There is also a strong Indonesian tradition of resolving disagreements through “musyawarah dan mufakat” (consultation and consensus). Of course, this tradition has not always prevented violence, most notoriously in the killings that followed the 1966 coup against President Sukarno. And ten years ago, during the financial crisis, violent anti-Chinese riots erupted again, causing many Chinese to flee the country.
Today, however, many of those Chinese have returned. In a remarkable development, Chinese language and culture, which had been suppressed for decades, is allowed free expression. By contrast, imagine Turkey, a more advanced member state of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, allowing free expression of Kurdish language and culture.
Indonesia’s record looks even more remarkable when compared to the United States. Americans explain their country’s democratic backsliding by pointing to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But Indonesia was attacked, too, with the bombing in Bali coming little more than a year later, on October 12, 2002. Despite this, Indonesia has consolidated its democracy. Indeed, in 2005 Freedom House declared that Indonesia had moved from “partly free” to “free”.
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11:17 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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