Indonesia: an Islamic force for peace and progress

It's emerging as a would-be peacemaker in the Middle East.

from the June 13, 2007 edition

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In a Foreign Affairs article earlier this year, he wrote, "When moderate Muslim governments, such as those in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Persian Gulf states, Egypt, and Jordan, feel comfortable associating themselves openly with a multilateral coalition against Islamic terrorism, the tide of battle will turn against the extremists."

Non-Arab Indonesia has long practiced a more moderate brand of Islam than exists in such Arab lands as Syria and the Islamic theocracy of Iran. It is also more familiar with democracy. President Sukarno, who led Indonesia to independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1949, was deposed after 20 years of mismanagement, and the military installed as president a general of the Army, Suharto. He, too, proved a disappointment and was ultimately deposed, but in the past seven years Indonesians have enjoyed democratically elected leadership.

The current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is also a former military man, but he won election fairly. The military is still an influential participant in Indonesia's mushiwara way of decisionmaking, but both President Yudhoyono and many of the Army's generals have cordial relations with the US military establishment and familiarity with democratic traditions through visits and training in the US.

While Yudhoyono favors a more prominent role for Indonesia in attempting to solve some of the problems of the Islamic world, he must move with some circumspection because his country is challenged by some of its own jihadist extremists. They have mounted acts of terrorism, and some of the leaders have been jailed. But the extremists are a minority, and the government seems to have the situation contained. However, Indonesia's moderate form of Islam and its successful embrace of democracy make it anathema to the international jihadist movement and therefore a potential target.

Indonesia's history has often been one of adversity: colonization by the Dutch, World War II occupation by the Japanese, Sukarno's flirtation with communism, Suharto's regime of autocratic corruption, and poverty for the masses for many years because its natural resources were despoiled and misused.

Now its people are enjoying a period of relative peace and harmony. Perhaps this huge Islamic nation's current example of stability and moderation, perhaps even its mushiwara way of solving problems – which may seem quaint to some – may suggest the path to progress for some of the world's more angry and unstable areas.

• John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Indonesia as a foreign correspondent in the 1960s. His book, published in the US as "Indonesian Upheaval" and in Britain and Australia as "The End of Sukarno," was recently republished.

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