ccip.. farfetched as it may seem, when I was back at school I used to have a good mate who was sent with his father to Indonesia to work as an attache, focussing on education. His old man spent a lot of time touring schools, reviewing their syllabussessssssseseesessss, and in each and every single religious school, every geography text that he came across labelled northern australia (draw a line due west from brisbane) as southern indonesia.
And this was being taught to an entire generation of kids who went to these schools with a religious base - and that was only 10 years ago. What is worrying is these schools were generally the altternative educational option for those of lesser means, which lets face it, is the majority in indonesia. It was this which persuaded me to major in Indonesian, too.
So, lets summarise and paraphrase to this point - In the largest muslim country in the world, almost an entire generation of kids were brought up in religious schools in which it was taught that non-believers were occupying islamic lands,
and taught that this must stop! Very very worrying.
Furthermore, some people might recall a while ago i posted in a large, long-since locked (i think?) thread about the distinct possibility of Iran and iraq becoming one great nation were foreign forces to leave. Sitting aside both sides of the worlds big oil route, they would hold considerable power - not to mention dwarf the other gulf states, who would be threatened into submission - suddenly you've got the gulf under the complete control of a select few rulers.... pretty close to a caliphate if you ask me! from there it is only a couple of steps to the east to link up with Indonesia, and look at that you've got a nation spanning half the world, controlling resources and holding a lot of political sway.
That, unfortunately, is a lot more likely than people may like to think!
