Having recently returned from a brief (four-day!) trip to Indonesia and Singapore, I’ve been reminded of the value of simply being in a location with eyes and ears open in order to gain insight into current events. While in Indonesia, some interesting communication- and terrorism-related news emerged.
Facebook has been gaining ground in Indonesia, and in [...]

File away another patently offensive remark by former Malaysian Prime Minister (1981-2003) Mahathir bin Mohamad, who once again spewed anti-semitic and anti-Western conspiratorial claptrap. In Beirut last week for the 7th annual Conference for Al Quds, an organization that opposes what they view as Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Mahathir let fly with his invective. He argued [...]

by Mark Woodward and Mariani Yahya*
Thai-Buddhist colonialism? That is a strange concept, but it is reality as far as the Malay-Muslims of the “Deep South” of Thailand are concerned.
Edward Said noted that the representation of political- and military-subject people as less than fully human is among the basic elements of the culture and ideology of [...]

by Chris Lundry
Dwarfed by the stories of the earthquake tragedy in Padang, yesterday Indonesian media picked up a sensational statement issued at the Jakarta police headquarters. According to police spokesman Nanan Sukarna, police investigators have discovered evidence that the corpse of Jemaah Islamiyah’s Noordin Top showed signs of anal trauma consistent with sodomy, leading to speculation that he [...]

The 17 September death of Noordin Top at the hands of Indonesia’s anti terror squad Densus 88 brought a sense of relief to many in Southeast Asia. Noordin was Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorist. Following the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta, a message attributed to him signaled a split from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and [...]

by Mark Woodward*
Over the last year it has become increasingly apparent to progressive Indonesian Muslim intellectuals and political leaders that there is a clear association between the spread of Wahhabi religious teachings and political extremism. In the weeks following the Ritz-Carlton and J. W. Marriott bombings in Jakarta, discourse about the dangers of Wahhabism has [...]

by Chris Lundry
Before last week’s bombings, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, completed a presidential election.  Similar to the 2004 election (which I monitored with the Carter Center), there was the requisite hand wringing in the Western media about the influence of Islamist parties such as the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, PKS) and the National Mandate [...]

by Steven R. Corman
The CSC has just released a new white paper entitled Israeli Nukes versus Palestinian Slingshots: David and Goliath in Indonesia by Ronald Lukens-Bull and Mark Woodward.  Both of them are currently visiting professors in Indonesia.  They report on how the local population of Muslims–many of whom are moderates who oppose more radical [...]

by Norman Vasu*
Here is a brief report on two recent Fatwas from Malaysia that are raising some eyebrows.  The first one was issued on October 23, 2008.  Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council released an edict banning “tomboys” in the Muslim-majority country. The mufti of Malaysian state of Perak, Harussani Idris Zakaria, maintained that the Council was [...]

by Mark Woodward*
(Yogykarta, October 2008) Accounts of the “War of Words” or the “Battle for the Soul of Islam” or whatever else one choose to call the ideological struggle between “radicals” and “moderates” in the Muslim world tend to focus on elite level intellectual discourse that is largely divorced from the daily realities of Muslim [...]