Jakarta 1 Jul (ANA) - Barack Obama issued a plea for liberal solutions to the problems caused by globalisation, warning that sectarian politics could lead to chaos or violence, in a speech in Indonesia on Saturday. The former US president warned that some countries had adopted “an aggressive kind of nationalism” and “increased resentment of minority groups” in an intervention that could be seen a commentary on the US as well as Indonesia.

“It’s been clear for a while that the world is at a crossroads. At an inflection point,” Obama said, telling a Jakarta crowd stories of how much the capital had improved since he lived there as a child. But he said that increased prosperity had been accompanied by new global problems, adding that as the world confronts issues ranging from inequality to terrorism, some countries – both developed and less developed – had adopted a more aggressive and isolationist stance. “If we don’t stand up for tolerance and moderation and respect for others, if we begin to doubt ourselves and all that we have accomplished, then much of the progress that we have made will not continue,” he said. “What we will see is more and more people arguing against democracy, we will see more and more people who are looking to restrict freedom of the press, and we’ll see more intolerance, more tribal divisions, more ethnic divisions, and religious divisions and more violence.” Obama was born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, but after she remarried an Indonesian he moved to Jakarta in 1967 at age six, and stayed for four years. The 44th US president made sure the crowd knew he could still speak some Indonesian. He also spoke in direct support of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, whose own political movement has recently been rocked by the rise of intolerance in the world’s fourth most-populous country. Widodo’s ally, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent widely known as Ahok was recently jailed while serving his term as Jakarta governor for making comments that were allegedly blasphemous to the Islamic faith. Islamist groups had organised mass rallies to demand his imprisonment, and his sentence shocked his many liberal supporters around the country, leading analysts to question whether the stability of Indonesia’s plural democracy might be under threat from racial or religious tensions. The former US president called Widodo “a man of quiet but firm integrity and someone who sincerely wants to do what’s right for all Indonesians,” and then made comments which a delighted crowd interpreted to be critical of how Ahok had been treated. “My stepfather...was raised a Muslim but he respected Hindus and he respected Buddhists and he respected Christians,” he said, adding: “If you are strong in your own faith then you should not be worried about someone else’s faith.” The line earned raucous applause. Obama never mentioned Donald Trump by name, but he chose a range of topics which could be seen as applicable to politics in both Indonesia and the United States, including fake news powered by social media, resentment, attacks on institutions, and ignorance of other peoples.(ANA)

FA/ANA/1 July 2017-----