"A stinging defeat"

The general sense of most articles regarding Bush's upcoming ten hour stop over in Bogor, Indonesia is that it is a good thing for Indonesia, and that the President is no longer in a position to dictate its terms to the rest of the world as there are new sheriffs in Washington town. The mid-term elections are described, even in news articles, as a strong rebuke of the President's policies. It's an interpretation that is difficult for me to warm up to. People outside of the US seem to be expecting a sea change in foreign policy and I don't think that it's truly in the offing. The war is certainly unpopular in America, but the tenor of that attitude does not seem harmonious with the extreme anger expressed by many in this region. That is to say that Americans don't like the war but they don't regard as both genuinely imperialist and anti-Muslim.

Muslims feel quite certain that it is. History is on their side, though, in my opinion, American foreign policy is not ideologically anti-Muslim a la the truly racialist policies of Nazi Germany or Apartheid era South Africa. American foreign policy is, on the other hand, de facto anti-Islam. This, I believe, has less to do with some inherent incompatibility between democracy and Islam and more to do with the incompatibility between the materialistic consumerism inherent in free trade capitalism and the spirituality of a faith which is anti-materialist. Islam stresses that God should be a part of every aspect of one's life, it's a not merely rejection of a separation between Mosque and State, but a rejection of any separation between any aspect of one's life and God.

Consumerism, or the practice of searching for fulfillment through the accumulation of material items, suggests that one's life can be cleansed of difficulty by purchasing items that will ease not only your daily chores, but help rid one of one's deficiencies. Consider the number of ads in America for drugs that will roll back aging, exorcise social anxiety, or simply make you pretty. Nothing could be more self-absorbed and superficial and less spiritual. The anti-consumerist movements of the West have been defeated (i.e. Marxism/Communism) after a lengthy campaign that did not simply desire to defeat foes militarily but to discredit the very notion of community based thinking over indivualism. Those ideologies did not comport with Islam either as they were actually Materialist in the extreme--rejecting the possibility of anything spiritual. Nevertheless they did appeal to Muslims so far as they were also anit-imperialist philosophies (the actions of certain "communist" governments notwithstanding). Islam is one of the last great communalist belief systems standing in the way of globalization.

What the West, and 'free trade', find when encroaching upon lands committed to Islam is a belief system that fundamentally rejects the logic of capitalism. Capitalism is individualistic, rewards self-interest, and, in essence, is amoral. Value is strictly a matter of supply and demand, there is no inherent value in anything. This is not only anathema to Islam, but to all religions. Liberal ideas of tolerence allow religious people to practice their faiths, but they are kept in a private, separate sphere. Once one leaves Mass, the Mosque, or the Temple they return to billboard laden streets, and the commercial sermons of the mass media. Witdrawel from the world of materialism is difficult if not impossible.

Of course, this is not the only obstacle for Western Governments in Islamic lands. They also run into Nationalism, tribalism, and a widespread distrust of supposed good intentions of Western democracies. Things are far more complex, and Islam is not monolithic. Muslims do not think with one mind, nor speak with one voice. There are Muslims who welcome foreign investment, in Indonesia and elsewhere, there are those who want Western style capitalist economies. There are as many pragmatic Muslims as there are pragmatic people associated with any religion or ideology. Still, the essence of Islam does not welcome tenets of capitalism warmly. And its regionalist and nationalist flavours particularly bristle at a capitalism which seems to suggest the superiority of Western culture and is, in fact, brought to the East to line the pockets of Western businessmen.

The government of Indonesia knows that the Indonesian economy is woeful, and participation in global trade seems attractive. It may be their only option. Nevertheless, they struggle to persuade the masses.