Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood

Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood
by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com
April 29, 2008


As Barack Obama's candidacy comes under increasing scrutiny, his account of his religious upbringing deserves careful attention for what it tells us about the candidate's integrity.

Obama asserted in December, "I've always been a Christian," and he has adamantly denied ever having been a Muslim. "The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country [Kenya]. But I've never practiced Islam." In February, he claimed: "I have never been a Muslim. … other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for 4 years when I was a child [Indonesia, 1967-71] I have very little connection to the Islamic religion."

"Always" and "never" leave little room for equivocation. But many biographical facts, culled mainly from the American press, suggest that, when growing up, the Democratic candidate for president both saw himself and was seen as a Muslim.

Obama's Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was a Muslim who named his boy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein".



Obama's Indonesian family: His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was also a Muslim. In fact, as Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng explained to Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim." An Indonesian publication, the Banjarmasin Post reports a former classmate, Rony Amir, recalling that "All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims."

Barack Obama's Catholic school in Jakarta.
The Catholic school: Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press reports that "documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim" while at a Catholic school during first through third grades. Kim Barker of the Chicago Tribune confirms that Obama was "listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school." A blogger who goes by "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" found that "Barack Hussein Obama was registered under the name ‘Barry Soetoro' serial number 203 and entered the Franciscan Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. … Barry's religion was listed as Islam."

The public school: Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times learned from Indonesians familiar with Obama when he lived in Jakarta that he "was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended." Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star visited the Jakarta public school Obama attended and found that "Three of his teachers have said he was enrolled as a Muslim." Although Siddiqui cautions that "With the school records missing, eaten by bugs, one has to rely on people's shifting memories," he cites only one retired teacher, Tine Hahiyari, retracting her earlier certainty about Obama's being registered as a Muslim.

Barack Obama's public school in Jakarta.
Koran class: In his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, Obama relates how he got into trouble for making faces during Koranic studies, thereby revealing he was a Muslim, for Indonesian students in his day attended religious classes according to their faith. Indeed, Obama still retains knowledge from that class: Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, reports that Obama "recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them [to Kristof] with a first-rate accent."

Mosque attendance: Obama's half-sister recalled that the family attended the mosque "for big communal events." Watson learned from childhood friends that "Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque." Barker found that "Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers." One Indonesia friend, Zulfin Adi, states that Obama "was Muslim. He went to the mosque. I remember him wearing a sarong" (a garment associated with Muslims).

Piety: Obama himself says that while living in Indonesia, a Muslim country, he "didn't practice [Islam]," implicitly acknowledging a Muslim identity. Indonesians differ in their memories of him. One, Rony Amir, describes Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."

Obama's having been born and raised a Muslim and having left the faith to become a Christian make him neither more nor less qualified to become president of the United States. But if he was born and raised a Muslim and is now hiding that fact, this points to a major deceit, a fundamental misrepresentation about himself that has profound implications about his character and his suitability as president.

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THE STORY OF OBAMA'S MOTHER

Each of us lives a life of contradictory truths. We are not one thing or another. Barack Obama's mother was at least a dozen things. S. Ann Soetoro was a teen mother who later got a Ph.D. in anthropology; a white woman from the Midwest who was more comfortable in Indonesia; a natural-born mother obsessed with her work; a romantic pragmatist, if such a thing is possible.
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"When I think about my mother," Obama told me recently, "I think that there was a certain combination of being very grounded in who she was, what she believed in. But also a certain recklessness. I think she was always searching for something. She wasn't comfortable seeing her life confined to a certain box."

Obama's mother was a dreamer. She made risky bets that paid off only some of the time, choices that her children had to live with. She fell in love—twice—with fellow students from distant countries she knew nothing about. Both marriages failed, and she leaned on her parents and friends to help raise her two children.

"She cried a lot," says her daughter Maya Soetoro-Ng, "if she saw animals being treated cruelly or children in the news or a sad movie—or if she felt like she wasn't being understood in a conversation." And yet she was fearless, says Soetoro-Ng. "She was very capable. She went out on the back of a motorcycle and did rigorous fieldwork. Her research was responsible and penetrating. She saw the heart of a problem, and she knew whom to hold accountable."

Today Obama is partly a product of what his mother was not. Whereas she swept her children off to unfamiliar lands and even lived apart from her son when he was a teenager, Obama has tried to ground his children in the Midwest. "We've created stability for our kids in a way that my mom didn't do for us," he says. "My choosing to put down roots in Chicago and marry a woman who is very rooted in one place probably indicates a desire for stability that maybe I was missing."

Ironically, the person who mattered most in Obama's life is the one we know the least about—maybe because being partly African in America is still seen as being simply black and color is still a preoccupation above almost all else. There is not enough room in the conversation for the rest of a man's story.

But Obama is his mother's son. In his wide-open rhetoric about what can be instead of what was, you see a hint of his mother's credulity. When Obama gets donations from people who have never believed in politics before, they're responding to his ability—passed down from his mother—to make a powerful argument (that happens to be very liberal) without using a trace of ideology. On a good day, when he figures out how to move a crowd of thousands of people very different from himself, it has something to do with having had a parent who gazed at different cultures the way other people study gems.

It turns out that Obama's nascent career peddling hope is a family business. He inherited it. And while it is true that he has not been profoundly tested, he was raised by someone who was.

In most elections, the deceased mother of a candidate in the primaries is not the subject of a magazine profile. But Ann Soetoro was not like most mothers


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OBAMA PROFLIE

Barack Obama
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Barack Obama
Barack Obama
President-elect of the United States
Taking office
January 20, 2009
Vice President Joe Biden (elect)
Succeeding George W. Bush
Junior Senator
from Illinois
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 4, 2005
Serving with Dick Durbin
Preceded by Peter Fitzgerald
Member of the Illinois Senate
from the 13th district
In office
January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004
Preceded by Alice Palmer
Succeeded by Kwame Raoul
Born August 4, 1961 (1961-08-04) (age 47)
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
Birth name Barack Hussein Obama II
Political party Democratic Party
Spouse Michelle Obama (m. 1992)
Children Malia Ann (b. 1998)
Sasha (b. 2001)
Residence Kenwood, Chicago, Illinois
Alma mater Columbia University
Harvard Law School
Profession Attorney
Politician
Religion United Church of Christ
Signature Barack Obama's signature
Website Office of the President-Elect
More detailed articles about Barack Obama
————————————
Early life and career · (Family · Memoir)
Illinois Senate career
U.S. Senate career
Presidential primaries · Obama–Biden 2008
Policy positions · Public image

Barack Hussein Obama II (pronounced /bəˈrɑːk hʊˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the President-elect of the United States and the junior United States Senator from Illinois. Obama is the first African American to be elected President of the United States.

He is a graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003, won a primary victory in March 2004, and was elected to the Senate in November 2004. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel.

On February 10, 2007, he announced his candidacy for President of the United States, and on June 3, 2008, he was named the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party after a 17-month-long primary campaign. He became the President-elect after defeating Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the general election on November 4, 2008, and is due to be sworn in as President of the United States on January 20, 2009. On November 13, Obama announced his resignation from the U.S. Senate effective November 16, 2008.[1]
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OBAMA VS MCCAIN

McCain vs. Obama: What to Expect

By John C. Fortier Friday, June 6, 2008

Filed under: Government & Politics
Each candidate has at least one major weakness that could conceivably sway the outcome in November.

Now that the Obama-McCain race is on, it is not hard to find examples of Democratic and Republican triumphalism. McCain can’t win, say Democrats: the Republican brand is shot; McCain would represent a third term for George W. Bush; and he would be the oldest president to assume the office. Obama can’t win, say Republicans: he stumbled to the finish line, losing many primaries down the stretch; the Clinton-Obama race has divided Democrats; and he can’t win white working class and Hispanic voters.

Both sides make a persuasive case, and that is why it is likely to be a close race in the fall.


Republicans who have long complained about John McCain’s apostasies should be jumping for joy that he is their nominee. Yes, it is true that McCain has made a career of poking the Republican establishment in the eye, while working with Democrats on issues such as campaign finance reform and global warming. It is also true that McCain ran to Bush’s left in the 2000 GOP primary campaign. For these reasons, many voters perceive McCain as more moderate than your average Republican—and closer to the political center than Barack Obama, as a recent Pew poll showed. Because of his longstanding status as a maverick, McCain is very difficult to label as a “Bush clone” or a “Washington insider.” That will undoubtedly help him in November.



But will McCain’s independent streak be enough to offset the massive unpopularity of the Republican brand? When asked whether they want a Republican or a Democrat for president (with no names attached), Americans favor Democrats by 10 or 12 percentage points. By similar margins, they favor keeping Democrats in control of Congress. Eighty percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. It’s been many years since Democrats boasted such a large advantage in party identification. The Iraq war is still broadly unpopular. And no matter who wins the presidential race, Republicans are likely to see significant losses in the House and the Senate. One simple way of analyzing the 2008 election is to consider if McCain’s moderation can overcome voter distaste for Republicans.



Will McCain’s independent streak be enough to offset the massive unpopularity of the Republican brand?

But let’s not forget Obama. He is one of the most impressive, yet also enigmatic, figures in recent political history. He will bring great strengths to the election, especially in his appeal to young, upscale, educated, independent, and African-American voters, and he may bring these voters to the polls in great numbers. He is a candidate who stands for “change” in a year when voters are disgusted with the status quo. He has generated enormous enthusiasm for his campaign, which can be seen in voter turnout, the size of his political rallies, and the tremendous amount of money he has raised, mostly from small donations. Obama is certain to outspend John McCain; the only question is by how much.



But the Clinton-Obama race also revealed potential difficulties for Obama. Clinton’s strength among Hispanic and white working-class voters was also Obama’s weakness. In late contests, when Obama seemed the likely nominee, Clinton’s white working-class supporters turned out and voted for her in high numbers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Some of that vote can be attributed to racial attitudes. But much of Obama’s trouble with the white working class reflects a deeper problem that other Democratic presidential candidates have faced. Bill Clinton had a special appeal to these voters, which explains why he could win states in parts of the South and the Midwest. John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, and to some extent Al Gore did not. While Democrats have long argued that the white working class should vote Democratic for economic reasons, Republicans have tended to win this vote on social, moral, and patriotism issues.



If it does come down to a close election as we have seen in 2000 and 2004, then the key “Rust Belt” and Midwestern states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Missouri will loom large, and white working-class voters are well represented in these states. Of course, if Obama’s appeal is so broad that he wins the national popular vote by 3 points or more, then he’ll carry enough states to win the election easily. But if it is closer than that, Obama’s weakness with white working-class voters may be his undoing.



The bottom line is that there is a push and pull in both directions. The polls today show that Obama and McCain are essentially tied. June polls are not a reliable predictor of November success (Dukakis was up by double digits over George H.W. Bush at this time in 1988). But they suggest that, at least for now, the combination of McCain’s maverick image and Obama’s weaknesses has helped the Arizona senator to defy the electorate’s anti-Republican mood.

John C. Fortier is a research fellow at the The American Enterprise Institute.
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