Accidents of colonial history Indonesia was the Dutch-run bit of the East Indies, Malaysia the British bit help explain the rows over territory and culture.

ECONOMIST: Discord across the Malacca strait

But I believe that the history of both America and Indonesia should give us hope.

WHITEHOUSE: Indonesia��s Example to the World

She does a decent job of explaining the history, pointing to the colonization of Suriname and Indonesia, and the key role the Dutch West India Company played in the slave trade.

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Despite a long history as a huge exporter of commodities, Indonesia has flipped from having a trade account surplus to a deficit in recent months, and last quarter recorded its biggest ever current-account deficit.

WSJ: Indonesian Boom Starts to Stall

It is hard to see why tiny East Timor, with its separate history, should provoke fears of the break-up of Indonesia.

ECONOMIST: A survey of Indonesia

Juwono says the prickly reaction from some probably reflects the widespread feeling that Indonesia is ready for civilian rule after a history of military dominance that has only recently diminished.

CNN: The Unlikely 'Military Man'

For a country whose population is still overwhelmingly rural, and which throughout its history has experienced recurrent food shortages, such an omission indicates a superficial analysis of Indonesia's economy.

ECONOMIST: Bitter pill

The daylong siege in a village about 75 miles southeast of the capital underscored the degree to which attacks by majority Buddhists against the Muslim minority in Myanmar, especially those from the Rohingya ethnic group, is reverberating outside Myanmar and especially in Indonesia, the world's most-populous Muslim-majority country with a history of terrorism by a small number of extremists.

WSJ: Terror Suspects Slain in Indonesia