Indonesia mulls tearing down Obama statue

(AFP) – 1 day ago

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities said Monday they are considering a petition to tear down a statue of US President Barack Obama as a boy, only a month after the bronze was unveiled in Jakarta.

The statue of "Little Barry" -- as Obama was known when he lived in the capital in the late 1960s -- stands in central Jakarta's Menteng Park, a short walk from the US president's former elementary school.

Critics say the site should have been used to honour an Indonesian and 55,000 people have joined a page on social networking website Facebook calling for the statue to be removed.

"We've been discussing for the past two weeks what to do with the statue... whether to take it down, move it elsewhere or retain it. We're finding the best solution," Jakarta parks agency official Dwi Bintarto said.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii, lived for four years as a child in Jakarta from 1967 after his divorced mother married an Indonesian.

The bronze was designed by Indonesian artists and depicts the boy Obama dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with a butterfly perched on his hand.

"The statue is of Obama as a child, not as the US president. His relatives and friends who erected it said it's meant to motivate children to study hard and dream big," Bintarto said.

Members of the "Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Menteng Park" group on Facebook say Obama has done nothing for Indonesia.

"Barack Obama has yet to make a significant contribution to the Indonesian nation. We could say Obama only ate and s (expletive) in Menteng. He spent his subsequent days living as an American," the web page says.

"For the dignity of a sovereign nation, Barack Obama's monument in Menteng Park must be removed immediately."

The childhood connection and his knowledge of a few words of Indonesian made Obama popular in the mainly Muslim country of 234 million people.

Obama said in November he would visit Indonesia this year along with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art...UFGhAJkDpg

Its real easy... just do it like this...

blackmailing his ego and vanity for some $$$$

A little perspective is in order.

Mentang Park is the park in the middle of the most exclusive enclave of Jakarta. Mentang is the suburb of embassies, ambassadorial residences, Indonesian business leaders and high Indonesian government officials (including Suharto, when alive.)

More perspective - Mentang was too exclusive and rich for all but a very few Western expats to afford.

Putting a kids motivation statue in Mentang is like putting a kids motivational statue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The very people motivated by something like this will never see it, and in the case of Mentang, the police won't let the poor and the downtrodden within a mile of the park.

Imagine if 'American authorities' and a large US-based facebook group wanted to remove a childhood statue of a foreign leader from a park, because that leader wound up "doing nothing for America."

We'd be called the usual names we normally see thrown at us: egocentric, arrogant, xenophobic, etc.

Obama isn't Indonesian?

(01-26-2010 12:11 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  Imagine if 'American authorities' and a large US-based facebook group wanted to remove a childhood statue of a foreign leader from a park, because that leader wound up "doing nothing for America."

We'd be called the usual names we normally see thrown at us: egocentric, arrogant, xenophobic, etc.

Do we have any such statues? It just seems like a really odd choice.

(01-26-2010 12:42 PM)jh Wrote:  

(01-26-2010 12:11 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  Imagine if 'American authorities' and a large US-based facebook group wanted to remove a childhood statue of a foreign leader from a park, because that leader wound up "doing nothing for America."

We'd be called the usual names we normally see thrown at us: egocentric, arrogant, xenophobic, etc.

Do we have any such statues? It just seems like a really odd choice.

There's a Lenin statue in Seattle. Fitting that it's around all those radical fruitbats.

You guys would like this one better.

http://reaganrushmore.com/

(01-26-2010 01:55 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  

Barack Obama: Mt. Rushmore too small for my ears.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washingt...ma--7.html