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Young Obama Wanted to Be Like Sukarno, Says Transgender Nanny

March 13, 2012

President Obama harbored a childhood dream to follow in the footsteps of Indonesian "Lifetime President" Sukarno, according to an interview Sunday with Obama’s childhood transgender Indonesian nanny. According to France24.com:

A transgender Indonesian man who shot to fame after it emerged he had worked as Barack Obama's nanny in the late 1960s wants nothing from "little Barry" but to meet him again some day.

The transgendered individual, named Turdi, nannied Obama when the future president and his mother and Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro lived in a suburb of Jakarta in the 1960s. Turdi subsequently spent time as a sex worker and now lives in the slums. Obama did not contact Turdi when he visited Jakarta in 2010 and 2011.

Nevertheless, Turdi has fond memories of Obama: "Once he pointed to a picture of (Indonesian) President Sukarno and said 'I hope I will grow up to become someone like him.' I am proud that his wish came true."

According to Encyclopedia Britannica:

Sukarno’s personal and political excesses, as epitomized eventually by his neo-Marxist, crypto-communist ideology and his infamous cabinet of 100 corrupt and cynical ministers, induced a continuous state of national crisis. …

Until 1965, Sukarno was still able to stir the Indonesian masses to near-hysterical belligerency. Millions of Indonesians sang and shouted his slogans and acclaimed Sukarno as "Great Leader of the Revolution," "Lifetime President" (his official title), and oracle and warrior of the Nefo—his acronym for the "New Emerging Forces"—in violent conflict with Nekolim—the neocolonialism, capitalism, and imperialism of the "doomed" Western powers.