Cover shows a statue of Indonesia's founding fathers
proclaiming the nation’s independence, as a multi-religious and
pluralistic state
(complete explanation of cover
available here).
Thanks to the generosity of a major
philanthropist, LibForAll recently completed a landmark project that
exposed the origins, ideology, strategy & agenda of radical
movements to the harsh glare of public scrutiny and condemnation in
Indonesia, the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population and
democracy.
The project entailed field research
conducted in 24 districts in 17 provinces, by a team of 30
researchers from a network of Islamic state universities and
institutes. Their interviews with 591 extremist leaders was further
augmented by consultation with opinion leaders throughout Indonesia,
and culminated in the April, 2009 publication of a book entitled The
Illusion of an Islamic State: The Expansion of Transnational
Islamist Movements to Indonesia.
Former Indonesian President H.E. Kyai Haji
Abdurrahman Wahid edited The Illusion of an Islamic State, which
includes contributions from Kyai Haji Mustofa Bisri, renowned leader
of the 40-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama, and Dr. Syafii Maarif,
immediate past chairman of the 30-million-member Muhammadiyah and a
2008 recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s equivalent of
the Nobel Prize. These Muslim leaders, who help form the backbone of
LibForAll Foundation, announced the book to the Indonesian elite and
the international media on April 2nd, and officially introduced it
to the Indonesian public at a high-profile event on May 16th in
Jakarta.
The exposé ignited a nationwide firestorm
of controversy following its official launch, and remained a major
news story for weeks. As one indicator of the massive press
coverage, Indonesia’s largest internet news site — with 10.5 million
visitors a day — carried six separate stories about The Illusion of an
Islamic State and the intense public debate surrounding it.
The Illusion of an Islamic State also went
viral on the Internet, with over 35,000 copies downloaded from one
LibForAll-sponsored website alone. Scores of other websites,
including the main sites of the 40-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama
and its 10-million-member youth movement, posted electronic copies
of the book for download, while a Google search specifically
targeting the book’s title, “Ilusi Negara Islam,” went from
virtually zero to over 500,000 results within two weeks.
Equally heartening has been the
global media coverage of the book, since the exposé’s systematic and authoritative refutation of extremist ideology makes it uniquely valuable not only to Indonesian society, but to governments and others interested in countering Islamist extremism worldwide. The
Wall Street Journal, for example, praised The Illusion of an Islamic State as a “pathbreaking report”, and Channel News Asia rightly predicted, after the book’s soft launch in early April, that “the findings will certainly have some bearing on the country’s [i.e., Indonesia’s] politics.”
This landmark exposé has dramatically
impacted radical political parties and groups in Indonesia –
throwing them on the defensive, and helping to derail extremist
ambitions to control Indonesia’s powerful vice-presidency.
In the words of Democracy Digest,
published by the National Endowment for Democracy: “The Libforall
Foundation is one of the rare success stories of an initiative in
which moderate and liberal Muslims – too often the silent and
disorganized majority – have organized effectively to counter
radical Islamist groups by promoting democracy and tolerance.”
We need your help,
to achieve similar results in other vital regions, such as South
Asia (Pakistan/India/Bangladesh), the Middle East, North Africa and
Europe. On behalf of President Wahid and other visionary Muslim
leaders whose indomitable courage have made these achievements
possible, I thank you for your own encouragement and support, which
are also vital to the achievement of our mission.
