President Obama…What Do Indonesians Think of Him Now?

From what I've seen on facebook (and believe me, a lot Indonesian use facebook regardless classes ... I heard we're the 3rd biggest facebook user in the world now) Most of Indonesian's opinion on Obama is neither here or there.

Often in Jakarta, Joko Widodo is even being compared to Obama on how they get elected. A lot of oppositions at first, full of hope, 'different race' (Jokowi being a Solo guy and with the vice president being Indonesian-Chinese), the similarities were brought up sometimes.

Most of the time people still sees Obama in decent light, I figure it also because not a lot know the ramification of his recent decisions (such as NSA etc).

But most of the time? Still neither here or there, and dare I say- still pretty warm.

"...still pretty warm."

Well, that's heartening to hear. And I hope it continues.

You probably don't want to know what the "average" American opinion is of SBY, and that would only be if you could find 10 Americans in a thousand who even know who the hell he is!    Yeah, it is sad indeed.

As for social networking, what you say about Indonesians embracing FB, Twitter, etc., is 100% sooooo VERY true...even in very remote village of Bali!

Don't worry, even Indonesians generally have a very very low opinion on SBY. It's disheartening but that's the truth. Too many times he chose the safe road, and his priorities are skewed. We see him as a cowardly bunny, or something like that. He was the lesser of the many evils, so to speak...

Here in Bali SBY has a lot of admiration and support from those who put his party alliances aside, consider the man and his convictions.

The thing we worry about more is who is going to take over once his current term is finished?

When I first moved to Indonesia, Pak Harto was still President and Indonesia's future was not so clear.  Since those days, Indonesia has had some excellent Presidents (IMHO) and I'm thinking most about Gus Dur.

There's a running joke around here that Pak Harto's regimen were the best, with a slogan of "penak jamanku, toh?" ("My era was the best, no?") because in his regime, the economy were stabler despite the veiled dictatorship. It's when he fell that the economy went to shit.

I also worry about the next President, we truly have no other candidate. There was Jusuf Kala, but he showed his true colours recently, telling the mass media that we Indonesians NEED cheap cars. (The news is, they're subsidizing the sale of cars) and we all thought, are you fucking kidding me?

Many Indonesians and a couple of political parties are eyeing Joko Widodo as the next candidate but  in my humble opinion, I rather have him stick around Jakarta as a governor first until his term is over THEN he can go forth as a candidate. He's doing (seemingly) decent job so far, but it's still way too early to tell.

But if he goes for candidacy anyway, I'll still vote for him because there's really no one else to be trusted... so far...

Just to be clear, I dislike Pak Harto very much- the Riot of 1998/when his regimen fell, many signs point to his doing. I was caught the middle of it and have lost a few friends from the casualties, being chinese-Indonesians and all.  But of course, from objective point of view, he did a lot for this country, my above dislike of him is purely biased.

But back on to the topic, I was curious why would you think Indonesians would have possibly not so good opinion on Obama? And why would it matter, if so? Purely curiosity

Joko is hugely popular and favored here in Bali as well. 

It's the timing (as you allude to) that is the big issue.

As for Pak Soekarno and Pak Soeharto, suffice it to say that Indonesia wouldn't be the country it is today without both of them. 

That's my opinion anyway.

"I was curious why would you think Indonesians would have possibly not so good opinion on Obama? And why would it matter, if so? Purely curiosity"

I'm only curious about Obama because when he was first running for office in the US one could easily think he was running for President of Indonesia...so popular and so regularly covered in the media as he was back then. 

In his heart, I think that President Obama holds Indonesia very near and dear, it being such a part of his early years growing up.

You know that he wrote his first book about his dad when here on Bali many years ago.

In the end, I guess I'm only looking for reassurance that Indonesians still hold him close to their hearts too.

Ah makes sense, and hahah, kinda sweet

Obama is truly a man with a heart.   

It could well be that he gained "his heart" here in Indonesia.