Obama Reaches Out to Muslims

alt Barack Obama reaches out to Muslim world in Indonesia

Associated Press in Jakarta

guardian.co.uk, Wed 10 Nov 2010 06.24 GMT

In the Muslim nation that was his boyhood home, President Barack Obama acknowledged today that US relations are still frayed with the Islamic world despite his best efforts at repair. He urged all sides to look beyond "suspicion and mistrust" to forge common ground against terrorism.

Forcefully returning to a theme he sounded last year in visits to Turkey and Egypt, Obama said: "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."

Beaming with pride, Obama delivered perhaps the most intensely personal speech of his presidency, speaking phrases in Indonesian to a cheering crowd of more than 6,000 mostly young people who claimed him as their own. "Let me begin with a simple statement: Indonesia is part of me," he said in Indonesian at the University of Indonesia.

He praised the world's most populous Muslim nation for standing its ground against "violent extremism" and said: "All of us must defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates, who have no claim to be leaders of any religion. This is not a task for America alone."

Earlier today, Obama visited the Istiqlal mosque, the largest in south-east Asia. He noted that it was under construction when he lived in Indonesia as a boy from 1967 to 1971.

"Because Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands, hundreds of languages, and people from scores of regions and ethnic groups, my times here helped me appreciate the humanity of all people," Obama said. The president's brief but nostalgic visit lent an unusually personal tone to the speech, a portion of which was devoted to his childhood here.

Obama reminisced about living in a small house with a mango tree out front, and learning to love his adopted home while flying kites, running along paddy fields, catching dragonflies and buying such delicacies as satay and bakso from street vendors.

He also spoke of running in fields with water buffalo and goats, and of the birth of his sister, Maya, who is half Indonesian.

After the speech, Obama shook hands with some in the audience, including several former classmates seated in the front row. Others screamed as if Obama were a pop star.

Reaching out to the Islamic world, Obama said efforts to build trust and peace are showing promise but are still clearly incomplete.

"Relations between the United States and Muslim nations have been frayed over many years. As president, I have made it a priority to begin to repair these relations," Obama said.

He said both sides have a choice: either "be defined by our differences and give in to a future of suspicion and mistrust" or "do the hard work of forging common ground and commit ourselves to the steady pursuit of progress."

Obama praised Indonesia for having "made progress in rooting out terrorists and combating violent extremism".

Noting that the path from colonial rule to democracy had been a rocky one, Obama said democracy "is messy". And, a week after seeing his own Democratic party suffer bruising midterm election defeats in the US Congress, he added: "Not everyone likes the results of every election. You go through ups and downs. But the journey is worthwhile."

On the Middle East, Obama noted the "false starts and setbacks" in getting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians back on course. But he said the US would "spare no effort in working for the outcome that is just and that is in the interest of all the parties involved: two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security".