Ann in real life
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Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro |
The NYT has a great story out about Barack Obama’s mother, née Ann Dunham, who was born in Kansas and worked at several NGOs, including one in Pakistan. It struck me that the central conflict in her second marriage is similar to that of The Konkans:
Her second marriage faded, too, in the 1970s. She wanted to work, one friend said, and Lolo Soetoro wanted more children. He became more American, she once said, as she became more Javanese… [Link]
In The Konkans, the narrator’s Midwestern, Peace Corps mother met his father in India. The father saw her as a ticket to a green card and spent his entire life as an Americaphile. But the mother wanted nothing more than to stay in India, a place with which she connected deeply. From the NYT story:
She never dated “the crew-cut, white boys… She had a world view, even as a young girl. It was embracing the different, rather than that ethnocentric thing of shunning the different. That was where her mind took her.” [Link]
Dunham also worked on microfinance in Pakistan:
She became a consultant for [USAID] on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan; then she joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor… [Link]
In Indonesia, she served papita, kela and opor ayam, braised chicken in coconut curry:
… her house in a neighborhood to the south, where papaya and banana trees grew in the front yard and Javanese dishes like opor ayam were served for dinner… One Christmas in Indonesia, Soetoro found a scrawny tree and decorated it with red and green chili peppers and popcorn balls… [Link]
One of the cities she lived in, Yogyakarta, has a famous old Hindu temple in a style that’s a cross between southern India and Angkor Wat:
Fluent in Indonesian, Soetoro moved with Maya first to Yogyakarta, the center of Javanese handicrafts… [Link]
More on the Prambanan complex:
The compound is assembled of eight main shrines or candis, and more than 250 surrounding individual candis. The three main shrines, called Trisakti (Ind. “three sacred places”), are dedicated to the three gods: Shiva the Destroyer, Vishnu the Keeper and Brahma the Creator.
The Shiva shrine at the center contains four chambers, one in every cardinal direction. While the first contains a three meter high statue of Shiva, the other three contain smaller statues of Durga, his wife, Agastya, a risi, and Ganesha, his son.
The shrine of Durga is also called the temple of Loro Jonggrang (slender virgin), after a Javanese princess, daughter of King Boko. She was forced to marry a man she did not love, Bandung Bondowoso. After long negotiations she eventually agreed to the marriage, under the condition that her prince should build her a temple ornamented with 1000 statues, between the setting and the rising of the sun. [Link]
Obama’s father was brilliant but left his wife and son to go to Harvard. Obama himself chose to stay in Hawaii for schooling while his mother returned to Indonesia for work.
What you expect out of a president with this background is someone more tolerant, and with a better grasp of complexity, than someone who’s spent his entire life in Connecticut and Texas.
on Friday, March 14th, 2008, 1:27 pm in Barack Obama, Literature, Politics, Religion › 
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Adorable pic.
Forget all the talk about experience and race. The world we’re stuck in today requires a man of true international experience, given that the US has made it priority 1 to insinuate ourselves into every sovereign nation on the planet, if we expect to become unstuck. The typical corporate fossil/tycoon that Americans seem to revere and use as a standard for leadership is dangerously obsolete and has little place in the White House.
Oops, let me revise that to “Forget all the talk about POLITICAL experience…”
I agree with u Manish..even I felt the same.. Iam reading his book Dreams from my father..it is the story of his life, his childhood and growing up,his parents and his grandparents. This man had seen it all..It must have been very hard on him to have no father, living with grandparents, constantly struggling with his identity as a son of white mother and black kenyan father and his own struggles with drugs to everything..It is amazing journey..I think he did a lot of thinking while growing up and making choices after lot of thinking..that is why he has a clarity of thoughts and it shows in his speech…he is more tolerant to everything and had seen different cultures , both the sides of blacks and whites life here..
I thought his mother also was amazing..off beat, independent thinker at her times when blacks and whites were fighting she choose to marry a kenyan man..from the book Iam reading it shows even his grandparents are broad minded strong people..His father also seems to be extremely intelligent man who had to go back to kenya as he came on a govt of kenyan scholarship to study and had to go back after his studies..His fathers family in kenya are very poor too..
I always believe in life that people who see pain are more tolerant to everything in life and have a better understanding of life..my personal experience is also the same the more pain I saw more tolerant I became and more philosophical and peaceful u become..u think through everything and make decisions cautiously,..
It shows in obama..look at his decisions not to attack iraq…more open to friendship with castros successor ..always talks about bringing people together…he is young but surprisingly for his age he is making better decisions than hillary or anyone…he had struggles all along his life and see how far he has come..broken family, drugs and everything and here he is turning life and running for president of USA..that itself shows how determined and mature he is..
Yogyakarta is a must visit. Prambanan is a world heritage site, and is maintained very well. It has gorgeous gardens that make for a lovely walk on a summer afternoon, and it is particularly instructive to see how the names, legends and representations of the different deities have evolved differently but with obviously similar roots as the practice of Hinduism in India. Borobudur is beautiful too, one of the most memorable and prettiest sunsets I saw was high up in the stupas there, surrounded by the lush greenery of the valleys all around, with my only company being the sounds of birds chirping as they flew back to roost for the night.
I’m not sure I buy this evolutionary logic - it is not very different from the same people who claim that Barack must be an intolerant Islamist because he was in Indonesia at age 6, or that Muslims are incapable of any humanity by virtue of their religion and origins. Barack could have easily become one of many lost children due to his constant displacement, broken homes, and conflicted identity. That he has emerged to be the brilliantly talented and accomplished individual that he so obviously is is more a testament to his drive and strength of character.
It’s a fantastic article — and I agree with everyone who has said we need a President w/international understanding and sensitivity, etc.
I also have a new life goal: to someday be as cool as Obama’s Mom. ^__^
Don’t get your hopes up. He chose to closely associate himself for 20 years with a guy whom most Americans will find positively repulsive; and in DIRECT CONTRADICTION of his stated philosophy on race and society. Sorry. Game over.
Like McCain and Hagee?
“He chose to closely associate himself for 20 years with a guy whom most Americans will find positively repulsive”
do u mean his church priest?
obama condemned his priests aggressive speeches right..if u go to a church doesnot mean u are in sync. and u support whatever ur priest says right..
very interesting, i have both books, but i have misplaced them both! ugh!
It is not as cut and dried as that. Obama did more than just attend a church presided over by this pastor. He chose to be married by this pastor, had his children baptized by him, used a sermon of his as the title of his book (Audacity of Hope), and had him on his African American religious leadership committee. Mr. Wright was very well known and respected among the African-American Christian community, and Obama did not feel the need to reject/denounce/distance himself from him even when Wright made extremely aggressive statements about the US’s own culpability right after 9/11.
It is only when he started running for president that he began to shy away from Wright as he saw that he would become a political liability, and is now denouncing Wright’s statement with the rather unbelievable claim that he was unaware of these statements till just recently. Bottomline: Obama did not want to rock the boat with a potentially influential leader who had some extremely unpleasant views until the political downside of being associated with that man outweighed the potential upside.
Now, every politician has associations with people who are not entirely savory, but the reluctance to walk away from these people is especially troubling in the case of politicians like Obama and McCain because it strikes at the root of their primary claim to relevance - their moral probity.
manish - Hagee and Wright are not the same thing at all. One is an endorsement - typical, if disgusting, political stuff. You can’t run for president and not have endorsements by less than savory characters in a country this big. If Wright had just endorsed Obama, no big deal. But Obama took his kids to that church and named his book after a sermon by the guy. Also, he’s the guy campaigning on hope, change, and a new, non-divisive politics. His is the same old cynical Chicago politics, in the end. No better, no different. He’s no worse than McCain or Hillary, but he’s no better. They all will say what they need to, in order to be elected. It’s all just hot air.
My virgin ears burn! They burn, I tell you! Wright is a typical, fire-and-brimstone black idealogue. There’s little he says that you won’t hear at Harlem barbershops every day. I’m far more worried about the old guy who wants to send teens to die in Iraq for another hundred years than a little rough rhetoric. (C’mon back, Samantha Power.)
Rahul - I think obama did not need to condemn his preacher so far..because everyone in this country has a right to speak and has freedom of speech..so obama didnot say anything about his preacher so far.
Now that it is affecting his campaign and people are assuming obama agrees with everything his preacher says, obama probably had to come out and condemn his preachers statements and openly say to the public that he doesnot agree with everything preacher says..
so what if he gets married under the preachers , so what if he wants preacher to bless his children..may be he is just following his religion and getting blessing from his priest just the way we hindus do too..doesnot mean we agree with philosophies of our hindu preacher or pujari..At that minute we bow before our pujari/priest because we believe he is man of God who knows all the scriptures but that doesnot mean we respect him as a person or think he is God or agree with pujaris personal political opinions or philosophies..
I was reading this book last nite
Barack obama in his words - quotations of obama compied by Lisa Rogak..
It has views of obama on everything from iraq to iran to darfur to his personal opinion on Bush to his statements of economy, immigration..I used to think obama is just an inspiring speaker..but if u read all the quotes of obama compiled from 2001 to 2006 from his speeches to interiews..the man clearly has a vision, clarity of thought , is very mature and is very practical..
manish is right..Obama also questions the same..why do we need to send teens to die in iraq war for hundred years when the war was itself unnecessary, meaningless, purposeless…
I liked the book, it is short quotes of obama on all subjects that are important for an american voter..u will be surprised to know how precise he is at conveying his thought, how way ahead he is thinking and how practical he is..the man has a very clear understanding of the working of the world…
Free speech allows him to say it, but it does not mean it is responsible in the least.
He wasn’t just a preacher, he was on his leadership committee for African Americans. And equating a church pastor with a Hindu priest fundamentally misunderstands the social role of a pastor. Obama didn’t say anything because it was not in his political interest to, he says something now for the same reason.
Since I don’t hang out at Harlem barbershops, I will take your word for it :) And what does Sam Power have to do with Wright’s hate-mongering? (”God damn America”).
Out of context. The quote starts with:
The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’
See the Tuskegee Project (gov’t study infected black men with syphilis); Iran-contra (CIA allegedly trafficked cocaine into the U.S. to fund an illegal war); the 100:1 disparity in sentencing guidelines for crack vs. powdered cocaine possession; the large racial disparities in death penalty prosecution and sentencing. These are real, serious and widely-known issues. Wright’s closer was just rhetorical topping.
Yes, there are ways of talking about these things without hateful rhetoric.
He’s a liberation theology tub-thumper, not Jack Handey.
That’s like excusing Falwell for his hateful statements because he was an evangelist preacher and that’s their shtick.
Read this profile of Obama’s pastor. He’s much more complicated than the simplistic campaign attacks would have you believe, and his lefty-liberationist Afro-centrism is not far out of the African-American mainstream.
And if saying that the US bore some blame for 9/11 because of its policies in the Middle East makes one a bigot, then lots of thoughtful, self-critical Americans who I’ve heard voice similar concerns are also bigots. There are those who put it in the context of what could have been done differently, some who say “well we had it coming” in an expression of frustration with faulty policies, some who genuinely want to stick it to the Man and don’t care who did it, and a very few who let their anti-Americanism overcome basic humanity and horror and thousands of civilian deaths. I’d want to know in what context this pastor made the statements he did.
Whatever.
I’m not really into any of these candidates, but if you don’t think it’s a problem for him and his campaign, okay. Hope you’re not advising the guy, though. You’d advise him off a cliff.
He’s doing the Checkers speech all right. But that’s for the mass market.
Falwell and Robertson have specific targets: gays, abortionists, Hindus, Palestinians. Wright’s formulations are non-specific. And they spring from the rhythm of rhetoric: ‘God bless’ -> ‘God damn’ is a simple inversion. Adding ‘KKK’ to ‘US of A’ is a rhyme. Hard for me to take this seriously.
One should condemn their statements, but hand-wringing over Falwell/Robertson is like fretting about Ann Coulter.
Rahul -that is the beauty of freedom of speech.. u can say any thing u want or write what u want…unless they are totally hurting someones sentiments it is ok to be a aggressive speaker titled to one side passionately..
to me pastors social role is as much as that of a hindu priest preaching the word of god and good..
anyway I was never in close association with any church group to know what is social role of a pastor so I might be totally wrong…
I just saw abc world news today about this which said that obama was distancing his preacher for quite sometime even before running for elections. He didnot invite him on stage when he first announced that he is the candidate because he feared the preacher would go aggressive..Obama says he is still his preacher and his wife still likes to go to the preacher to complain about obama but he doesnot agree with his preachers political philosophies..so what he is in leadership committes for african communities probably his role in that committee could be just be a preacher pulling african community more towards religion and not towards his political opinions..
I wonder if this clears up the Obama is a muslim stuff?
Mike Huckabee defends Jeremiah Wright (transcript on Daily Kos).