APRIL 30 — A greater friendship. Ushering in a new era. 

Those were among the front page headlines as Barack Obama ended his “milestone” visit to Malaysia.  Going by the coverage over the weekend, his visit was the best thing to have happened to Malaysia since nasi lemak.

But one question on Twitter caught my eye: “Other than ‘greater cooperation’ what actually happened in the Obama visit?”

Let’s count the ways. He launched MaGIC — the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre-type of MaGIC, not the Hogwarts variety — and he spoke to some young people at the YSEALI (Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative) event.

Speaking of which, the questions thrown by our bright young leaders were relatively tame, based on the transcript of the event released by the White House. Where are the hot current issues that are just burning for answers from arguably the world’s most powerful man?

In any case Obama also met various people, spoke to them and lent them his listening ear, although not Anwar Ibrahim. And I’m sure he ate some local food, or at least sampled them.

That’s pretty much it. Cue disappointment that Obama is not publicly rebuking Putrajaya over various outstanding national issues, although with the remarks on equal opportunities for non-Muslims he came close.

“The world has gotten smaller and no country is going to succeed if part of its population is put on the sidelines because they’re discriminated against,” said Obama at the YSEALI event. “Malaysia won’t succeed if non-Muslims don’t have the opportunity.”

Of course our national word “perception” has now surfaced again in response, with our Home Affairs Minister Zahid Hamidi saying that the inequalities in Malaysia are just a matter of perception. But I digress.

So does the visit sound like a PR exercise now? In a way it does. Although of course this does not take away the momentousness of the occasion — a state visit by the sitting president of the United States of America doesn’t happen very often and all that.

Lest we forget, the last time a sitting US president came over to Malaysia was way back in 1966 when Lyndon Johnson dropped by. Since then the closest thing we’ve had was Al Gore’s visit in November 1998 when he was vice president.

And Al Gore, during his visit, criticised the government for suppressing the reformasi rallies then.

“And so, among nations suffering economic crises, we continue to hear calls for democracy and reform in many languages — people’s power, doi moi, reformasi,’’ Al Gore was quoted as saying, referring to the reform slogans in the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. ‘‘We hear them today — right here, right now — among the brave people of Malaysia.’’

Maybe Al Gore’s visit 16 years ago set a precedent that put in place certain expectations for Obama’s visit last weekend. Expectations of a saviour, of a knight in shining armour lending long-awaited help to those Malaysians standing across the battle lines from Umno-led Putrajaya.

Of course that would be expecting too much out of the whole thing. Ultimately he was just visiting. Obama can’t fix our problems, nor should he be expected to.

He came to mend ties, to work on Malaysia’s shifting sentiments since Al Gore’s visit — from suspicion to cautious welcome — and ultimately reach out to this small nation of nearly 30 million citizens, called the “swing state” in Southeast Asia by White House officials in reaching out to the rest of the region.

As for our domestic matters, ultimately it’s our country, our problems, our “perceptions.”

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.