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baltimoresun.com
Islam an unknown factor in Obama bid
Campaign downplays his connection during boyhood in Indonesia
By Paul Watson
March 16, 2007
JAKARTA, Indonesia
As a boy in Indonesia, Barack Obama crisscrossed the religious divide.
At the local primary school, he prayed in thanks to a Catholic saint.
In the neighborhood mosque, he bowed to Allah.
Having a personal background in Christianity and Islam might seem
useful for an aspiring U.S. president in an age when Islamic nations
and radical groups are key national security and foreign policy
issues. But a connection with Islam is untrod territory for
presidential politics.
Obama's four years as a child in Indonesia underscore how dramatically
his background differs from that of past presidential hopefuls, most
of whom spent little, if any, time in other countries. No one knows
how voters will react to a candidate with an early exposure to Islam,
a religion that remains foreign to many Americans.
Obama's campaign aides have emphasized his strong Christian beliefs
and downplayed any Islamic connection. The Illinois senator was raised
"in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother,"
his chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement in January
after false reports began circulating that Obama had attended a
radical madrasa, or Koranic school, as a child.
"To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a
Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of
Christ in Chicago," Gibbs' Jan. 24 statement said. In a statement to
The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, the campaign offered slightly
different wording, saying: "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim."
The statement added that as a child, Obama had spent time in the
neighborhood's Islamic center.
His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people
who were identified by Obama's grade-school teacher as childhood
friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both of
the schools he attended.
That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama
learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.
The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at
the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following
actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to
meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said
Zulfin Adi, who describes himself as among Obama's closest childhood
friends.
The campaign's national press secretary, Bill Burton, said Wednesday
that the friends were recalling events "that are 40 years old and
subject to four decades of other information." Obama's younger sister,
Maya Soetoro, said in a statement released by the campaign that the
family attended the mosque only "for big communal events," not every
Friday.
The sensitivity of Islam as a political issue was on display earlier
this year with the false report that Obama had attended a radical
madrassa here. The report, which appeared initially on a conservative-
oriented online magazine and then on a Fox News program, attributed
the news to researchers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both
campaigns denied the story and accused conservative media outlets of
trying to use the rumor to smear two Democratic presidential hopefuls
simultaneously.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic-majority country, has
seen an upsurge of Islamic radicalism in the last few years. But
during the 1960s, when Obama lived here, the country was known for a
brand of Islam more open to the non-Islamic world than the austere
versions preached in much of the Middle East. Even in the Mideast,
political Islam was far less influential in the 1960s than it is
today.
In his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama briefly mentions
Koranic study and describes his public school, which accepted students
of all religions, as "a Muslim school."
"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made
faces during Koranic studies," Obama wrote. "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."
Obama was born in Honolulu. When he was 2, his father, Barack Obama
Sr., a Kenyan, and his Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham, separated and
later divorced. Dunham later married Lolo Soetoro, who was a Muslim.
In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama lived from ages 6 to
10. People there knew him as Barry Soetoro.
Adi said he often visited the Soetoro family at their home, a small
flat-roofed bungalow at 16 Haji Ramli St. Today, he runs an Internet
cafe and purified water business from the same small Jakarta house
where he grew up near Obama.
Theirs was a middle-class neighborhood, but Haji Ramli Street was a
dirt lane where Obama used to while away the hours kicking a soccer
ball. In the long rainy season, it turned to thick, mucky soup; Obama
and his friends wore plastic bags over their shoes to walk though it,
said Adi, who at 46 is the same age as Obama.
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."
In her statement, Obama's sister, who was born after the family moved
to Indonesia, said: "My father saw Islam as a way to connect with the
community. He never went to prayer services except for big communal
events. I am absolutely certain that my father did not go to services
every Friday. He was not religious."
In 1968, Obama began first grade at St. Francis Assisi Foundation
School, just around the corner from his home.
The Catholic elementary school had opened the previous year and wanted
to enroll as many students as possible, so it welcomed children of any
religion, said Israella Dharmawan, 63, his first-grade teacher.
"At that time, Barry was also praying in a Catholic way, but Barry was
Muslim," Dharmawan said in Obama's old classroom, where she still
teaches 39 years later. "He was registered as a Muslim because his
father, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim."
Like all pupils, Obama had to pray before and after each class, and
cross himself in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Dharmawan said.
After St. Francis, Obama completed third and fourth grades in what is
now called Model Primary School Menteng 1 in central Jakarta. Opened
by Indonesia's former Dutch colonial rulers, the public school screens
for the best students with writing tests and interviews. Several of
its students have gone on to join Indonesia's elite.
Bugs have eaten Obama's file in the school's archive, said Vice
Principal Hardi Priyono. But two of his teachers, former Vice
Principal Tine Hahiyari and third-grade teacher Effendi, said they
remember clearly that at this school, too, he was registered as a
Muslim, which determined what class he attended during weekly religion
lessons.
"Muslim students were taught by a Muslim teacher, and Christian
students were taught by a Christian teacher," said Effendi, who, like
many Indonesians, uses only one name.
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.
In Dreams From My Father, Obama describes coming home one day with an
egg-sized lump on the side of his head because he had challenged an
older boy. The boy hit Obama with a rock, so his stepfather brought
out two pairs of boxing gloves and sparred with him. "You want to keep
moving, but always stay low - don't give them a target," he coached
Obama.
Instead of using his fists, Obama gained respect - and friends - by
using his imposing stature to protect weaker children against the
strong, Dharmawan said.
Obama's Indonesian teachers all said he was a leader at a young age.
Fermina Katarina Sinaga, Obama's third-grade teacher, didn't have to
quiet her pupils before class because Obama did it for her.
"When the kids lined up before entering the class, he would step
forward and lead the whole class," said Sinaga, 57. "He inspected the
line, and he was acting like a teacher. I could see his sense of
leadership back then."
Paul Watson writes for the Los Angeles Times.
Copyright
baltimoresun.com
Islam an unknown factor in Obama bid
Campaign downplays his connection during boyhood in Indonesia
By Paul Watson
March 16, 2007
JAKARTA, Indonesia
As a boy in Indonesia, Barack Obama crisscrossed the religious divide.
At the local primary school, he prayed in thanks to a Catholic saint.
In the neighborhood mosque, he bowed to Allah.
Having a personal background in Christianity and Islam might seem
useful for an aspiring U.S. president in an age when Islamic nations
and radical groups are key national security and foreign policy
issues. But a connection with Islam is untrod territory for
presidential politics.
Obama's four years as a child in Indonesia underscore how dramatically
his background differs from that of past presidential hopefuls, most
of whom spent little, if any, time in other countries. No one knows
how voters will react to a candidate with an early exposure to Islam,
a religion that remains foreign to many Americans.
Obama's campaign aides have emphasized his strong Christian beliefs
and downplayed any Islamic connection. The Illinois senator was raised
"in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother,"
his chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement in January
after false reports began circulating that Obama had attended a
radical madrasa, or Koranic school, as a child.
"To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a
Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of
Christ in Chicago," Gibbs' Jan. 24 statement said. In a statement to
The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, the campaign offered slightly
different wording, saying: "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim."
The statement added that as a child, Obama had spent time in the
neighborhood's Islamic center.
His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people
who were identified by Obama's grade-school teacher as childhood
friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both of
the schools he attended.
That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama
learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.
The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at
the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following
actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to
meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said
Zulfin Adi, who describes himself as among Obama's closest childhood
friends.
The campaign's national press secretary, Bill Burton, said Wednesday
that the friends were recalling events "that are 40 years old and
subject to four decades of other information." Obama's younger sister,
Maya Soetoro, said in a statement released by the campaign that the
family attended the mosque only "for big communal events," not every
Friday.
The sensitivity of Islam as a political issue was on display earlier
this year with the false report that Obama had attended a radical
madrassa here. The report, which appeared initially on a conservative-
oriented online magazine and then on a Fox News program, attributed
the news to researchers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both
campaigns denied the story and accused conservative media outlets of
trying to use the rumor to smear two Democratic presidential hopefuls
simultaneously.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic-majority country, has
seen an upsurge of Islamic radicalism in the last few years. But
during the 1960s, when Obama lived here, the country was known for a
brand of Islam more open to the non-Islamic world than the austere
versions preached in much of the Middle East. Even in the Mideast,
political Islam was far less influential in the 1960s than it is
today.
In his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama briefly mentions
Koranic study and describes his public school, which accepted students
of all religions, as "a Muslim school."
"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made
faces during Koranic studies," Obama wrote. "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."
Obama was born in Honolulu. When he was 2, his father, Barack Obama
Sr., a Kenyan, and his Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham, separated and
later divorced. Dunham later married Lolo Soetoro, who was a Muslim.
In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama lived from ages 6 to
10. People there knew him as Barry Soetoro.
Adi said he often visited the Soetoro family at their home, a small
flat-roofed bungalow at 16 Haji Ramli St. Today, he runs an Internet
cafe and purified water business from the same small Jakarta house
where he grew up near Obama.
Theirs was a middle-class neighborhood, but Haji Ramli Street was a
dirt lane where Obama used to while away the hours kicking a soccer
ball. In the long rainy season, it turned to thick, mucky soup; Obama
and his friends wore plastic bags over their shoes to walk though it,
said Adi, who at 46 is the same age as Obama.
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."
In her statement, Obama's sister, who was born after the family moved
to Indonesia, said: "My father saw Islam as a way to connect with the
community. He never went to prayer services except for big communal
events. I am absolutely certain that my father did not go to services
every Friday. He was not religious."
In 1968, Obama began first grade at St. Francis Assisi Foundation
School, just around the corner from his home.
The Catholic elementary school had opened the previous year and wanted
to enroll as many students as possible, so it welcomed children of any
religion, said Israella Dharmawan, 63, his first-grade teacher.
"At that time, Barry was also praying in a Catholic way, but Barry was
Muslim," Dharmawan said in Obama's old classroom, where she still
teaches 39 years later. "He was registered as a Muslim because his
father, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim."
Like all pupils, Obama had to pray before and after each class, and
cross himself in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Dharmawan said.
After St. Francis, Obama completed third and fourth grades in what is
now called Model Primary School Menteng 1 in central Jakarta. Opened
by Indonesia's former Dutch colonial rulers, the public school screens
for the best students with writing tests and interviews. Several of
its students have gone on to join Indonesia's elite.
Bugs have eaten Obama's file in the school's archive, said Vice
Principal Hardi Priyono. But two of his teachers, former Vice
Principal Tine Hahiyari and third-grade teacher Effendi, said they
remember clearly that at this school, too, he was registered as a
Muslim, which determined what class he attended during weekly religion
lessons.
"Muslim students were taught by a Muslim teacher, and Christian
students were taught by a Christian teacher," said Effendi, who, like
many Indonesians, uses only one name.
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.
In Dreams From My Father, Obama describes coming home one day with an
egg-sized lump on the side of his head because he had challenged an
older boy. The boy hit Obama with a rock, so his stepfather brought
out two pairs of boxing gloves and sparred with him. "You want to keep
moving, but always stay low - don't give them a target," he coached
Obama.
Instead of using his fists, Obama gained respect - and friends - by
using his imposing stature to protect weaker children against the
strong, Dharmawan said.
Obama's Indonesian teachers all said he was a leader at a young age.
Fermina Katarina Sinaga, Obama's third-grade teacher, didn't have to
quiet her pupils before class because Obama did it for her.
"When the kids lined up before entering the class, he would step
forward and lead the whole class," said Sinaga, 57. "He inspected the
line, and he was acting like a teacher. I could see his sense of
leadership back then."
Paul Watson writes for the Los Angeles Times.
Copyright
