At sea, cruising between Northern Australia and New Guinea: Our cruise up the east coast of Oz ended when we turned west around its northeast corner. Now we cruise west toward Darwin, the only city in Oz bombed by Japanese planes in World War II.
We visited Darwin some years ago, came north by train from Adelaide and flew out to Cairns, which the locals pronounce "cans." After Darwin we go to Komodo Island, home of the oversized lizards called "dragons," and on to Bali, which Australians call "barley."
The latter two stops are in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. Perhaps ironically, Bali is the only island of any size in Indonesia that is predominantly of another faith.
Most Balinese are polytheistic Hindus. Our waiter tells us Hindu was the ancestral religion of the entire region before the arrival of Islam, and Bali the only place where Islam didn't catch on.
Perhaps you have difficulty imagining a Muslim nation which tolerates a sizable enclave of non-Muslims. What makes it work is that Indonesian Islam has historically been non-fundamentalist.
It was America's misfortune that our first president with a personal exposure to Islam experienced laid-back Indonesian Islam rather than the crusading jihadi Islam killing non-Muslims on every continent except Antarctica. Obama experienced Islam-lite and chose to believe all Muslims were similarly genial and tolerant.
