This AP story was kindly forwarded to me by Internet Haganah; I can't find it anywhere on the web at this moment. It's a bit of good news in the ongoing persecution of the Catholic school in Tangerang -- which is part of the ongoing jihad against Christians in Indonesia.
Indonesian officials on Monday knocked down a brick wall erected by a hardline Islamic group to block access to a Catholic school it accused of converting local Muslims, police and school officials said.The Sang Timur Catholic school to the west of Jakarta was closed in early October when the Muslim group built the two-meter-high (seven-foot-high) wall in front of its gates.
Local government workers demolished the wall hours before former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who is a well-known interfaith activist, arrived to discuss the issue with local people.
"The former president said we need to be tolerant of each other," said Derikson Turnip, a priest at the school. "We should not resort to violence because of our differences."
"Derikson Turnip" I just love than name. You couldn't invent a name like that, it's great. This article is worth distributing just to promote this guy. :-)
REported in The Jakarta Post:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20041026.A02&irec=5.
Scroll down to Today's Headlines.
A TENTH CENTURY HOLY WAR IN CENTRAL JAVA: IS IT POSSIBLE THAT ISLAM ENTERED WHAT IS NOW INDONESIA THIS WAY??
No one has ever explained the collapse of Java's great Hindu-Buddhist Kingdoms which mysteriously expired in the late 900's. The beautiful stone temples also stopped being built sometime around 1000 AD.
Conicidentally, Islam entered the Malay Archipelago shortly thereafter. In fact, there are reports of Arabs in the courts of the Mojopahit Empire in East Java around the year 1300 AD. How strange that Arabs just showed up at this juncture in the island's history at such a distance from the remainder of the Islamic Empire.
Here's a challenge for Southeast Asian historians: Could the expiration of Central Java's Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms and the mysteriously depopulation of Central Java have been the result of an Arab-led jihad operation from the Middle East? Since there is little hard evidence, perhaps the huge and devastating eruption of the Merapi volcano in Central Java believed to have occurred in 1006 AD eliminated any evidence that might have existed documenting the occurrence of a holy war in Java.
Maybe this would be worth investigating. Something feels odd about accounts of Java's past 1000 years of history.