Joint India Indonesian Army Exercise Garud Shakti Concludes.

[Dayuhan]

But while certainly some Indonesians support AQ, the AQ message has largely fallen on deaf ears there. Unlike Muslim nations of the Middle East, whose quest for greater autonomy was largely held frozen through the Cold War, states like Indonesia were able to secure an independence largely free of such Western influence and chart their own path. The political message of AQ does not resonate among the Muslims of SEA as it does among Muslims of the greater Middle East. Not because of differences in Islam, but because of differences in the political landscape.

Indonesia had its share of issues with foreign influence during the Cold War.

Like many in the Middle East, Indonesians are willing to cheer and support AQ's fight against foreign intervention in Muslim lands. Also like many in the Middle East, they are quite willing to accept help from Islamist movements where their own local issues (traditionally involving sectarian conflict in Sulawesi et al). Also like many Muslims elsewhere, very few beyond a small core want anything to do with the idea of an Arab-ruled Calihate, or with local terrorism, or with the prospect of having an AQ-allied government.

he US need not fear the economic synergy of China, that is what President Obama was talking about as to the future importance of the region. Not that it is a rising threat for the military to contain, but rather that it is rising hub of economic power that the US needs to be fully plugged into.

Much of today's Sinophobia seems to me curiously unspecific... people seem convinced that we need to fear China but unsure of what they are afraid that the Chinese will do. I sometimes come away feeling that they simply feel bereft without someone to fear.

While Indonesia may be the largest Muslim nation, they are not the same as one would take Muslim nations to be.

To use a modern term, they are 'cool' and 'hep'.

They do not have the Islamic hangover.

I have an Indonesian Muslim relative and I also had a Muslim Indonesian maid when I was in Singapore!

If they were conservative as Muslims are said to be, then I was more conservative than them.

I would classify them as more hep and cool than us!

The Indonesians are in close defence relationship with India too!

One wouldn't want to stereotype, but in general SE Asian Muslims are much less socially conservative than those in South Asia and the Middle East, even in places where Islamic radicalism has a foothold. That of course varies widely with location: an Indonesian Muslim from Jakarta is likely to be a lot less conservative than one from a rural village.

There have been some efforts to impose a more conservative outlook, notably in Malaysia and Indonesia (such as the current proposal to ban skirts above the knee) but the fact that the clerics see the need to try to force such moves is in itself testimony to the reality that the culture does not demand them.