Barry Soetoro
Nov 6th, 2008, in Opinion, by Guest WriterBarry Soetoro aka Barack Obama’s Indonesian connection.
Former Menteng student now US President
Obama Barack has been democratically elected President of the US.
Quite an about face for the best democracy money can buy, in view of the Bush presidential se-lection.
But of course, corruption, collusion and nepotism is the sole monopoly of the Third World – or so the deluded denizens of the West repeat to themselves as they hug their knees, rocking back and forth – reminding themselves of how they uphold human rights equally across the board, entirely devoid of double-standards and totally oblivious to race, creed or religion.
Barrak Hussein Obama II was born to a white American Ann Dunham and Kenyan Barrak Hussein Obama Snr, in Nyang’oma Kogelo now in Kenya.
Here the Indonesian link starts.
Ann Dunham married in 1967 Lolo Soetoro, a Javanese, whose own father, in 1946 was killed along with his eldest brother were killed, after which the Dutch army burned down the family’s home. Soetoro fled with his mother into the countryside to survive. Incidentally yet more proof of Dutch war crimes – delibrate destruction of civilian property outside the scope of battle.
Pak Lolo Soetoro was an army geologist then later a government relations consultant for Mobil Oil. Obama describes Soetoro as well-mannered, even-tempered, and easy with people.
Barry Soetoro in Indonesia with mother Ann Dunham, step-father Lolo Soetoro, baby-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.
From age 6 to 10, Obama lived in Jakarta. Age six, Obama attended the Catholic Primary St Francis di Assisi. Much was made of the lie he was educated in a Madrassa – or more accurately a pesantren – this of course was totally untrue. Obama Jnr later attended Model Primary School, Menteng and was registered as a Muslim – as his father was Muslim.
In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies. My mother wasn’t overly concerned. ‘Be respectful,’ she’d say. In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I would close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended. Just a parched old nun and 30 brown children, muttering words.
One of “Berry’s” childhood friends was Adi who often visited “Berry’s” 16 Jalan Haji Ramli house. Speaking volumes of Dutch “development” at the time the road was of this established middle-class neighbourhood was a dirt lane where Obama used to wile away the hours kicking a soccer ball.
Adi recalled Obama and his friends wore plastic bags over their shoes to walk through the muddy street during the rainy seasons.
Neighborhood Muslims worshiped in a nearby house, which has since been replaced by a larger mosque. Sometimes, when the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, Lolo and Barry would walk to the makeshift mosque together, Adi said.
His mother often went to the church, but Barry was Muslim. He went to the mosque,” Adi said. “I remember him wearing a sarong.”
Obama spent most his spare time hanging out with Adi and other friends at the home of Yunaldi Askiar, a classmate. They used to play a kind of fencing game using sticks, kick a ball up and down the narrow dirt lanes or go swimming in the river behind the school, said Askiar, 42, a car mechanic.
Obama was taller and better dressed than most kids in classes where shoes and socks were still luxuries, so he stood out from the start. As an African American, and the only foreigner, he suffered racial taunts and teasing but never turned to violence.
“At first, everybody felt it was weird to have him here,” Israella Dharmawan, his first grade teacher said. “But also they were curious about him, so wherever he went, the kids were following him.”
His friends enjoyed playing tricks on Berry: Harmon ASki recalled,
“Sometimes we’d say, ‘Barry, do you want a chocolate?’ And we’d give him a chocolate. The next day we’d give him a chocolate again. The third time we’d give him terasi (fermented shrimp paste) wrapped up like chocolate. Obama didn’t get mad. He would laugh it off.”
Ann Soetoro moved to Yogyakarta, while Obama Jnr studied in Jakarta. She was inspired by Jogja village industries, which became the basis of her 1992 doctoral dissertation.
“She loved living in Java,” said Dr. Dewey, who recalled accompanying Ms. Soetoro to a metalworking village. “People said: ‘Hi! How are you?’ She said: ‘How’s your wife? Did your daughter have the baby?’ They were friends. Then she’d whip out her notebook and she’d say: ‘How many of you have electricity? Are you having trouble getting iron?’ ”
Dunham-Soetoro became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan, then joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor.
Obama in Hawaii with Maya and Ann and maternal grand-father, shortly after leaving Indonesia.
In his tellingly-titled Memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes his Indonesian interlude as “one long adventure, the bounty of a young boy’s life”. But he also recalls being troubled by the poverty around him: “the empty look on the faces of farmers the year the rains never came,” and the desperation of the disabled beggars who came to the family’s door.
“The world was violent, I was learning, unpredictable and often cruel,” he writes. Obama and his mother thus we were very well acquainted with the harsh realities of indigenous Indonesians.
Fermina Katarina Sinaga, recalled yojhng Obama in her class: in the common task of class to write an essay titled “My dream: What I want to be in the future.” Obama “wrote ‘I want to be a president,’ ” she said. During a later writing assignment on family, he wrote, “My father is my idol.
The Indonesian connection for Obama and all that shaped him proving once again all things Javanese and indigenous Indonesian the bedrock for the towering monuments built on the foundations of a great civilisation.
1,047 Comments on “Barry Soetoro”
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Oigal says:
if this is an indonesian based website, why don’t you guys speak indonese and stop egging people on.
Well we keep egging you on because you guys are seriously amusing in your delusional conspiracy theories. We don’t speak “indonese” because there is no such thing for a start, where on earth do you guys go to school?
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Odinius says:
Oigal said:
where on earth do you guys go to school?
Apparently, the land of unicorns, faery dust, hilariously tortured political fantasies and non-existent languages.
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Aww where have the Obama Wammers gone..I need a giggle.
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Fashion watch says:
It does not matter where he was born, BECAUSE HIS MOTHER WAS A UNITED STATES CITIZEN. This means he was born a natural citizen because his mother was a natural born citizen. Get the f*** over it you White Supremacist S.o.B. Go to your KKK meeting.
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They’re so clueless they probably don’t even know this is an Indonesia-focused blog. But they sure are funny!
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Um…Fashion week, you’re supposed to put things other people have already written in quotes, you know.
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Doh, just realised what he’s doing, sprinkling the site with fake comments in order to get links to his website which I guess is called “Fashion watch” but the dumbo hasn’t realised that he’s not getting any links because there’s no ‘url’ field in the comments area, and gee… I think I’ll just delete them.
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He took my comments twice, so should I feel special? Dirty?
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Ross says:
I’d been too busy to notice this side-debate was still alive.
The probel with you Obama fans is that you don’t ackowledge his duplicity in almost every area, not least his comradeship in very recent years with the terrorist Ayers and his admin’s go-easy policy on the neo-nazi New Black Panther Party.
Racism and terrorism are not great recommendations, and Americans, whatever twist you put on the opinion polls, have already shown, in Massachusettts, that they are waking up to the Great Deceiver.
Further inspection of his background – despite the establishment media’s cover-ups – will expand the disillusion, hopefully before he has time to fix the Supreme Court. Apparently he’s currently considering appointing a lesbian, just to show he can do it. -
The probel with you Obama fans
Ross, you missing the point I for instance am no more Obama fan than a Rudd fan both political disasters. However, seriously have you been reading the comments from some of these people. All we need is a couple of creationists to weigh-in and it would make my day.
Besides didn’t you notice that no-one counts unless they have been Born Again and Indonese. This has hardly been a thread on rational political debate but if you want to throw your lot in with the birther mob fell ya boots.
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Well, Oigal, I did misso out on this debate until yesterday, preoccupied with my novel and enjoying life in Jakarta.
However, I have skimmed back and while you may be correct in some of your critique of our American posters, they do make many valid points. Not least Obama’s record of duplicity and weaseling out when straight answers are needed.
He has been up to his neck in ‘palling around with terrorists,’ as Sarah Palin accurately described his relationship with the evil Ayers. And he clearly favours violence used for political advantage, hence his ‘Justice’ Department’s cosying up to the black nazis in that Panther Party voter-intimidation case.
And the birth certificate issue won’t go away just because Odinius thinks it should. The real certificate may exist…or not. Obama is in the White House and could get hold of it if he didn’t have something to hide. Odinius also says there are no MIAs but if he bought my 2009 novel, he’d have reams of notes to make him think again. The honest officer put in charge of the enquiry resigned in disgust at the obstruction he faced.
I don’t trust Obama, but nor do I trust many governments,
Anyway, the Yanks (and Rebs) who have taken an interest in this IM thread should be made welcome. I darn sure would not despise somebody because he takes a different stand on matters of religion (e.g. evolution, or abortion, or anything else.)
At least they are being forthright, which is more than Obama has been about HIS religion!) -
silvercrosswarrior says:
He has produced a birth certification not a birth certificate.He didnt win the election because he cant be a candidate for the office,because He doesn’t meet the qualifications.The registra of deeds from Mombosa,Kenya shows that he was born their on August 4 1961.
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Oigal’s absolutely right. It’s instructive that John McCain, Romney, the Republican leadership in Congress and the RNC have all come out and said that the birthers are looney-tunes. This has nothing to do with whether you like Obama or not, and everything to do with whether you choose to believe in far-fetched conspiracy theories based on conjecture, irrational hatred of center-left presidents and a severe lack of knowledge about US Constitutional Law.
Generally speaking, it doesn’t take a partisan to know conspiracy theories are ridiculous. After all, you didn’t have to like Bush to know the 9/11 ‘truthers’ were bonkers. They were, among other things, the moonbat equivalents to these wingnuts.
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Before we continue this fascinating exchange, perhaps Odinius could enlighten us on the difference, and origin, of terms of abuse such as ‘wingnuts’ and ‘moonbats.’ Had a discussion on the former today and the only explanation for its current usage was a suggestion that students with protruding ears got picked in at school.
Then perhaps Odinius could enlighten us on his stance vis-a-vis Obama’s terrorist links and protection of black nazi thugs.
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Ross you are still linking your political opinion with these (albeit amusing) nutters. You do yourself and your hard arse right position a disservice. The right or even far right (or left) have a view point that is generally supported (from their perspective) by facts but the majority of these comments…sheesh. I would suggest this is not case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Perhaps I can help with definition of moonbat
HE IS A COMMIE PIG AND IMPEACH HIM AND ALL HIS CRONIES..
This of course is problematic if he is also a secret Muslim as you (?) and so many other wish to infer.
Any person who has NOT been BORN AGAIN will NOT enter into the Kingdom of Heaven !!! . .
“You Must Be Born Again” !!!Ok so now not only is he not born in the right place, but he is also not “Born Again” the pool of candidates just shrunk considerably
HIDE IN THE CORNER AND WATCH !!! . . . There’s going to be a Democrat Exodus from the Federal Government of Biblical Proportions. . . THIS, . . YOU CAN BELIEVE IN !!!
Uh uh…Well probably not much need to comment on this…..
The fatal flaw of Indonesia Matters is that one person, through a host of characters, attempts to control all thought and legitimate expressions of free thought on this site
Indeed… Its me Obama here..got you!!
The registra of deeds from Mombosa,Kenya shows that he was born their on August 4 1961.
Ah yes, My name is Col. Omdan Culaatta… I am in charge of the First National Kenyan Bank..I have 100000000USD to share with you my trusted friend…
This was just from the last couple of pages but there were so many to choose from.
Anyway, the Yanks (and Rebs) who have taken an interest in this IM thread should be made welcome. I darn sure would not despise somebody because he takes a different stand on matters of religion (e.g. evolution, or abortion, or anything else.
Absolutely, more than welcome. In fact, I have left several comments expressing sadness that they had left. I think despise is an overreaction, I find the great majority amusing in sad and scary way. I do however reserve the right to hold in contempt those absolute racist twits that pop up amongst the generally harmless conspiracy fans.
If you want to make it a little more rational, perhaps you could enlighten me about what is so evil that Obama is doing that is going to cause the fall of the USA. I must admit, I have not really paid that much attention to USA domestic issues as they have little interest to me. If we could move past the normal “we hate the left” because they tend support such social issues as universal healthcare, immigrants relief etc etc that would be better. These are pretty standard issues of the left the world over and hardly Obama only. Seems to me the Sems are just Republicans Lite.
As an aside the The birth law is an arse anyway, who shouldn’t an immigrant citizen be president? It’s a nonsense, are these twits suggesting the Arnie is not a loyal citizen.
Lastly, I really do hope they keep coming…..really!
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mmm…I can almost see the foaming lips and trembling typing now (no not you Ross, I have you marginally more stable)
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Thanks, Oigal, for that last. And I agree with you that Patung is probably not typing up your posts and mine even as we have our mornng coffee. Though I do wonder about those wierd posts from the so-called Brand. (P is very protective of AB, so we should monitor this carefully!)
I do tend to follow US internal politics, and share many Americans’ concerns. It is no more my business than are Indonesian politics, but it is the most powerful country in the world, hence of concern to everybody.
For starters, the prospect of enfranchising 10 million plus illegals to benefit Obama’s party is most alarming. I don’t think most Americans have a problem with legal immigration, it’s the queue-jumping and subsequent arrogant, pushy demands by those criminal elements for ‘rights’ that gets folks riled up.l
Obama is the most extreme President ever, surely. We can return to him over the weekend and address his many questionable aspects then, but Thursday is my usual night out, so must conserve my energies. Have a happy.
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And I agree with you that Patung is probably not typing up your posts and mine even as we have our mornng coffee
Huh
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Uh uh…Well probably not much need to comment on this…..
The fatal flaw of Indonesia Matters is that one person, through a host of characters, attempts to control all thought and legitimate expressions of free thought on this site
Indeed… Its me Obama here..got you
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That’s what I was referring to. You put forward B Husein, but surely Patung is a more likely candidate. (never mind, pre-noon humour is maybe not a good idea!) -
Ross was saying that that is silly.
Indeed and so we all agree..wow..time to buy a tatts ticket!
Sorry I did in fact miss the attempt at humour..although looking back its pretty funny! Sometimes not the sharpest tool in the shed..(yeh yeh…down youse blokes!)
Ari, just gets a bit personal and nasty for my taste, I mean thats fine (witness Assmad and myself) but you don’t get to pretend its a rational educated response at the same time. They are somewhat mutually exclusive styles of discussion.
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Ross,
Before we continue this fascinating exchange, perhaps Odinius could enlighten us on the difference, and origin, of terms of abuse such as ‘wingnuts’ and ‘moonbats.’ Had a discussion on the former today and the only explanation for its current usage was a suggestion that students with protruding ears got picked in at school.
Wingnuts is used to describe the crazies on the right, e.g.
Moonbats is a term to describe the crazies on the left, e.g.
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@Patung: is that a photo of Arie?
I think he has a lot of interesting things to say; he’s just gets too touchy when people argue with him. Even when I don’t agree with him (e.g. on Dutch colonialism), he brings a lot of knowledge to the table. I appreciate that, and have learned some interesting stuff from his posts. I just wish he were more open to opposing opinions.
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I’m just guessing it is, found on Google Images, from this page – http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.wereldomroep.nl/actua/dossier/mijnwereldnieuws/act20070220_wereldnieuws-redirected
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Yeah, Odinius, but WHY dd these terms come about?
And why is Patung so dead cert on protecting AB? He has no humour, no readiness to debate, no nothing. Except an over-weening arrogance which is not merited by his intellect. -
Ross,
Both apparently started off as generic put-downs for radicals, extreme partisans, nutjobs and the like, but over time came to associated with the right (wingnuts) or left (moonbats).
This is probably because wingnuts sounds more aggressive–and right-wing extremists are historically more aggressive in the United States–while moonbats sounds more loopy–and left-wing extremists are historically more loopy in the United States.
E.g.
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin = wingnuts
Michael Moore and Ralph Nader = moonbats -
I have to admit I do enjoy watching Fox now, and love the Beck Conspiracy Show. Just goes to show a drunk, can be amusing.
Also love the way no show goes more than 3 minutes without flicking to something else, must be to cater for the short attention span of its die hard viewers.
For real news John Steward is the go although not as funny as Beck.
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Ol Ari is a classic example of arrogance of the so called academic experts. Invariably, they have some (or a lot) of science on their side but by treating other people with distain condemn their viewpoint to the dustbin of history.
What these people fail to realise is that the commonman has little reason to trust such people if they are going to talk down them and obviously view them as second class citizens.
There is a huge difference between being educated and acquiring knowledge.
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Plenty of academics do not treat other people with disdain.
As for Glenn Beck…I’m still unsure whether he’s sincere or its just a character he’s playing. Not for laughs, like Stephen Colbert, because he’s passing himself off as serious and isn’t making ironic commentary on the lunatic fringe. But I do wonder whether it’s a reflection of his own views or if he figured he could get ahead by acting in a certain way.
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STARMAN says:
I SMELL CIA ALL OVER THIS ….. HIS GRANDFATHER LOOKED CIA
Comment on “Barry Soetoro”.
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You guys do know that the KKK is Democratic? Look up Byrd.
and if this is an indonesian based website, why don’t you guys speak indonese and stop egging people on.
I am not a “birther” just a normal rational person and right now there is more evidence of barack not being a natural citizen than there is evidence of him being a natural citizen.