Refleksi : Makin jelas gambar petinggi rezim SBY, Apakah pandangan politik SBY berbeda dengan menteri Taifull?
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/indonesian-minister-blames-michelle-obama-for-handshake/?ref=asia November 9, 2010, 1:26 pm Indonesian Minister Blames Michelle Obama for Handshake By ROBERT MACKEY Immediately after a ceremony on Tuesday welcoming President Obama to Indonesia, the country's conservative Muslim information minister took to Twitter to argue that America's first lady, Michelle Obama, was entirely to blame for a televised handshake between the two that has left him open to charges of hypocrisy. As The Associated Press reports, the vast majority of Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam, but the minister, Tifatul Sembiring, "has flaunted his piety, making a point of avoiding contact with women who are not related to him." After footage broadcast on Indonesian television clearly showed Mr. Sembiring reaching out to clasp the first lady's hand after they were introduced by Mr. Obama, a female journalist whose hand the minister has refused to shake poked fun at him on Twitter. Stung, Mr. Sembiring claimed on his Twitter feed that Mrs. Obama had made it impossible for him to avoid touching her hand, writing: "I tried to prevent [being touched] with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me [so] we touched." That led Uni Lubis, a woman who is news editor of Indonesia's ANTV, to suggest that perhaps a slow-motion video analysis of the handshake was needed, to reveal some hesitation not visible to the naked eye. Mr. Sembiring has a local reputation of something of a moral scold and religious extremist. Sounding the alarm against locally produced pornography last year, the minister asserted that natural disasters, like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, were divine retribution visited on Indonesians as a result of their immorality. This is not the first time Mr. Sembiring's musings on Twitter have been called into question. Earlier this year, he used his account to post a joke about AIDS and a quote from Adolf Hitler. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
