Obama On Indonesian Television - Part 1

This is the beginning of a two part series here at "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" entitled "Obama on Indonesian Television". The videos below are from DetikTV in Jakarta who ran a small series in February 2008 entitled tracking Barack Obama in Indonesia. The information you will find in the videos below confirms and substantiates much of what we originally translated and reported in our series of posts on "Obama in Indonesia" back in January of 2007.

The picture above is seen in the following video, showing a young Barry Soetoro (Barack Hussein Obama) posing with his mother, Ann, half sister, Maya, and maternal grandfather Stanley Dunham in Hawaii in the early 1970s after the family returned from Indonesia. Ann Dunham would return to Indonesia and shortly after this picture was taken, Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo would later divorce Ann and then remarry, fathering another two children.

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*Video* Tracking Barack Obama: From Menteng to Dempo



In the next video below, a photo is shown of a young Barack Obama and his father Hussein Obama, a Muslim from Kenya and then his mother and stepfather Lolo Soetoro.

Referring to a young Barack Obama, the reporter states in Indonesian "juga hidup tengah-tengah orang muslim" (he lived his life in the middle of Muslims) - an interesting choice of words to use which can have an ambiguous meaning depending on how exactly it is translated. Highlighting the United States presidential campaign, the reporter states that Obama's enemies have been making a political issue out of Obama's "life among the Muslims". The reporter then states, "Barry yang punya wajah lucu sering dimainkan teman-teman pernah dipakaikan sarong meski tak pernah ikut solat" (Barry had a funny face and his friends made fun of him by putting a sarong on him even though he didn't pray). The emphasis here is that even though Barry was a Muslim and was in the mosque and was wearing Islamic clothes, that he was only "playing" and not really "praying". I suppose you can interpret that any way you wish.

In the second part of the video, Zulfan Adi, a former neighborhood playmate of Obama's who has been cited in numerous news reports claiming that Obama regularly attended Friday prayers with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro points out the "Musholla Al-Rahman" (Al-Rahman Prayer Room) to the reporter where he then goes out of his way to explain that Obama wasn't "praying" in the prayer room, he only "playing". That Zulfan Adi found it necessary to use and emphasize the English word "praying" in the Indonesian language report leads us to the self-evident conclusion that this part of the report if not all of it was simply staged for foreign consumption.

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*Video* The Prayer Room Where Obama Played


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Related Posts

Tracking Down Obama in Indonesia

Tracking Down Obama in Indonesia - Part 2

Tracking Down Obama in Indonesia - Part 3