Barack Obama in Indonesia appeals for Muslim-Christian tolerance
White House dogged by 'secret Muslim' claims, amid sniping from the American right
Barack and Michelle Obama with the grand imam at the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta. Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters
Barack Obama was in wistful mood today on his return to Indonesia,
where he spent part of his childhood. He reminisced about mango trees,
flying kites, running alongside paddy fields, buying satay from street
vendors and catching dragonflies.
He spoke too of the tolerance Indonesians had shown the foreign child brought up in their midst, and the tolerance needed today to eradicate the mistrust that had built up over the years between Muslims and Christians.
He was speaking at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, in the second major speech of his presidency reaching out to the Muslim world. The first was in Cairo last year.
But there was little sign of tolerance on US conservative websites, where there were derogatory comments about the visit. Pictures of the Obamas visiting the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta are likely to surface on websites propagating the myth that the president is a secret Muslim.
This belief is based partly on reports that he attended a Muslim school in Indonesia, though in fact it was a secular school attended by mixed faiths. In his speech, Obama emphasised his religion: "As a Christian visiting a mosque on this visit …"
Recalling the speech in Cairo, he said: "In the 17 months since that speech we have made some progress, but we have much more to do. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust."
He added: "I have made it clear that America is not and never will be at war with Islam … Those who want to build must not cede ground to terrorists who seek to destroy."
Obama praised the world's most populous Muslim country for standing its ground against "violent extremism" and urged others to play their part. "All of us must defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates, who have no claim to be leaders of any religion," he said. "This is not a task for America alone."
Conservative bloggers seized on Michelle Obama's handshake with the Indonesian information minister, Tifatul Sembiring, as an apparent breach of protocol that men should not touch women other than relatives. Several bloggers, in anti-Muslim diatribes, sarcastically suggested the punishment for such an act should be stoning. On the conservative Hot Air site, a reader described Obama as "Imam Hussein Obama".
On the Town Hall website, blogger Terry Jeffrey noted that Obama was speaking at the same mosque where the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently delivered an anti-western diatribe four years ago.
The White House is sensitive to a growing belief in the US that Obama is a Muslim. A planned visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, was cancelled, according to US media reports, because it would have meant him wearing a cap or other headwear.
Although it would have been courtesy on the part of Obama, it could have been used by rightwing websites as "evidence" that he is a Muslim – even though the Golden Temple is a Sikh shrine. Some US websites, during the 2008 election campaign, faked pictures of Obama in a skullcap.
A Pew Reseach Centre poll published in August found the number of Americans who believe that Obama is a Muslim has risen to 18% compared with 11% in March 2009.
Amaney Jamal, an associate professor in the department of politics at Princeton University and a specialist in the study of Muslim public opinion, said that Obama's speech was important because he had said little about reaching out to the Muslim world since Cairo and it demonstrated he was committed to the notion of tolerance.
"Unfortunately others will use this to push the allegation that he is a Muslim and use it against him as a political tool, and will continue with the Islamaphobia in the US which has become worrisome," Jamal said.
Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, said: "The hyper-right and the advocates of America as a Christian nation folks are going to use Obama's speech in Jakarta as another sign of his pro-Islam sympathies or even worse that he is a closet Muslim."
"Even pictures of Obama taking communion in a church might not convince his adversaries that he is self-proclaimed Christian. The hyper-right in America fails to appreciate Obama's outreach to one of the most disgruntled communities globally, namely Muslims, who are vigorously opposed to American domination and totally mistrust Western power."
At the Istiqlal mosque, Obama broke off a conversation with the grand imam, Haji Mustapha Ali Yaqub, to point to a Catholic church in the distance, saying that at Christmas time the mosque allowed parishioners to use its parking lot.
That was the kind of practical co-operation that existed between religions in Indonesia, Obama said.
He spoke too of the tolerance Indonesians had shown the foreign child brought up in their midst, and the tolerance needed today to eradicate the mistrust that had built up over the years between Muslims and Christians.
He was speaking at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, in the second major speech of his presidency reaching out to the Muslim world. The first was in Cairo last year.
But there was little sign of tolerance on US conservative websites, where there were derogatory comments about the visit. Pictures of the Obamas visiting the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta are likely to surface on websites propagating the myth that the president is a secret Muslim.
This belief is based partly on reports that he attended a Muslim school in Indonesia, though in fact it was a secular school attended by mixed faiths. In his speech, Obama emphasised his religion: "As a Christian visiting a mosque on this visit …"
Recalling the speech in Cairo, he said: "In the 17 months since that speech we have made some progress, but we have much more to do. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust."
He added: "I have made it clear that America is not and never will be at war with Islam … Those who want to build must not cede ground to terrorists who seek to destroy."
Obama praised the world's most populous Muslim country for standing its ground against "violent extremism" and urged others to play their part. "All of us must defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates, who have no claim to be leaders of any religion," he said. "This is not a task for America alone."
Conservative bloggers seized on Michelle Obama's handshake with the Indonesian information minister, Tifatul Sembiring, as an apparent breach of protocol that men should not touch women other than relatives. Several bloggers, in anti-Muslim diatribes, sarcastically suggested the punishment for such an act should be stoning. On the conservative Hot Air site, a reader described Obama as "Imam Hussein Obama".
On the Town Hall website, blogger Terry Jeffrey noted that Obama was speaking at the same mosque where the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently delivered an anti-western diatribe four years ago.
The White House is sensitive to a growing belief in the US that Obama is a Muslim. A planned visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, was cancelled, according to US media reports, because it would have meant him wearing a cap or other headwear.
Although it would have been courtesy on the part of Obama, it could have been used by rightwing websites as "evidence" that he is a Muslim – even though the Golden Temple is a Sikh shrine. Some US websites, during the 2008 election campaign, faked pictures of Obama in a skullcap.
A Pew Reseach Centre poll published in August found the number of Americans who believe that Obama is a Muslim has risen to 18% compared with 11% in March 2009.
Amaney Jamal, an associate professor in the department of politics at Princeton University and a specialist in the study of Muslim public opinion, said that Obama's speech was important because he had said little about reaching out to the Muslim world since Cairo and it demonstrated he was committed to the notion of tolerance.
"Unfortunately others will use this to push the allegation that he is a Muslim and use it against him as a political tool, and will continue with the Islamaphobia in the US which has become worrisome," Jamal said.
Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, said: "The hyper-right and the advocates of America as a Christian nation folks are going to use Obama's speech in Jakarta as another sign of his pro-Islam sympathies or even worse that he is a closet Muslim."
"Even pictures of Obama taking communion in a church might not convince his adversaries that he is self-proclaimed Christian. The hyper-right in America fails to appreciate Obama's outreach to one of the most disgruntled communities globally, namely Muslims, who are vigorously opposed to American domination and totally mistrust Western power."
At the Istiqlal mosque, Obama broke off a conversation with the grand imam, Haji Mustapha Ali Yaqub, to point to a Catholic church in the distance, saying that at Christmas time the mosque allowed parishioners to use its parking lot.
That was the kind of practical co-operation that existed between religions in Indonesia, Obama said.
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