At the December 2006 AMI (Anugerah Musik Indonesia) awards, Indonesia’s equivalent to the U.S. Grammy Awards,  LibForAll activist Ahmad Dhani and his rock band Dewa took home the awards for best rock album and best rock song, for their controversial and best-selling album, Republik Cinta (“Republic of Love”).  The album’s lead single, Laskar Cinta (“Warriors of Love”), received an AMI nomination for best rock song, and was narrowly edged out by another song from Dewa's album Republic of Love, “Sedang Ingin Bercinta.”

Dewa’s lead vocalist Once (left, with LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor) took home additional AMI awards for best male vocalist and best song.

The new year arrived on the heels of a landmark achievement by LibForAll Advisor and Senior Fellow Dr. Abdul Munir Mulkhan (former Vice Secretary of the Muhammadiyah, the world’s second-largest Muslim organization, with 30 million members).  After a year-long campaign, Dr. Munir succeeded in mobilizing his organization to officially reject extremism and distance itself from Islamist political parties, which have penetrated the Muhammadiyah through the so-called “Tarbiyah,” or Islamic Education, movement.  The heavily-funded group thus rejected, the PKS, is the Indonesian political equivalent of Hamas, and is affiliated with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The formal decree issued by the Muhammadiyah’s Central Board is pictured to the right, and the achievement itself was profiled in a subsequent Wall Street Journal article entitled "The Exorcist".

Among those contributing chapters to the book were LibForAll advisors Azyumardi Azra ("Historiography of Indonesian Islam"), Abdul Munir Mulkhan ("Mystical Islam, Pure Islam and Jurisprudential Islam") and Amin Abdullah ("Orientalism and Contemporary Islamic Studies").  LibForAll co-founder Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid also attended the launch, which was heavily covered by Indonesia's mass media.

Photo shows Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin (left) with LibForAll advisor Dr. Azyumardi Azra at the launch.

In March, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE’s) Action against Terrorism Unit (ATU) began actively promoting LibForAll Foundation as its chosen partner for the implementation of counter-radicalization programs in Europe.

OSCE/ATU support has included financing the expansion of LibForAll’s operations to Europe, and facilitating briefings by LibForAll executives to top counter-terrorism officials and policy makers from OSCE participating states, including the 27 members of the EU, the Council of the European Union in Brussels, and the European Commission.

 In April, Wall Street Journal foreign columnist and editorial board member Bret Stephens visited Indonesia for ten days in the company of LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor, profiling key LibForAll associates K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid ("The Last King of Java") and Dr. Abdul Munir Mulkhan ("The Exorcist"), and their work to preserve Indonesia's traditions of religious tolerance and pluralism.  Other articles in the series describe President Wahid and LibForAll Advisor Mustofa Bisri's defense of artistic freedom ("Hips Don't Lie"), and dangers posed by "The Arab Invasion."

In "The Last King of Java," Mr. Stephens called LibForAll co-founder Wahid "the single most influential religious leader in the Muslim world" and "easily the most important ally the West has in the ideological struggle against Islamic radicalism."

Bret Stephens (center left) at an historic gathering of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama leaders who are committed to promoting a peaceful and tolerant understanding of Islam as the "middle path," eschewing the ideology of religious hatred and violence.

Left to right: LibForAll associate Dr. Ratno Lukito; LibForAll advisor and Senior Fellow Dr. Abdul Munir Mulkhan; Director of LibForAll's Nur al-Hikmah ("Light of Wisdom") Society, Hodri Ariev; Bret Stephens; LibForAll advisor and renowned NU leader K.H. Mustofa Bisri ("Gus Mus"); LibForAll associate Ridlo (standing behind Gus Mus); LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor; and regional NU chairman K.H. Achmad Said Asrori ("Gus Said").

 On June 12^th, LibForAll hosted an historic religious summit in Bali, whose participants rejected the evils of Holocaust denial and affirmed religious tolerance as "a blessing for all creation.”   Held in response to the December 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, the summit showcased Indonesia's ability to play a unique role in promoting tolerance between religions, and discrediting the ideology of hatred. 

The event was organized in just four months from concept to execution, by LibForAll Foundation and its partner, the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Shown on the right is President Wahid's daughter Yenny ~ an accomplished civic and political leader in her own right ~ addressing the conference.

In the words of President Wahid, “When Ahmadinejad lies about the Holocaust he is wrong, and I say so publicly.”

Global media coverage of the event included wire stories on AP, AFP and Reuters, and articles in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, from the Wall Street Journal and Canadian Jewish News to the Singapore Straits Times, Australian, Le Monde and Die Welt, which wrote “The world's most populous Muslim nation has, for an entire day, become a showplace for a hitherto unique religious conference:  the gathering on the holiday island of Bali concerned itself entirely with religious tolerance and recognizing Nazi persecution of Jews as an historical reality.  Indonesia thereby consciously seeks to distance itself from fundamentalist and radical spirits."

On June 28th, LibForAll incorporated its European branch (Stichting LibForAll) in the historic Dutch university town of Leiden, which enjoys a long relationship with Indonesia and is the home of LibForAll advisor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd.  The expansion of LibForAll's operations in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East are being conducted largely under the umbrella of Stichting LibForAll.

Over the past year, LibForAll’s Global Counter-extremism network has expanded to include associates in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, France, Spain, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine and Iraq.

On July 1^st, LibForAll received a grant from a major foundation to execute the first phase of its Grassroots Pluralist Network TV/Video project.  This project entails creating a 30-lesson video curriculum that will provide a thorough, pluralistic and tolerant answer to the question, “What is Islam?,”  in the words of world-renowned Muslim theologians, grassroots religious leaders and pop celebrities. 

Using commercial production standards, the video curriculum is being designed for broadcast on national television in Indonesia; dissemination to 14,000 Islamic boarding schools with 2.5 million students; and to serve as a template for the execution of similar projects in South Asia (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) and the Arab world.

Renowned Muslim cleric and LibForAll advisor Kyai Haji Mustofa Bisri (right, facing LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor and LibForAll VP Dr. Ravi Krishnamurthy) is in charge of the project, assisted by Kyai Haji Yusuf Chudlori (far right).

On July 10^th, Wall Street Journal foreign columnist Bret Stephens profiled LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor and the Foundation itself, stating that “LibForAll is a model of what a competent public diplomacy effort in the Muslim world should look like.”

The article, entitled Public Diplomacy for Dummies, continued:  “In its brief life, LibForAll has helped turn back an attempted Islamist takeover of the country's second-largest Muslim social organization (with 30 million members), translated anti-Wahhabist books into Indonesian, sponsored a recent multidenominational conference to denounce Holocaust-denial, brought Mr. Dhani to Colorado to speak to U.S. military brass, and launched a well-researched "extremist exposé" in order, Mr. Taylor says, ‘to get Indonesian society to consciously acknowledge that there is an infiltration occurring of radical ideology, financed by Arab petrodollars, that is intent on destroying Indonesian Islam.’”

The U.S. Congress has continued to recognize LibForAll’s accomplishments in its legislative reports.

The Senate Subcommittee Report (SR 110-128) accompanying HR 2764 (FY08 State/Foreign Ops Appropriations Bill) states: “Religious Tolerance.—The Committee recognizes the need to counter Islamic extremism, and is aware of the successes of LibforAll’s tolerance and moderation programs in Indonesia. The Committee supports expansion of these types of programs globally, particularly in the Middle East, and recommends the Department of State and USAID consider funding proposals from LibforAll for this purpose.” 

The House report accompanying HR 2764 (HR 110-197) contained similar language, encouraging “USAID to consider supporting organizations such as Dosti and the LibforAll Foundation.”

On September 8th, LibForAll Foundation and The Wahid Institute launched the Indonesian translation of Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and its Role in Terrorism, by Stephen Sulaiman Schwartz, on the occasion of the Wahid Institute’s third anniversary.

Dua Wajah Islam – which contains an introduction by LibForAll co-founders Wahid and Taylor – provides a compelling account of Wahhabi/Salafi efforts to radicalize Muslim populations, and destroy traditional Islamic cultures, worldwide.

The book serves as a wake-up call to Muslims about the need to mobilize and counter the aggressive, well-financed activities of Wahhabi/Salafi radicals, and in so doing paves the way for LibForAll’s Extremist Exposé, whose results will be published in early 2008.

On September 10, 2007, LibForAll became the first non-governmental organization to address COTER, the European Union's working group on counter-terrorism, attended by top CT officials from all 27 EU member states.  The EU's Portuguese Presidency had invited LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor to describe "the work you have done to help to eliminate the underlying causes of terrorism and examples of projects which have worked successfully in Indonesia.  We would also be interested to hear your thoughts on working in Europe and North Africa."

 On September 19^th, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a panel discussion entitled, “Indonesia: A Model for Tolerant Islam?” at which Michael Ledeen of AEI and Sadanand Dhume of  the Asia Society joined LibForAll CEO Holland Taylor in discussing whether LibForAll’s strategy is transferable to the Middle East.

The question was implicitly answered by the attendance of al Jazeera’s North American bureau chief, along with a cameraman and reporter, who filmed the entire LibForAll event at AEI.  The following week, Mr. Taylor participated in a one-hour program on al Jazeera worldwide – broadcast live in Arabic, during prime time in the Middle East – which examined the same questions raised at the AEI event. 

Al-Jazeera’s treatment of Indonesian Islam and democracy, and of LibForAll’s strategy and activities, was distinctly favorable – reflecting Indonesia’s ability to impact other parts of the Islamic world, especially with the help of modern information age technologies and the mass media.

In November, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations recognized LibForAll’s contributions to promoting tolerance, and invited LibForAll to join the AoC Foundation Working group.

The following month, Corporate Leader magazine profiled LibForAll co-founder C. Holland Taylor in a major article entitled “An ex-CEO’s Plan for World Peace”

In 2007, LibForAll laid the foundations for a 5-year project to produce a comprehensive commentary on the Qur’an using modern methodologies of scholarship, which will construct a case for the rejection of Qur’anic literalism and the definitive discarding of extremist teachings. Led by some of the world’s top Qur’anic scholars, this project will establish schools of modern Qur’anic interpretation in the South East Asian, South Asian and Arab regions – helping Muslims to build a bridge between their own traditions and the modern world of freedom, equality, human rights, democracy and globalization.

The project is headed by renowned Egyptian reformer Dr. Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd. Dr Abu-Zayd is currently a LibForAll Advisor and turned down a prestigious teaching position at Colombia University to sign on with LibForAll Foundation in executing this vital project (photo, right). 

In November, Indonesian extremists attempted to silence Dr. Abu-Zayd, whose global reputation and influence pose a vital threat to their ideology of religious hatred and supremacy.  LibForAll co-founder Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid spoke strongly in support of Dr. Abu-Zayd, at a public forum and press conference in Jakarta on November 26^th (left) – “turning the table” on those who seek to narrow the bounds of discussion in the world’s most populous Muslim nation and democracy.

President Wahid’s endorsement of  Dr. Abu-Zayd led to an outpouring of support from Indonesian civil society, with leaders from both the Nahdlatul Ulama (40 million members) and the Muhammadiyah (30 million members) condemning extremist attempts to silence Dr Abu-Zayd.

From December 2 – 8, a “Peace Delegation” of Indonesian religious leaders visited the Holy Land under the joint aegis of LibForAll Foundation and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. 

The international significance of the visit was emphasized by an hour-long meeting with Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shimon Peres (top right), and with prominent Palestinian leaders including Mohammad Dajani (bottom right), who heads a civil society movement dedicated to transforming Palestinian mosques, schools and media outlets to promote a message of tolerance and peace, rather than ethnic or religious hatred and violence.

In the words of renowned Muslim cleric and LibForAll advisor Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri, “It is not possible to extinguish fire with fire.  It takes water.”  We cannot extinguish hatred with further enmity and hatred.  Rather, it requires the courage and humility to approach "the other" in a spirit of Divine love and compassion. 

With its traditions of religious pluralism and tolerance, Indonesia and its civil society are ideally positioned to serve as mediators, and help remove the poison of religious hatred that has long afflicted the Middle East.

Throughout the year, LibForAll executives and key advisors participated in a number of high-level briefings and conferences – advising both governments and international bodies how to counter the ideology of religious extremism that underlies and animates terrorism.

Venues included the Global Security Forum 2007 hosted by the government of Singapore; the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Public Private Partnership in Countering Radicalization conference in Vienna (center left); the Homeland Defense/Homeland Security Symposium, sponsored annually by NORAD/NORTHCOM (top left); and a key European Commission conference in Brussels on Preventing Radicalization through Education, where LibForAll VP Dr. Ravi Krishnamurthy (bottom left) showcased successful uses of both traditional (classroom) and non-traditional (pop culture, TV/video, Internet) education methods that play a crucial role in the war of ideas.

LibForAll’s pioneering role in the field of counter-extremism was further acknowledged at a Dutch government conference entitled Countering Radicalization: Perspectives and Strategies from Around the World, at which a Swedish expert from the prestigious Center for Asymmetric Threats Studies in Stockholm, Dr. Magnus Ranstorp,  advised counter-radicalization specialists to consider “innovative programs such as those implemented by LibForAll Foundation.”

Other counter-radicalization experts have hailed LibForAll as “the lodestar in this field,” and “perhaps the only NGO operationalizing a coherent and effective counter-extremism strategy” worldwide, amid endless discussion of the vital need for such efforts.