Southeast Asia: News, Culture, Voices

Public Radio International’s The World, Feb 18, 2009:

After the bombings in Bali that killed more than 200 people, the Indonesian government cracked down hard on Islamic militants. It also developed a program to de-radicalize militants in prison. As Dorian Merina reports, officials are hoping to expand it to the country’s religious boarding schools.

Free Speech Radio News, Feb 18, 2009:

Anti-American protesters in Jakarta demonstrated against Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s visits to Indonesia today – part of her East Asian tour this week. Clinton met with her counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, and talked about constructing a wide-ranging alliance with the Muslim-majority nation. Clinton’s visit is being touted as a new step in the U.S.’s relationship with Indonesia: during the Bush administration’s so-called “war on terror”, the nation’s Islamic schools were often characterized as the breeding grounds of terrorism and violence.

But most schools and institutions provide an important place of education for the country’s poor and rural communities, while offering an ideological challenge to fundamentalist groups. FSRN’S Dorian Merina takes us to West Java, where a group of scholars and educators are promoting a progressive agenda of religious pluralism and gender equality – all within the schools themselves.

Ustadz Wahyuddin, current director of the Pondok Ngruki school in Central Java.