The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 t should come as no surprise that to the extent Indonesians are paying atten- tion to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, they’re mainly interested in Barack Obama. Besides his youth and ethnicity, there is the fact that he spent several years as a boy in Jakarta during the late 1960s and early 1970s. One can find at least seven books by local writers profiling Obama on the shelves of Gramedia, Indone- sia’s biggest bookstore chain. One, Jangan Bunuh Obama! (Don’t Kill Obama!) , expresses fear that if he is elected, Obama will be the fifth U.S. president to be assassinated. The book came out in April, just as Time magazine published a profile of Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, “a white woman from the Midwest who seems to have been more comfortable in Indonesia.” That same month, the Indonesian weekly news magazine I write for, Tempo , published an article adding a few more intimate details about the family, such as how Ann spent years studying women and blacksmithing among villagers in Central Java, and how the ungainly future U.S. presiden- tial candidate “ran funny, like a paddy-field duck.” The cover illustration for Jangan Bunuh Obama! shows the senator, his eyes closed in prayer, with a U.S. flag as a backdrop. Author Hermawan Aksan writes: “Obama means hope. Hope for a more peaceful world. Aside from his flaws, Obama is still very young and offers a program for change that is different from [that of] his opponent, John McCain, and, of course, from [that of] George W. Bush.” One can sense the very same enthusiasm from neigh- bors and Obama’s friends during the four years he lived in Jakarta. Coenraad — who, like many Indonesians, only uses one name — lived next door to “Barry,” as he called him then, in the Menteng Dalam neighborhood. He has few doubts Obama will win in November, joking that “He will be the first Menteng Dalam kid to become the U.S. president.” Strong Feelings The Indonesian media have a soft spot for Obama. In the early months of 2008, he appeared almost daily on the front pages, in features and in television coverage. In jok- ing with local journalists, U.S. embassy staff urged us to F O C U S O N T H E 2 0 0 8 E L E C T I O N S I NDONESIANS H OPE FOR P ARTNERSHIP T HE FACT THAT O BAMA SPENT SEVERAL YEARS IN J AKARTA AS A BOY DOES NOT MEAN I NDONESIANS EXPECT SPECIAL TREATMENT IF HE ’ S ELECTED . B Y K URIE S UDITOMO I Kurie Suditomo is a staff writer for Tempo , a weekly news magazine in Jakarta, writing for its foreign affairs and arts & culture sections. She began as an intern in 1999, then spent three years reporting on national and political issues. In 2005, thanks to a J. William Fulbright Scholar- ship, she earned a master’s degree in Southeast Asian stud- ies from Ohio University.