| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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Until after World War II, Islam was held in check in the Dutch East Indies, more or less, by the Dutch authorities. They were sensible enough to enlist the intelligent guidance, for a while, of a certain C. Snouck Hurgronje of the University of Leiden, who was possibly the greatest Orientalist since Ignaz Goldziher. While Hurgronje was not entirely unsympathetic to some Muslims who had been born into Islam and were struggling with it, and with its obvious effect on the exercise of mental freedom, including artistic expression, he was not fooled in the slightest about the doctrines of Islam. He never confused the inability to put into practical effect those doctrines at a time of maximum weakness vis-a-vis the Infidels with the discarding of those doctrines. And if the Dutch helped create an atmosphere in which the power of Islam was suppressed, the history of Islam in the Dutch East Indies also made for greater syncretism.
After all, it was not outright military conquest by Muslims in the 7th and 8th centuries, as it was in most of the Middle East and North Africa, that caused the East Indies to be populated by Muslims. Rather, it was five or six centuries later when the rulers of Java and Sumatra were converted to Islam. The first significant group of Muslims in the East Indies were Hadrami traders in Java, who set up trading entrepots and then slowly began to send out missionaries, some as part of military incursions, into the hinterland.
But the East Indies, originally Hindu and Buddhist, were slow to succumb. The same kind of violence that had been used, or could be threatened, elsewhere was not possible. During the Dutch interval, Christian missionaries were protected. In East Timor, the Portuguese overlords protected the missionaries who could work in conditions that permitted locals to convert without fear of death. This also contributed to that "soft" Islam that one associates with Indonesia -- but it was "soft" only up to a point, and is becoming "harder" every day. And in any case it was never quite as "soft" as Westerners seem to think.
Now, the longer from the Dutch period one gets, and the more that Muslims in Indonesia, like Muslims everywhere, are more easily reached by the new means of disseminating the full and dangerous texts of Islam, where before the simple and illiterate villagers might have been Muslims but knew very little (beyond the Five Pillars) of what that might mean. Now they have thrust in their ears and before their eyes incessant Muslim propaganda. That makes it harder and harder to avoid hearing and having to take in, and being naturally swayed by, not a false Islam, not an Islam that has been "hijacked by extremists," but the full Islam that was always there. But when Muslims were weak, and lacked the money and technological means to disseminate that full message, this Islam was in some places not fully known or understood.
And now, alas, Muslim money and appropriation of Western technology has meant that Muslims in the farthest islands can now be reached by the campaigners intent on disseminating to sometimes inattentive Muslims the full teachings of Islam -- with the deadly results observable in Bali, and the Moluccas, and many other islands in the East Indian archipelago.
In Indonesia, 2,300 churches were destroyed in the year 2003 alone (source: The Barnabas Fund). New York Times, NPR, BBC, anyone interested? Any word from the E.U.? From the American State Department, telling the Indonesian government that the protection of Christians and other non-Muslims from Muslim fanatics is now the main task of that government? From anyone other than the Barnabas Fund? No? Why not?
Nike, Reebok, Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren, whoever or whatever you are -- time to pull out, or threaten to pull out, of Indonesia. China, here we come. And that will leave Indonesia alone, now nearing or having passed its role as exporter of oil, and seeing even its own domestic supply dry up, and seeing fissiparous forces at work now on this island, now on that one. Yet Indonesia has still managed to inveigle the Pentagon into renewing military training and aid (the limitless lack of guile, the limitless credulity, of so many whose stock in trade is supposed to be unsentimental, unfoolable toughness).
Time to read the riot act to the Indonesian government, and for its generals to act, with their wonted gentleness.
Posted by Hugh at March 5, 2007 7:45 AM
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The plight of Christians in Indonesia, Iraq, Egypt, and everywhere else in the Islamic world does not seem to garner much attention from the media and the entertainment industry.
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at March 5, 2007 8:43 AM
Assalamau Laikum all,
Although the esteemed Mr. Fitzgerald writes about Indonesia....his real motive is for you to see in between the lines.
The lines in between say that this could be a template for Islam in the West....and ofcourse he would be wrong in this regard.
The differenece is that the West has muslims/wuslims who want to follow due process...look at the patently awful throwing out of the stadium sized mosques in Dudley and London in the UK. Have there been riots?....well NO....has the appeal that has followed due process?...well YES....
Are muslim community leaders trying to allay your fears?....well yes...have they allayed them for you?....well that's a yes/maybe...if UKIP and BJP don't chuck their racist oar in there.
So you see the Indonesia picture doesn't stack up well with Islam in modern Western society, the comparison is not so valid....in effect embracing Islam in the West should not be a problem ....please bear this is mind.
Posted by: Naseem at March 5, 2007 8:47 AM
It's the collective entity that names itself Naseem. Hello Boys.
Funny you should mention Indonesia, and then by your mere presence you bring Pakistan to mind.
There's this.
at March 5, 2007 8:57 AM
Obviously over time, Islam moves like a snake, slithering across Indonesia while staying shy against the west.
Posted by: Jeff at March 5, 2007 9:06 AM
"look at the patently awful throwing out of the stadium sized mosques in Dudley and London in the UK. Have there been riots?....well NO....has the appeal that has followed due process?...well YES...."
...people are beginning to act appropriately in denying the mosques, the truth about Islam is finally soaking in....NO riots yet....after the due process appeals result in no change in the decision, we will see a different course of Muslim action...full scale riots?.. maybe not...but quite possibly more intimidation,many small protests, more attempts to build mosques, more attacks on the rights of citizens in their own country, more vandalizism, more juvenile civil disorder, more incidents ala the cab driver situation in the USA, more frivolous confrontations such as veil or burka wearing, special toilets, special prayer rooms, time off at the job for praying, street protests, internet attacks, special priviledges demanded, accusations of profiling, more airport incidences, more testing of police temperances, more testing of the civilian populace, more incursions into controlling non Muslims lifestyles, more incursions into determining governmental policy....
...but the truth is getting out, the Mosque building denials is but a small step forward...and a good one it is....
....Muslims hate the truth...especially when the truth is about them becomes learned by the non Muslims...and it is happening at an ever hastening pace...
...The Muslims are running out of time....the West is awakening....
It is time to Ban Muslim Immigration NOw...
...THe Islamic lies are being openly uncovered and it is good...
...The truth about Islam is being uncovered and it is good...
at March 5, 2007 9:16 AM
From Hugh's post:
During the Dutch interval, Christian missionaries were protected. In East Timor, the Portuguese overlords protected the missionaries who could work in conditions that permitted locals to convert without fear of death.
The only way to achieve permanent victory in this war. The only way, but, as we all know, decried by the chattering classes as "cultural imperialism".
Posted by: ZionistYoungster at March 5, 2007 9:56 AM
Hi again, Naseem-entity. Ironic that you calmly assert assurances that Muslims "in the west" are different from those in Indonesia. Hmmm, funny, it seems whenever apologists here wish to trot out a model for tolerant Islamic society and conquest they point to Indonesia, the great example of Islam "not being spread by the sword". Well, now all of a sudden you feel the need to assure us that you and your western Islamic boy-scout pals are not at all like the Indonesian muslims.
Read Fitzgerald again. His point is that, although Islam spread there in a peaceful fashion, largely through "due process" it was when Islam entered the country in it's full, undiluted form, and western powers left the country to run its own affairs, and Islamists took control of the government, that all Hell broke lose there -- as we see more and more each day in the news.
The whole thing is accellerating so fast now that the more radical islamists are rather tired of "due process" and openly declaring jihad. As a result not only are we seeing violence of Jihadist against Kuffar, but also internal conflict between the fast jihadists and the slow jihadists. Like sharks, once they smell blood and have the opportunity...
Where does that leave us with your assurances about the west? It seems there is a genuine commitment to "due process" as long as it is helpful for your agenda. But by now half the west has watched "Undercover Mosque" and read the many corroborating opinion surveys of muslims in the west and realise that a sizable minority of muslims are just under the threshold of open jihad against western society.
Nothing you've said can demonstrate that you are any different, behind closed doors, than the foaming-at-the-mouth firebrands of "Undercover Mosque". They also speak peacefully of "due process" to the Kuffars and then when they think nobody but muslims are listening they rub their hands with glee at the prospect of soon having enough power to dominate and reap qur'anic "revenge" against the "oppressors" and their "kufr".
If you want credibility among the skeptical kuffar, you needn't waste your breath here. Here are three things you can do, and without which you're just barking at the moon:
(1) openly participate in a reform movement that clearly rejects the violent and supremacist elements of orthodox islam, and use what resources you have to see that this brand of reform spreads throughout the islamic community;
(2) stop opposing every initiative western governments take to prevent themselves from Islamic jihadists and regarding these initiatives as religious discrimination. It seems it is you folks, not the western governments, have the most difficulty distinguishing between the Jihadist agenda and peaceful Islam.
(3) take proactive measures to bring the jihadists in your midst to justice. Help the western authorities identify the truly violent men who pose an immediate threat to our society (and even to islami itself!). This would be an absolute minimum show of good faith.
For the short term the slow jihadists like you who prefer to advance your supremacist agenda with "due process" appear to be dominant enough in the community that there is relatively little open violence (say, compared to Indonesia) here, but it is of little comfort, first that you freely pursue this agenda and don't see that it is not violence per se but the threat of religious imperialism in whatever form that chills the west to Islam, and second that you pour more energy into sugar-coated assurances that Islam is benign than you do into control of these more volatile elements.
Posted by: Archimedes2 at March 5, 2007 10:27 AM
Naseem, Do you do stand-up comedy too?
There is a free spot at the Social club on Saturday.
at March 5, 2007 10:32 AM
Have there been riots?....well NO....has the appeal that has followed due process?...well YES....
The Islamic model calls for religious riots only after the critical mass threshold has been met, and at 3% of the UK’s population, such rioting would not yet be productive for the cause.
At this early juncture in the takeover of the UK, the Moslems there must pursue a two-pronged strategy:
Prong #1) Continue, always and without stop, to criticize, publicize, ad hominemize, theorize, complain, accuse, inveigle, whine, beg, rant, moan, groan, finger-point, seduce, traduce, subvert, gainsay, here say, impugn, attack, set back, and piously accept welfare-mooch checks to enable prong number two.
Prong #2) In much the same way that the Statue of Liberty, with her back set ramrod straight and arm held high bearing the torch of Freedom, the British Moslima is on all fours, back sagging but head still held head high, proudly awaiting the squalid seed to be placed inside to help advance the cause of Submission.
So the religious riots won’t start in a big way for another decade or so.
My apologies here to those who do not regard Islam to be a religion, including myself.
at March 5, 2007 11:11 AM
Assalamau Laikum Folks,
It would be silly of me not to acknowledge your anxieties, phobias and general worries.
Know that I cannot accept in any shape or form Mr. Archimedes's ridiculous claim that I am a slow jihadist....I am no jihadist...period.
Should you choose to differ in mind...that is your perogative...but remember folks...it's only an opinion.
I am a dawaist...I can only point you to salvation via Allah SWT..peacefully. I have no agenda, collusion, funding..etc by which you can catagorise me as a jihadist.
On JW you have peoples like catgirl..and Domonic..and Alert..all misguided christians ...who too big up their religion....are they jihadist too? Well NO they are not..and in this regard I AM the same.
If you MUST refer me to somethiing ...than dawaist is fine...I strongly detest and reject the jihadist label...please do not use it in reference to Naseem.
Some of you peoples have problems adjusting to muslims...some of you don't like our brillo beards...but remember this is no different to your victorian ancestors.
As for taking active stances against Islamic practices...in Pak one has to be careful...there is due process in Pak too albiet slow...and this is the line that must be taken.
As for due process in the West...yes it's the way to go...I cannot say anything else...muslims will feel victimised at missing out on the 2 prize construction projects...they have worked very hard to secure the land...and also the planning etc.
Indeed it is hoped that someday Islamic saints maybe buried in adjoining buildings to these vast structures and I was hoping that one day you too would have been proud to see the colurful Assura (et al)ceremonies in Dudley....but that may be some way away...still as long as YOU follow due process too...just as we do currently...all should smooth itself out.
at March 5, 2007 11:56 AM
Naseem posted-
"Indeed it is hoped that someday Islamic saints may be buried in adjoining buildings to these vast structures"
Please define "islamic saints"
Ever heard of an oxyoron - you misguided little Ahmadi. (Are you even considered a moslem?)
at March 5, 2007 2:19 PM
oxyorn=oxymoron, sorry, sticky keyboard.
Posted by: rookie at March 5, 2007 2:22 PM
Naseem, final paragraph:
"but that may be some way away...still as long as YOU follow due process too...just as we do currently...all should smooth itself out."
"just as we do currently" - Veiled threat? Hudna? Admitting that at this moment still too weak to act with force?
I guess I will chalk this up to an accident of phrasing, but it has piqued my curiosity.
It is a bit suggestive though that they, naseem-by-committee, feel the need to remind us to follow due process, something that is very ingrained in our culture, while due process for people in most, if not all, Muslim countries is a joke.
Posted by: npabga at March 5, 2007 2:55 PM
Hugh
I am afraid you have some facts that are wrong about the number of churches destroyed 2003
Attacks on houses of worship were reported during the period covered by this report. According to the Indonesian Christian Communication Forum (FKKI), at least 13 churches were attacked: 6 in Jakarta, 3 in West Java, and 1 each in the Moluccas, Central Java, East Java, and Central Sulawesi.
In September 2003, local residents of the West Java community of Cilaku, in Bogor regency, burned a branch of the Isa Almasih Church (GIA) because they opposed the church's presence.
Similar sentiment apparently fueled a January 9 incident at a naval housing complex in the West Java community of Margahayu, Bekasi regency, where local residents destroyed a branch of the Western Indonesian Protestant Church (GPIB).
On April 11, in the West Java community of Pondok Maharta, Tangerang regency, local residents demanded the closure of a branch of the Indonesian Pentecostal Church (GPDI). That case had not been resolved by the end of the period covered by this report.
Christians also complained about an April 6 incident at a house in the Jakarta community of Pasar Manggis. Members of the FPI and local residents attacked the house, which was sometimes used for HKBP Church activities. It reportedly took police 4 hours to put an end to the attack.
On June 7, local mobs simultaneously vandalized five churches in the outskirts of Jakarta and injured one priest. The attackers reportedly were angry because the churches were located in buildings designated as shops and had been established without the permission of the Government. on June 9 unidentified men threw Molotov cocktails at a Catholic church in Yogyakarta, Central Java, which started a small fire but caused no injuries.
International Religious Freedom Report 2004
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35399.htm
The Islamization of Indonesia did not start seriously until 1958,prior to this date Indonesia was the third largest communist nation in the world, outside the Soviet Union and China.
In February 1958 a coup attempt was made by pro-U.S. forces amongst the military and the political right-wing. The rebels, based in Sumatra and Sulawesi, and on February 15 that proclaimed a Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia
This so-called Revolutionary Government immediately began arresting thousands of (PKI, Communist Party of Indonesia).cadres in the areas under their control. (PKI, Communist Party of Indonesia). supported the efforts by Sukrano to quell the rebellion, including introduction of martial law. The rebellion was eventually defeated.
Indonesia 1958: Nixon, the CIA, and the Secret War
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Indo58.html
at March 5, 2007 3:13 PM
@ "...in effect embracing Islam in the West should not be a problem ....please bear this is mind."
You seriously don't get what you're up against yet. That's good.
Posted by: Foehammer at March 5, 2007 4:25 PM
Shiva: Communism is not much of an improvement over Islam. The Communist governments ruling Russia and China during the mid-twentieth century killed well over 100 million people. A Communist Indonesia would have added many more to that figure had it stayed a Communist dictatorship.
The demise of Communism in Indonesia is nothing to shed tears over in itself. Indonesia fell back into Islam after Communism possibly because it was something Indonesians were familiar with but (more likely) possibly because there were established Middle Eastern elements on Java that saw a power vacuum and were able to politically steer Indonesia back towards Islam. The US might have been able to avert Indonesia's disastrous relapse into Islam had it been politically aware of Islam's malignant ideological components. But at the time Indonesia's problems with Islam were not big enough on Washington DC's radar screen for that.
Indonesia clearly needs to be led away from Islam. A formidable task, but not necessarily an impossible one.
Posted by: pythagoras at March 6, 2007 10:20 PM
I have been hearing that Islam spread "mostly peacefully" in Indonesia and elsewhere in the archipelagos of Insulindia, but have yet to see the evidence for this assertion.
at March 7, 2007 12:00 PM
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