The Obama from Java
The Guardian: Like a lot of people in the autumn of 2012, I watched the TV debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It was the last big performance in that interminable US presidential election campaign.
Every now and then, as Obama did verbal battle with his adversary, I noticed something I didn’t expect to see. It was a gesture he made with his hand: for emphasis, he would point at Romney with his thumb. I wasn’t the only one to have seen this. In a short piece on the BBC website, a reporter wrote:
“Featured in the three presidential debates were Romney, Obama, and Obama’s thumb. At the debates, the president frequently jabbed his hand, with his thumb resting atop a loosely curled fist, to emphasise a point. The gesture – which might appear unnatural in normal communication – was probably coached into Obama to make him appear more forceful … And pointing the index finger is simply seen as rude and too aggressive.”
But I’d seen this gesture before, and Obama hadn’t learnt it from a debating coach. Whether consciously or not, he was revealing his boyhood in the Indonesian island of Java, where it is considered impolite to point with your index finger. Seeing Obama point with his thumb in the debates confirmed something I had suspected for some time. Whatever else he might be, Obama is America’s first Javanese president.
Categories: Asia, Indonesia, Uncategorized