. In this instance I am supporting OB or at least his right to be President. On the other hand I am annoyed that the ever charming Ms CR didn’t get a nomination.
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Maybe he can find his birth certificate while he’s over here!