The Election of Barrack Obama and the Bali Bombings

It’s been an intense week here in Bali and around the world. First, of course, was the result of the election in the US. We now have an African-American president and hopes of moving forward with fixing the mess that the world is in these days. And, the world has responded in the same spirit of hope and optimism that has been seen in the US.

Then, last night, the Bali Bombers were finally executed. This drama has been played out nationally and internationally for the six years since the bombers murdered hundreds of foreigners and Indonesians. Personally, I’m opposed to the death penalty so I didn’t get any personal satisfaction from their execution, although I know that many Australians and Indonesians did. I would rather have seen them rot in jail for the rest of their lives where they would not have become martyrs for that tiny minority of Indonesians who support their perverted view of Islam.

Reza Aslan makes an excellent argument in his book, No god but God, that the terrorism that is going on in the world is not against non-Muslims, but, rather, is against Muslims. He says:

“The tragic events of September 11, 2001, may have fueled the clash-of-monotheisms mentality among those Muslims, Christians, and Jews who seem so often to mistake religion for faith and scripture for God. But it also initiated a vibrant discourse among Muslims about the meaning and message of Islam in the twenty-first century. What has occurred since that fateful day amounts to nothing short of another Muslim civil war – a fitnah – which, like the contest to define Islam after the Prophet’s death, is tearing the Muslim community into opposing factions.”

The death of the Bali Bombers gives Muslims in Indonesian a chance to move forward the discourse about the nature of Islam and the role that it plays in our lives and how it will fit in the world community.

I just finished doing an interview this morning on ABC radio in Darwin on these topics. If you want to listen to it, I'll add a link once it is posted on the ABC website.