Obama in Indonesia - well done, well received

James Fallows is astute and alert as usual on the subject of presidential rhetoric.  On of his readers makes this observation about President Obama's trip to Indonesia - a place he knew as a child.  A largely Muslim nation, it is the 4th largest in the world. 
More on Obama in Indonesia - James Fallows - International - The Atlantic

What a performance this was. I can't remember a President making a personal connection with a foreign audience so naturally and with so much grace. The substance of the speech was remarkably on point and subtly conscious of the Indonesian political context (see, for example, the section beginning around minute 16). The personal touches could have come from no other American politician; they were all Obama. I was much more impressed by this speech than I have been by many Obama has made to domestic audiences that received high praise when they were made. If I can just make one brief point about Obama's pronunciation skills. This is something that I've found extraordinarily impressive about the man. I'm fairly certain that he's the only American-born politician who insists on pronouncing Pakistan and Taliban properly (Taleeb-awn) and he manages to do it in a way that doesn't sound affected.

He also pronounces Sonia Sotomayor's name properly, but in the same way as he did "Indonesia" in the speech. He says it properly the first time, and then, knowing that English doesn't flow properly with some foreign languages, he reverts back to the anglicized version for the remainder of the speech.

It's almost a microcosm of him (respectful, thoughtful and then quickly pragmatic),etc.

You can hear the "local" pronunciation of Indonesia, with an obviously different "e" sound and a subtly different "s" sound, ten seconds into Obama's Jakarta speech, and then the anglicized versions thereafter. 



Excerpt from Obama's Jakarta speech:


These are the issues that really matter in our daily lives.  Development, after all, is not simply about growth rates and numbers on a balance sheet.  It’s about whether a child can learn the skills they need to make it in a changing world.  It’s about whether a good idea is allowed to grow into a business, and not suffocated by corruption.  It’s about whether those forces that have transformed the Jakarta I once knew -- technology and trade and the flow of people and goods -- can translate into a better life for all Indonesians, for all human beings, a life marked by dignity and opportunity.
 
Now, this kind of development is inseparable from the role of democracy.
     
Today, we sometimes hear that democracy stands in the way of economic progress.  This is not a new argument.  Particularly in times of change and economic uncertainty, some will say that it is easier to take a shortcut to development by trading away the right of human beings for the power of the state.  But that’s not what I saw on my trip to India, and that is not what I see here in Indonesia.  Your achievements demonstrate that democracy and development reinforce one another. 
 
Like any democracy, you have known setbacks along the way.  America is no different.  Our own Constitution spoke of the effort to forge a “more perfect union,” and that is a journey that we’ve traveled ever since.  We’ve endured civil war and we struggled to extend equal rights to all of our citizens.  But it is precisely this effort that has allowed us to become stronger and more prosperous, while also becoming a more just and a more free society.
 
Like other countries that emerged from colonial rule in the last century, Indonesia struggled and sacrificed for the right to determine your destiny.  That is what Heroes Day is all about -- an Indonesia that belongs to Indonesians.  But you also ultimately decided that freedom cannot mean replacing the strong hand of a colonizer with a strongman of your own