GroundTruth

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Still on the road in Asia searching for correspondents for Global News Enterprises.

I just traveled from Haoni , Vietnam to Jakarta, Indonesia – two cities that provide formative chapters in the lives of both presidential candidates.

For Sen. John McCain, Hanoi is where he spent five years as a prisoner of war. For Sen. Barack Obama, Jakarta is where he lived briefly as a child where he attended a public school in the heart of the Muslim country’s capital.

There’s no doubt that McCain’s path to politics – his world view — was forged out of his service and his experience in the “Hanoi Hilton,” as the prison camp was called. I wrote last week about the waters of the lake in Hanoi from which McCain, then a young bomber pilot, was plucked after his plane was shot down during an air strike on the energy plant in Hanoi.. I wrote about the small statue that commemorates the spot where Vietnamese citizens pulled him ashore and turned him over to the Vietcong leadership that held him in a prisoner of war camp. For five years. He would return as a Senator and help open ties between the US and the government that was once the enemy in the war in which he fought.

Obama lived from 1967 to 1971 in Jakarta as a child with his mother and stepfather, who was Muslim and Indonesian. For two of those years, Obama attended a small public elementary school in Menteng, an affluent neighborhood in Indonesia’s crowded, teeming capital. . The small public school is also part of the path of Obama’s journey — his world view — that led him into politics and what he hopes to achieve in reaching out to the world if he is elected president.

(It should be noted that Obama also attended a Catholic school for two of those years, according to the Obama campaign website.)

I stopped by the public school Obama attended to check it out after I landed in Jakarta.

Public School 01, as it is officially called, has a pleasant atmosphere with its red tile roof and green stucco walls. It is clearly well maintained and up-scale and I was told by locals it was one of the more desirable public schools in the city. I can tell you for sure it is not a “madrassa,” or religious school, as the unhinged hosts who rant on conservative talk radio persistently maintain.

When I visited the school, the morning prayer was just coming to an end and the chanting was carried on a warm breeze from the nearby minarets of the neighborhood mosques.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. There are 230 million Indonesians and close to 90 percent are Muslim. It is a place where moderate Islam has flourished and where it is woven into the fabric of every aspect of life in this emerging democracy.

A father and son were returning from the mosque. Both had prayer rugs slung over the shoulder as they entered the gate of their home right next to the school. The father’s name is Tungal. He’s a 41 year old food distributor to small groceries.

“I think Obama will be a good president because of his background, the fact that he spent some time here means he understands who we are,” Tungal said, speaking through an interpreter.

“He will help America have a closer relationship with Muslims and with Islam. And I think that is important,” added Tungal.

I agree with Tungal.

Just as McCain’s experience in Vietnam defined him as a man, and confirmed his love for his country, Obama’s experience in Indonesia is also formative. Obama is defined by his international upbringing with a father from Kenya and a stepfather who was Indonesian. It is part of what gives him an ability to understand a complex world.

And just as McCain forged his experience in Vietnam into statesmanship as a US Senator and helped open relations between the US and Vietnam, it is very possible Obama will use his experience as the son of a Kenyan man who was born Muslim and a stepfather who was a practicing Muslim to forge a new relationship between the US and the Muslim world. Sadly, too many of the more than 1 billion Muslims worldwide have increasingly come to see America as a potential enemy and a military aggressor. I believe Obama has a uniqe opportunity to change the tone of the dialogue between the two faiths. I believe he has a chance to constructively challenge the Muslim world, to appeal to its moderates – who are the vast majority of the adherents of the faith – to condemn the blasphemy of Islamic extremists who have carried out terrorism in the name of the religion.

And so this was off the beaten path for me on this trip. I am here to establish bureaus and to hire correspondents. But this completely unplanned and fascinating part of my journey offered a chance to ponder the two candidates in light of these two places that are such a big part of who they are. What is certain is that the next president will have an extraordinary challenge before them to reengage with the world after eight years of a presidency that seemed to go out of its way to alienate the world.

By just about every measure, the reputation of the US has suffered greatly and the next president will have a daunting challenge to repair the damage that’s been done. It is the good fortune of all American voters to have two candidates who both have these personal touchstones to the wider world. For which ever one of them becomes president, their time in the wider world will serve them — as well as America and thew world — well in doing their job.