Let’s see how obscure it really is.
just from memory: around 1300, they (the non-muslim natives, which IIRC were a mix of Buddha, Christian, etc) rolled out the welcome mat for some visiting Muslim traders (by ship)…within 300 years, 95% of the nation was Islamic…what few non Muslims were deported to a remote Indonesian Island…History doesn’t document if the non Muslims were killed, or forced into joining, or a mix.
Largest Muslim nation on earth (by population).
Home of the spice islands.
Over 10,000 islands (analagous to Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes).
Owns half of the island of New Guinea (including the highest point in Oceana).
Mostly Muslim, right? That’s all I got.
Isn’t that where a mobster tells you you’re going to get it when you’re behind in your protection money?
Lots of Muslims. Jakarta is smoggy and pretty nuts, but if you go out into the boonies things get pretty exotic. The pop music is a good mix of obnoxious, upbeat, and bizarre. The politics get pretty hairy. Australia is an increasing presence as it embraces it’s place in Asia. Indonesian gay sex workers have a high HIV rate compared to the general population.
The largest Muslim-majority nation, to be precise. But there are five other state-recognized religions.
There are millions of non-Muslims living in Indonesia today, notably the majority population of Bali.
Aw dammit, deleted a really long post. OK, here we go again…
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Used to be Dutch East Indies. The Dutch were pretty horrible to them.
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Became independent in the years after WWII.
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Got rid of Suharto in the late(?) '90s, following (student?) riots.
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They have a special orang-utan that’s endangered.
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Largest Muslim population. They live in relative peace with the Christians.
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Female genital mutilation is a current concern.
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They have great food.
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For plurals they say the word twice.
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Problems with corruption and political instability, but they have recently been doing well.
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The Javanese are the largest ethnic group, I think.
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There have recently been separatist groups. Not sure if they are whole islands who want to separate?
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Martial art of Penchak Silat comes from Indonesia. I did it drama school. It’s cool
I think they used it in their army? -
The documentaries The Eye of the Day offer an interesting insight into daily life in Indonesia.
ETA: I would say really, really not obscure. At all.
Formerly the Dutch East Indies (up until 1945ish). Capital is Jakarta which was known as Batavia. Bali is well known for its hordes of drunken Aussies on their schoolies, Kuta beach has great surf and many bars but watch out for Islamic extremists and bombs. (2002)
Forcibly annexed Portuguese Timor when Portugal departed in 1975 and finally got kicked out in 1999.
Without reading the thread or looking anything up: Majority Muslim, had until fairly recently a highly corrupt dictatorship; Suhurto was the name I think? Basically high-end Third World; not really well off, but not Somalia or Haiti either.
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Close; the name is Suharto (something the spellchecker actually clued me in on, but that seemed like cheating)
Without wanting to start a lengthy debate, I’ll just note that this sequence of events as you put them forward is not particularly accurate IMHO. There were no significant numbers of Christians prior to Islam’s arrival ( that came centuries later with the Portuguese and Dutch ), there were no mass deportations ( there was a ton of immigration to Bali over religion/politics, but that is a slightly different scenario ) and Islam seems to have established its early foothold via trade and economics ( and later political expediency ) rather than conquest. Probably not all that dissimilar to how Hinduism and Buddhism arrived in the first century or thereabouts. Mostly ( but not universally ) it seems to have been a top-down conversion process, with the local elites converting first and the peasantry following.
86+% is Muslim; The native Christians, Buddhas and Hindus are in the single digit percentages (Hindu = 3% Buddha = 2%)…9 of 10 Hindu’s are contained in Bali.
There are a quarter billion ppl in Indonesia; a couple million of any group is very much a minority, when 210 of the 245 are Muslims, …who didn’t exist there at all until 1300 AD.
Tropical islands, rainforest, orangutans, and beautiful gamelan music.
Shares the island of Borneo with Brunei and part of Malaysia. Sukarno was the first president after independence (as do many Indonesians even today, he used only one name). Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) is a major island not mentioned, IIRC, so far in this thread.
Remember the “Hobbit man” discovered a few years ago? The species name is Homo florensis, reflecting the Indonesian island of Flores, where fossils were discovered.
They have a thumb print on their driver’s license… at certain restaurants near the beaches in Bali you can order “magic mushroom soup” and enjoy the night on the beach.
Other than that just trivial things.
*The Year of Living Dangerously * was set in and around Jakarta.
Yes, that’s more accurate. Before, you made it sound like the non-Muslims had been wiped out.
I’m not sure what the historical benchmark is meant to signify. North America is 82%+ Christian, who didn’t exist there (here) at all until almost 1500 AD.
Formerly Batavia
Last leg of “Eat, Pray and Love”
Most number of islands
Most number of volcanoes
One of the longest-lived dictatorial dynasties in the 20th century
Biggest economy in southeast Asia
Mediator between the Philippine Government and Muslim separatists
Gave independence to East Timor
Longest snake ever caught (reticulated python, 33 feet.)
I had an Indonesian college roomate who’d witnessed the anti-Communist killings (actually anti-Chinese genocide) of 1965.
Currently, my FIL has retured to Battam, after working in the oil industry there. As he tells it, radical Islamicism waxes and wanes, like American enthusiam for local sports teams. He also confirmed the existance of Elephant Walk, were herds will revivie old, unused migration routes years after towns or, in his case, oil fields were built on them. One day, suddenly the place would be full of elephants.
I remember hearing something about there being a fair bit of bad blood between the ethnically Chinese and the majority.