Jeff Jacoby on Muslim allies we need to win

Abdurrahman Wahid? I couldn’t recall the name.

But Jeff Jacoby in his Boston Globe column today reminded me:

With 200 million residents, Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim nation, and Wahid -- popularly known as Gus Dur -- was not only its first democratically elected president but the longtime chairman of its largest Muslim organization, the 35 million-member Nadhlatul Ulama.

A revered religious scholar who studied in Cairo and Baghdad, Wahid is a longtime champion of a moderate, progressive, and nonpolitical Islam. As a result, he has frequently clashed with militant fundamentalists whose growing influence, fueled by Arab/Wahhabi oil money, is undermining Indonesia's traditional religious pluralism.

Jacoby reports on actions Wahid has taken to oppose Muslim extremists. Last year, for example

Wahid spearheaded the opposition to a series of 11 reactionary fatwas, or religious decrees, issued by a high-ranking council of Indonesian Muslim clerics.

The fatwas condemned any Islamic teaching based on liberalism and secularism, banned interfaith prayers not led by a Muslim, and even prohibited the answering of ''amen" to a non-Muslim prayer. Wahid and LibForAll promptly organized a group of religious leaders into an ''Alliance Toward a Civil Society," which denounced the fatwas as unworthy of decent Muslims and improper under Indonesia's constitution.

Jacoby says much more before he ends with:

Muslims no less than non-Muslims have a great deal riding on the defeat of the Islamofascists, (and) we will not win the war against radical Islam without Muslim allies like Wahid.

Jacoby’s column offers a look at the vast and critical struggle going on within Islam between the fundamentalists and those seeking a peaceful, democratic way to exist and partner with the West.

It’s hard for Americans to understand and gauge the direction of that struggle. Our media gives undue attention to the anti-Americanism and violence of Muslim fundamentalists while largely underreporting opposition to the fundamentalists from leaders like Wahid and organizations like Nadhlatul Ulama.

Three hundred zealots burning a flag and shouting “Death to America” will make the evening news. So will most any Imam screaming “Destroy the Great Satan.” It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve seen and heard it all before, MSM makes sure we see it again.

But when three hundred young men and woman gather in Jakarta before flying to America to pursue graduate studies and become engineers, physicians, and teachers: any interviews? Their thoughts? How do their families feel?

Nah, that’s not a story. Get the clip of those guys burning the flag.

And Wahid? Sure, he's important. Tell him if he changes his mind and decides to declare a fatwa against America, Bill Moyers or Ted Koppel will do a split screen interview with him. And Letterman will want to have him on.

Don't miss Jacoby's column here.