Obama’s former school cheers his win
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
JAKARTA, Indonesia – They were dancing in the rain in the school yard when Barack Obama's victory was announced – scores of children from the Menteng Elementary School in Central Jakarta, where Obama studied for two years during his four years as a child in Indonesia.
"He's so smart, so smart," said one little boy.
"He's made our school famous," said a young girl, as the children crowded round a large projector to watch Obama's acceptance speech in Chicago.
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| Reuters |
| Students display a picture of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and react to the announcement of his victory, at his former school in Jakarta on Wednesday. |
Few of them understood much of what the president-elect said, but still they cheered, taking their cue from the American crowd.
The headmaster took a call from the Indonesian president, congratulating him, while old classmates, who'd set up a fan club for the boy they all knew as "Barry," could hardly believe the news.
"I am speechless. So proud, and so happy that he has achieved what he set out to do," said Rully Dasaad, the club's coordinator, as he bounced between press interviews.
Adopted as a native son
Obama only spent a brief period in Indonesia, where his mother moved with his Indonesian step-father when he was six years old, but he is regarded almost as a native son. And the fact he has risen from such modest beginnings to become president of the United States has captured this country’s imagination.
"It's unbelievable," said Wimar Witoeler, a political commentator and former presidential spokesman. "It shows how America can be an engine of inspiration and change."
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country, and the image of America took a real battering here during the Bush years.
"Now I see America is still a good country," Wimar told me. "A country you can trust, a country that can change within itself."
Indonesia has not always been a comfortable place to be an American abroad. Two Bali bombs and an attack on the Marriott Hotel were among the terrorist attacks that targeted Westerners in recent years.
However, some believe that Obama’s election may diminish some of the terror threat.
"Obama is popular here, so I think Americans will become more popular than in the last eight years," said James Castle, a prominent and long-standing American businessman in Jakarta, who was in the Marriott coffee shop when the hotel was struck in 2003. He survived without injury.
To many of Indonesia's business and political elite, the global economic crisis provides a good reason for the United States to reassert the moral and political leadership that they believe has been lacking in recent years.
"Barack will have to put America's own house in order, then assume leadership of the world," said H.S. Dillon, a senior government adviser. "The world's adrift. It needs a leader."
