Looking out from Muslim Indonesia

I've had plenty of posts about the weirdness of muslims in Indonesia.

It is so interesting to analyze the local thinking with an eye on judging the
feasibility of every being able to successfully communicate.

Here we
find that Islam is a main pillar of democracy, and that the United States and
allies should not hurt the feelings of Islamic communities… because hurt
feelings promote radicalism.

And the radicals? They are mainly the
consequence of the radical’s efforts to battle for morality.. the morality
opposed to pornography and gambling.

So are these the things on Western
minds? Is this how we see Islamic radicals? No.

Can the two
civilization’s view of the world hope to communicate? Only by a miracle wrought
by God.

link

"Islam has been functioning as the main pillar of democracy in Indonesia," the chairman of Indonesia`s second largest Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah, Dr Din Syamsuddin, said in a lecture at Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, earlier this week.

Din who is also a professor of political sciences at the Jakarta state Islamic Univeristy, said the values of democracy were inherent with Islamic teachings which put emphasis on consensus.

Between Islam and democracy, there was a compatibility in which Islam was able to give more contribution to the development of democracy with ethics and moral values.

In a question and answer session, many questions were more focussed on the future of democracy in Indonesia in light of the existence of radical groups which fail to respect pluralism and multiculturism.

Din in his ansers did not deny that the radical groups were there. But he said their radicalism was more defined in the context of enhancing morality. They emerged as a consequence of poor law enforcement against various forms of immorality such as gambling and pornography.

The most important thing , Din further said, was that the United State as the superpower and its allies should not carry out an approach that may hurt the feelings of the Islamic community, thus prompting radicalism.

Right... can't we all just learn to "get along"?