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Comment by khuey | Hacker News Reader

Indonesia is poor, far away, not particularly significant geopolitically, and there's no large Indonesian diaspora in the West outside of the Netherlands. A large portion of Indonesian-Americans are actually ethnically Chinese.

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It's a huge country in terms of both population and land, and with abundant natural resources including oil. It's the largest Muslim nation in the world, and also has significant numbers of religious minorities. It's adjacent to many other eastern and southeastern Asian markets. There's definitely interest to be had there.

Largest Muslim-majority nation. However, they are on a frightening trajectory towards becoming a Muslim nation. Their democracy is on increasingly thinning ice.

Islamisation of Indonesian politics has happened and faded away before, in the early 2000s. The current wave is worrisome, but there is no reason to believe it will rise indefinitely.

The growth in fundamentalist groups since 1998 has not faded. The foundation for Islamic identity politics is much sturdier in 2018.

It is democracy and free speech that is enabling Islamic politics in Indonesia. The alternative is a strongman who imposes secularism. Indonesia already tried that, it is not so good for minorities.

Indonesia doesn't have free speech. Look what happened to Ahok. The FPI, who wants to institute sharia law, managed to get him jailed for two years on a BS blasphemy charge. Where is the "atheism" option for the KTP?

I'm afraid the concept of separation of Church and state in the Indonesian constitution and principles is not nearly strong enough. It's trying to have the cake and eat it too. I don't believe the legal constructs and government checks are strong enough to resist what's coming.

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