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Barack Obama and his primary school classmates in this class photo from the 1970s. Some of President Barack Obama’s former classmates were invited to the home of US Ambassador Cameron Hume a day before Obama’s inauguration in 2009. (Photo courtesy Widiyanto)

11/03/2008 / INDONESIA/ USA
"Obama never studied in an Islamic madrassa"

Photo of Obama's class (he's circled in yellow) at the Besuki Menteng 01 School, Jakarta 1970.

Obama’s former classmates took this photo in front of their old primary school on 1 March 2008

Rully Dasaad was a classmate of Obama in 1970 in Jakarta:

"Barack Obama, "Barry" as we called him, was always a good pupil. Always in a good mood, always smiling. He made a big effort to adapt and make friends; being different was no problem. At that time, the scout captain named Barry leader of group A. I was in that group. It was him who gave the order to stand to attention or at ease. At school we all spoke in Indonesian, and he learnt how to speak it too. He knows our language. "He spent two years at the Catholic school and so two years with us. The rumours about him attending an « Islamic Madrassa » are nothing but lies. It's just because his step-father and father are Muslim.At that time there was no mini-mosque like now [there's a small mosque inside the school now].

This school was a normal public school. There were Chinese Buddhist pupils, Hindus from Bali, Christians and Muslims. Everyone was mixed up. It was not a school reserved for Muslims, not at all. Most children from well-off families came to study at the school. Suharto's young children also went there."

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Indonesia 1969: Rully Dasaad

After Barack's parents split up, he moved with his mother and Indonesian stepfather to Jakarta, aged seven, where he befriended classmate Dasaad - now a commercial photographer - at Basuki Primary School.

Quotes by Rully Dasaad

"When the teacher introduced 'Barry Soetoro' [Obama went by his stepfather's name at the time] to the class, he was very exotic. He was the only non-Indonesian; he was taller than all of us and chubby. He was accompanied by his white mum and his Indonesian stepfather, who was wearing a military outfit, and I remember thinking, that's strange, he looks half black, half white - maybe this is what a boy from Hawaii looks like."
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"He and his mum had been living in Indonesia since 1967. She worked for USAID, helping Indonesian women in the countryside to live in a more Western fashion. For the first two months, Barry was still adjusting. We had a singing class once a week and he wouldn't sing, probably because he was shy and worried that he might sing a word wrong. But after three months, he spoke Indonesian. He became one of us."
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"At the time, my father and President Sukarno were the only people in the country with Cadillacs, and both were presents from my grandpa, who was the richest man in Indonesia."
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"We came back from the summer vacation for fifth grade and Barry wasn't there. The teacher said he'd gone back to Hawaii. Our small gang was split up."

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