Obama's Facebook statue hate group
Sunday December 20, 2009
www2.skynews.com.au
Most Indonesians love Barack Obama. Why then have 26,000 Indonesians united to bring him down?
They've all become members of a new Facebook group formed for a single purpose: to topple the US president.
Not the flesh and blood guy that lives in the White House, mind you.
Rather, they want to topple a small bronze statue of Obama as a young boy, recently erected in a Jakarta park.
The $A10,000 statue shows the 10-year-old Obama, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, smiling at a butterfly that has landed on his hand.
The statue stands in Menteng Park, a few blocks from the neighbourhood where Obama lived for four years with his mother and Indonesian stepfather.
According to Central Jakarta Mayor Sylviana Murni, the statue will give Indonesian children 'the spirit to reach their dreams'.
'There is a message through the young Obama statue that any child and anyone from any background can reach their dreams if they fight for it persistently,' Murni gushed.
But those who've joined the 'Take down the Barack Obama statue from Menteng Park' Facebook group believe the bronze boy sends a different message.
'For me, the establishment of the statue shows that this country no longer has national pride,' Heru Nugroho, the group's creator, has told local media.
'Obama spent several years of his childhood here, but what did he do for Indonesia?'
Members want the city to tear down the statue. Some say that if the city doesn't, they will.
'Is it our habit to honour foreign people more than our own?' one member asks.
'Where is our dignity as a country?'
'Doesn't Indonesia have its own heroes?'
Some members list more appropriate local candidates for statuehood: badminton legend Rudy Hartono; composer and musician Ismail Marzuki; poet and playwright WS Rendra.
Some have even suggested Obama be torn down to make way for a statue of Inul Daratista, the notorious local 'dangdut' performer famed for her sexually suggestive 'drilling' dance move.
Although that might cause controversy of its own. |
