Indonesia stands out among the world’s 20 biggest economies on the back of the stability it has maintained through harmony among its myriad ethnicities and linguistic groups decades after its crony-capitalist system collapsed in the face of the 1997 Asian financial crisis
Category: South East Asia
World’s Biggest Islamic Org Seeks Caliphate Alternative
Nahdlatul Ulama cited ISIS’s attempt to create a so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria and said it will inevitably be disastrous and contrary to the purposes of sharia—the protection of religion, human life, sound reasoning, family, and property
Chiang Kai-Shek: Nationalist Who Lost China To Mao
Generalissimo Chiang Kai‐shek's political testament dated March 1975 called on his supporters to fulfill his dream of recapturing mainland China from the Communists and restoring their national culture
Saraswati: Hindu Centrepiece of Muslim Indonesia’s Embassy
The interest that the Saraswati statue on the premises of the Indoneisan embassy in Washington DC generated pushed me to know more about Indonesia, which is home to 12.7 percent of Muslims globally and is governed by five foundational principles including humanitarianism, democracy, and social justice
Medina Charter-Drawn Citizen Model: Marrakesh Declaration
Scholar Abdallah bin Mahfudh ibn Bayyah crafted the legal framework that inspired the declaration connecting early Islamic sources and the Prophet Muhammad's Charter of Medina with international human rights law for a model of equal, contractual citizenship as an Islamic principle
Nahdlatul Ulama: Biggest Islamic Org, Taliban’s Antithesis
Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s biggest Islamic organisation, is an antithesis of the Taliban but it is hardly known perhaps because its progressive ideas do not fit into the dominant narrative about Islam particularly when Islamophobia is lucrative and many demagogues globally have tapped into it for political power
Misplaced Indian Exceptionalism & ‘Bad Muslim’ Myth
The secular Muslim-majority nations include Indonesia, which embodies pluralism in every sense and refutes the wilful inaccuracies perpetuated to fuel Islamophobia
Murugan Statue: Hindu Emblem Of Muslim Malaysia’s Pluralism
Murugan’s statue and temple at Batu Caves are key emblems of multiculturalism and pluralism in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where Indians (eighth percent) are the third largest ethnic group
Indonesia: Beacon Of Hope In Times Of Bigotry
The Indonesian state promotes the coexistence and diversity needed to keep together a country of multiple languages, geographies, and faiths
Imperial Past Fuels Russia, China’s Claims Over Ukraine, Taiwan
Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have invoked nostalgia for Russia and China's imperial past to justify their expansionism