Hello, Mr. New President
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. - excerpt from Obama’s inaugural speech, 20 January 2009
The year 2008 has certainly been a memorable year in the history of international politics and especially for the people of America. For the very first time since 1776, a black American president was elected through significant electoral votes (365:173); his name is Barack Obama. The election was held in November 4, 2008 and yesterday, 20 January 2008, the new 44th president of USA, took his presidential oath.
Mr. Obama is certainly a phenomenon. His inauguration has attracted massive attention. It has been reported that over 1 million people were attending it from National Mall, Washington D.C (What a crowd!). While in cyber world, the streaming stats from CNN.com and MSNBC.com showed very impressive numbers.
On that day, MSNBC.com had delivered over 9 million live streams and CNN.com had generated more than 136 million page views by mid-afternoon. Facebook, which partnered with CNN.com to enable viewers to comment on events using their status tool, tracked an average of 4,000 updates per minute during the live Webcast. In fact, at the very minute Obama began his speech, Facebook recorded 8,500 updates.
In short, Obama’s inauguration has produced the biggest day in the history of online video. Although his inaugural speech, well, gotta say I found it a little bit cliche and rhetoric *sorry* But still, he looked awesome when he delivered it in such confidence and without text-reading.
As for Indonesian people, well, some of us feel ‘close’ to Obama because his step-father, Lolo Oetoro, is an Indonesian and he did spend a few years of elementary school in SD Menteng, Jakarta (his then-friends called him Barry). Add this to the fact that he is black and thus different from the typical American presidents before, providing us the hope for a real change. So yeah, for sure, most Indonesians prefer him over John McCain to be the new president of USA.
Talking about Obama’s dark skin and slim figure, there’s an Indonesian photographer who has striking resemblance with him. Take a look at Ilham Anas‘ picture below; ain’t he looks alike the real Obama! Along with Obama’s soaring popularity, Anas is also getting more attention as he once posed in a local magazine, wearing suit and American flag to illustrate Obama’s election victory last November.
