Not so sure about that....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Timor
Some claim that as many as 100,000 people were massacred by Indonesian troops during the invasion of East Timor.
And this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1998_riots_of_Indonesia
Hardly putting the Americans " to shame as human beings"....
Again, that is not the people into that, that is corrupt greedy leadership trying to take oil, that's what that is and that is the way they are exactly the same.
That's the difference. While both were set up under European leadership as colonies, Indonesia was fully populated before European invasion and the majority of the population is indigenous, think the US populated with 300,000,000 Native Indians now with a few expat whites. Another biggie is that Indonsia didn't achieve independence until well after the Industrial revolution, actually IIRC their declaration of independence was in 1945 with independence in 1949.
The leadership took their example from the Europeans and Islamists and others from the west, the population didn't though, they stuck to the same cultural values they had developed thousands of years ago. Africa may be the cradle of life, but Indonesia is the cradle of peace in that regards. SE Asia is a wonderfully productive and fertile region with plenty of fresh water, population flourished there and they reached high population and culture density already long before Moses was walking the desert.
One thing that did not develop there though, religion. They were a "godless" society until western invasion. They even have their own Islamic ethos which is extremely different from that in the Mid East, Mohamed tempered by Buddah if you will.
Traffic there is what says everything about them though. Until you drive in traffic there, you don't understand how peaceful people can be. Now I'm not saying that they can't be pushed into a fight through excessive abuse, but the traffic there is the worst in the world. It takes 4 hrs to go anywhere at all in a car. On a boulevard that is 6 lanes in each direction, the average vehicle density will be cars and trucks abreast with at least 6 scooters between each, and this is bumper to bumper in the entire basin with all the scooters just weaving through all the cars and trucks that are crawling stop and go. There are a couple dozen stop lights in an area about the same as the greater Los Angeles. It may take a hour to get through any unlit intersection of which there are millions. Stop lights are replaced by guys who you hand a couple coins and they walk out in the intersection and hold back traffic and you'll have three - 5 guys working cooperatively to move the cars through one at a time.
The traffic itself isn't the amazing thing though, the amazing thing is there is zero road rage, none. This is the most polite, friendly and outgoing population I have seen on the planet, India scores very close.
The other big difference you notice is the squalor they all live in. If I go to stores with western style goods, (most all manufactured there for export) they all have western prices on them. I was there making $15,000 a month, my counterpart occupationally as a boat captain would be making $350 a month and that's even the top oilfield captains on big boats. If I was hired by them I'd get more than that a day. Due to these wages vs cost of living. outside of fruit, everything there is basically as expensive as here except cigarettes, you can get the real Sampoerna Milds (my favorite smoke, horribly unhealthy but so yummy, never smoke them with any kind of chest cold, combined with certain viruses you end up with holes in your lungs) for $9 a carton. booze is expensive and heavily taxed as an Islamic nation, but it flows freely as do the people. They may now be Islamic, but as I said, it's quite tempered for the most part.
Now you may point to the Bali Bombing, Bunde Arceh, and East Timor, but all these thing are done under foreign influence.
You can read all the propaganda you want about anywhere, but before you put so damned much stock in it, and I'm really surprised you of all people would make the comments you did, most likely out of deserved prejudice towards Islam, but don't attribute the actions of a government in a capitalistic society to the will of the people. It's no more true there than anywhere.
Take a vacation, fly into Jakarta, stay at Hotel Alexis for the night then go to Bali. Take a look for yourself. This is why I said you have to visit, until you do, you do not have any concept of what I'm talking about nor do you form your opinion on anything but hearsay and speculation from what the media feeds you, and your media is as bad as everybody else's.
The Indonesians put us to SHAME!!! Until you visit, you have no basis on which to counter that statement. I lived in Indo for a year, it is a must see for westerners just so you can realize what things could be like.
