US first lady dons headscarf on Indonesian mosque visit

Wearing a beige headscarf adorned with gold beads and a flowing chartreuse trouser suit, the first lady toured Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque, Southeast Asia's largest, while on a short state visit to the world's most populous Muslim country. US President Barack Obama had been expected to visit another major religious site during his Asian tour, the Sikh Golden Temple in India, but media reports said the visit was

canceled after aides balked at the idea of the president wearing a scarf or skullcap required at the site.

US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday much more needs to be done to repair frayed US relations with the Muslim world in an acknowledgement of the difficulties in eradicating “years of mistrust.” In a speech highlighting a nostalgic visit to Indonesia, where he spent four years as a young boy, Obama spoke fondly of his formative years in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

“Indonesia is a part of me,” said Obama, who left around 10:45 a.m. [3:45 a.m. British time] for the G-20 summit in South Korea, the next stop on a 10-day Asia tour. His speech was an update to a major address he gave 17 months ago in Cairo where he declared a “new beginning” in US-Muslim relations after the tensions over the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Bush government’s response to them. Since his Cairo address, irritants remain on both sides. Al-Qaeda still seeks to attack its Western enemies. Little progress has been made in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and US troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Confidence in Obama has dropped in many Muslim nations as a result.

“In the 17 months that have passed we have made some progress, but much more work remains to be done,” Obama said. Obama said “no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust” but he promised, “No matter what setbacks may come, the United States is committed to human progress. That is who we are. That is what we have done. That is what we will do.” On the Middle East specifically, Obama said the Israeli-Palestinian peace process faces “enormous obstacles” after he relaunched talks in September only to see the dialogue bogged down over disputes between the parties.

Barack Obama is a Christian but faces persistent sniping among some members of the US public that he is a Muslim and, the reports said, aides feared pictures of him wearing such headgear could fuel such rumors.

Obama, who is using the Indonesia visit as a platform to reach out to the wider Islamic world by praising Indonesia’s pluralism in a speech on Wednesday, pointed out that the city’s Catholic cathedral was opposite the mosque.

As the shoeless Obamas crossed the mosque’s wide courtyard, the president told reporters that the churchgoers used the mosque’s parking lot at Christmas and said that was “an example of the kind of cooperation” between religions in Indonesia.

Indonesia is officially secular, though nearly 90 percent of the population is Muslim and all citizens need to be registered as believers as one of six permitted religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Atheism is not allowed. The Istiqlal Mosque, made from German steel and Javanese marble with a single soaring minaret in the form of a candle, was built by a Christian architect and can hold over 100,000 worshipers.

Michelle Obama, rated as the world’s most powerful woman by Forbes magazine, was on her first visit to a country where her husband lived for four years as a child.

As part of the welcome ceremonies on Tuesday she shook hands with Indonesian Information Minister Sembiring, from the Islamic political party PKS, who has in the past not shaken hands with women and often opts for a prayer-like palm clasp instead. While relations between the sexes are generally open in Indonesia, the western state of Aceh has sharia law and police crack down on unmarried couples sitting together.

The issue underlines tensions the country is facing between its moderate Muslim majority and a more conservative Middle Eastern-influence form of Islam promoted by PKS and hard-line extremist groups.