Word: indonesia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Indonesia would be an easy diagnosis for a psychiatrist: manic-depressive. In the 18 months since former President Suharto was deposed, the country has lurched repeatedly from giddy euphoria to violent despair and back. But despite the ethnic violence, lynchings and looting in major cities and the carnage in seceding East Timor, this sprawling archipelago of 210 million people has not disintegrated into ungovernability or civil war. Some had predicted the world's next Yugoslavia, but after last week, Indonesia had instead completed its graduation from a military-backed dictatorship to the world's third largest democracy (after India...
...steep challenge. Healing Indonesia's frayed psyche will mean confronting a host of ethnic and religious wounds, as well as tending to a shattered economy that the World Bank says has suffered the worst decline of any since World War II. And if the bizarre twosome of Wahid and Megawati, so different in almost every other aspect of their characters, have one thing in common, it is their lack of experience in government...
...Egypt, and heads the 30 million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama, a nationwide association that runs traditional Islamic schools. But he also is a lover of Western literature and classical music, has a long record of opposing religious extremism and speaking out on behalf of the Christian and Chinese minorities in Indonesia and has even recommended opening diplomatic relations with Israel--much to the fury of more conservative Islamic groups. "Gus Dur is a pluralist by nature," says Islamic scholar Nurcholish Majid. "Islamic law would be far from his mind...
...daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia's first President, Megawati spent her childhood in the presidential palace and has a Brahmin's sense of entitlement. She instinctively shuns the business of dealmaking and says, "For me, silence is a political act." But her refusal to engage with other parties, plus the rabble-rousing tactics of her supporters, threatened to degenerate into a head-on confrontation with Islamic parties. "Megawati's followers were talking about revolution, while some of Habibie's [Muslim] followers were talking about a jihad," says Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a senior adviser to Habibie. A compromise had to be found...
...Indonesia is still in a very delicate state of recovery. It has passed its first democratic test, but it faces enormous economic problems, and its sense of self is fragmented at best. The eccentric pairing of the blind cleric and the mute princess will not enjoy a long honeymoon...