A stroll along the pristine beach takes my brother and I past some topless bathers soaking in the afternoon sun. Embarrassed as teenagers in front of our Mum and Dad we all pretend we didn’t notice and keep walking on in an awkward silence. Down the dirt alley to the local bar we are greeted with large, warm hellos and welcoming eyes. The locals knew me as “Ketut” meaning fourth born. They pour an ice cold beer for Mum and Dad as we sit to enjoy our Nasi Goreng, a traditional rice dish in the region. This scene hardly depicts much of the world’s image of a Muslim country but this is in fact a real and accurate representation of my ventures throughout my life in Indonesia the fourth most populous country with the largest Muslim population in the world. Indonesia is a country that separates church and state allowing a more tolerant, peaceful country. Kayaking with some locals from island to island, traveling in rickety boats, climbing the mountains, the volcano, exploring the back streets… I would say I know the hearts and minds of these peaceful people. But over the past six years in particular I started to see some changes, big changes. There was speculation it was Prime Minister John Howard’s poor foreign relations in the region but I knew it was something far greater than that. My journey down memory lane kept on unraveling more and more layers of this new global terrorism. Why was this terrorism so different to the terrorism the world had experienced for the past twenty years? People cried out against Islam and I knew from personal experience that was soooo wrong. So if it wasn’t “Islam” who was it?



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http://www.gabriellereillyweekly.com/full/st072103.htm