Is Obama planning to give a speech from Jakarta?
Last week, Helene Cooper of NY Times reported that Barack Obama was thinking of making a major speech to lay out his foreign policy plans from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days. There was no official statement about where that would actually be, but Cooper concluded it would most likely be Cairo, Egypt.
Ben Smith at Politico.com informed that making a foreign policy speech from a major Islamic forum was actually something that Obama mentioned during his campaign in August. Later, Smith reported that an Obama donor, Ted Leary, reckoned that Obama had told some of his donors that his first trip would be to Indonesia.
It’s not clear whether Obama intends to do this during an actual Islamic forum or a normal state visit. An ideal forum that was major enough to be heard but religiously moderate enough in outlook not to anger American Islamophobes was the International Conference of Islamic Scholars (ICIS). However, it was already conducted in July this year.
Next year, Jakarta will host the fifth World Islamic Economic Forum in March. Looking at the lineup of invitees, this looks close enough to be ideal as there will be leaders from the Islamic world as well as the West, Japan and even China. The forum is going to talk about food and energy crises and how to solve them, which will be a very enlightened topic for the future US administration to be engaged in with the Islamic world.
But if Obama is looking to make a normal state visit, President SBY has definitely invited Obama to come to Indonesia during his international tour last month, where the American President-elect said he would love to have another chance to taste some tasty Indonesian cuisine he had grown fond of during his time in Jakarta.
No doubt, this will surely please the 1,641 Indonesians for Obama. In a sense, this might also give a public relations boost to SBY during next year’s election. But I’m not sure how Americans will take this, given the state of the current economic crisis back home and a renewed alertness to the Muslims due to the recent event in Mumbai. I’m betting this visit wouldn’t be as popular to Americans as it would be over here.
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September 6th, 2009 at 6:34 am
My name is Listiani Lestari id: 530971312., Born Islam in Tebet Timur South Jakarta.
Jemaah Islamiyah or as it is named today “Islamic Front Line Defenders” is synonyms with Indonesia.
The predominance of Islam and ambition to keep active and effective it’s Islamic traditions. We must strive hard in retaining tertiary social and cultural life and keep the ability of fighting against any outside enemy that jeopardize our strong Believes.
Those who are Anti-Islam must be punished. The duty of the Islamic Front Line Defenders is part of the Indonesian Constitution that provides and making obligatory for Muslims to follow Sharia’s Law. Islamic Front Line Defenders keep constant watch on Hotels, Bars and nightclubs that are within the Islamic Kingdom. Failing, they must be punished accordingly.