Muslim--friend or foe?

This post was submitted by AAA Past President James Peacock.

The place is Indonesia, the fourth largest nation in the world and the one with the largest Muslim population. The time is 1962-3 on the eve of "The year of living dangerously. Recently married, my wife, Florence, and I were living in Surabaya, Indonesia. She was bitten by a rabid dog. No serum was available, it seemed, at this time of economic crisis. A Muslim woman appealed to friends on behalf of Florence and in the nick of time one Indonesian doctor found serum for injections, which saved her life. Note this point: this Indonesian Muslim secured a scarce serum for a foreigner, an American. This life-saving gift was given not to an Indonesian but to an immigrant, deemed by President Sukarno an enemy, a neocolonialist at this time of the cold war when Indonesia had the third largest Communist party in the world.

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