From Publishers Weekly
Vast, vital and incredibly diverse economically, socially, ethnically and religiously, the Republic of Indonesia has been hit hard by successive dictatorships, the East Asian recession and religious militants. Dahlby, former Newsweek and Washington Post bureau chief, begins his journalistic account of his pre- and post-9/11 travels there with a study of religious conflict in the Moluccas in 1999. A reluctant interisland passenger along with several hundred Islamic jihadis, he meets a Moluccan elder statesman and his savvy daughter. On a later trip, he finds the country suffering from the aftereffects of 9/11 and American pressure to deal with what is inaccurately perceived as a monolithic jihadist movement—Indonesia's Islam, and its militant factions, are no more monolithic than any other aspect of the country. While he gives short history lessons (on Indonesia's Dutch colonial period, for instance) and cuts to larger current political debates during his journeys, Dahlby stays closer to his own feelings and the logistics of his trips than many readers will want: his style is sometimes positively chatty; he draws on his own politics freely in interpreting his experiences. Yet the writing has a strong visual quality and vividly drawn players given the desperate shortage of popular material on Indonesia, this title helps fill the information gap. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Newsweek, international edition
"Thoughtful and engaging"
Newsweek (International Edition)
Thoughtful and engaging. Dahlby combines the sharp sensitivities of a political observer with an old-fashioned flair for storytelling.
Book Description
Indonesia, Southeast Asia -- the next front in the war on terrorism maybe the most difficult ... and explosive.
Long before September 11, 2001, terrorism's global elite was already zeroing in on Indonesia -- the world's most populous Islamic nation, and its largest archipelago, where dense jungles and intricate, unpatrolled coastlines conceal almost endless hiding places. Acclaimed journalist and filmmaker Tracy Dahlby takes us into this dangerous terrain, both before and after 9/11, interweaving the divergent perspectives of Koran-thumping preachers, hardened holy warriors, military commandos, and embattled Muslim moderates, in a first-rate reporting adventure that sheds new light on the epidemic chaos now threatening our international community.
By turns harrowing, thought-provoking, and humorous, Allah's Torch charts a fascinating course through a sprawling land unknown to most Americans where the home-bred Jemaah Islamiyah, Asia's answer to Al Qaeda, pursues its deadly ambition of pressing all of Southeast Asia under the yoke of a pure Islamic super-state.
With the trained observer's eye for detail and veteran newsman's sense of the story hiddenbehind the headlines, Dahlby gives readers a highly personal tour of the militant Jakarta slums, terrorist-traumatized Bali, and the Islamic heartland on the island of Java, where the outcome of a struggle now raging between moderate Muslims and their extremist brethren for the country's Islamic soul promises to have far-reaching effects on the lives of ordinary Americans. In so doing, Dahlby maps out the chilling realities of what radical Islam has planned for us as our worlds inevitably collide -- and offers some surprising conclusions about how America's leaders -- and its citizens -- can best defend our country against Asia's new Osama bin Ladens.
Allah's Torch: A Report from Behind the Scenes in Asia's War on Terror FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Long before September 11, 2001, terrorism's global elite was already zeroing in on Indonesia - the world's most populous Islamic nation, and its largest archipelago, where dense jungles and intricate, unpatrolled coastlines conceal almost endless hiding places. Acclaimed journalist and filmmaker Tracy Dahlby takes us into this dangerous terrain, both before and after 9/11, interweaving the divergent perspectives of Koran-thumping preachers, hardened holy warriors, military commandos, and embattled Muslim moderates, in a first-rate reporting adventure that sheds new light on the epidemic chaos now threatening our international community." Allah's Torch charts a course through a sprawling land unknown to most Americans where the home-bred Jemaah Islamiyah, Asia's answer to Al Qaeda, pursues its deadly ambition of pressing all of Southeast Asia under the yoke of a pure Islamic super-state. Dahlby gives readers a highly personal tour of the militant Jakarta slums, terrorist-traumatized Bali, and the Islamic heartland on the island of Java, where the outcome of a struggle now raging between moderate Muslims and their extremist brethren for the country's Islamic soul promises to have far-reaching effects on the lives of ordinary Americans.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Vast, vital and incredibly diverse economically, socially, ethnically and religiously, the Republic of Indonesia has been hit hard by successive dictatorships, the East Asian recession and religious militants. Dahlby, former Newsweek and Washington Post bureau chief, begins his journalistic account of his pre- and post-9/11 travels there with a study of religious conflict in the Moluccas in 1999. A reluctant interisland passenger along with several hundred Islamic jihadis, he meets a Moluccan elder statesman and his savvy daughter. On a later trip, he finds the country suffering from the aftereffects of 9/11 and American pressure to deal with what is inaccurately perceived as a monolithic jihadist movement-Indonesia's Islam, and its militant factions, are no more monolithic than any other aspect of the country. While he gives short history lessons (on Indonesia's Dutch colonial period, for instance) and cuts to larger current political debates during his journeys, Dahlby stays closer to his own feelings and the logistics of his trips than many readers will want: his style is sometimes positively chatty; he draws on his own politics freely in interpreting his experiences. Yet the writing has a strong visual quality and vividly drawn players given the desperate shortage of popular material on Indonesia, this title helps fill the information gap. Agent, Philip Spitzer. (On sale Jan. 4) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Indonesia, that congeries of 13,677 islands, contains the largest concentration of Muslims in the world. And most of them, it appears, hate America. This is a sudden change of heart, writes former Newsweek International editor Dahlby. In 2000, he notes, 75 percent of Indonesians surveyed in a major poll expressed positive feelings toward the US. Three years later, the figure stood at 15 percent, the result of several factors: perceived American arrogance toward Muslims after 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, and the sudden rise of a powerful Islamist movement openly proposing to turn secular Indonesia into a fundamentalist theocracy. In the company of a long-suffering interpreter named Norman Wibowo (whose "real name was inscribed on the hilt of a kris, or Javanese dagger, buried in a secret vault in old Surakarta"), Dahlby wanders around the Indonesian islands looking for errant terrorists and their supporters, all with an eye to coming up with "a clearer picture of who or what we were up against and what we really meant when we talked about a war on terror." Some of what he turns up is revealing, even if it will seem unhappily familiar: long before al Qaeda made the news, Indonesian police warned the Clinton and then Bush administrations that Islamist factions posed an imminent threat, alerts that were dismissed, Dahlby suggests, because Washington disdains "third-world intelligence." As the bomb attack in Bali in October 2002 shows, the Indonesian police have reason to be concerned; meanwhile, thanks to a young and chronically underemployed population that proves a fertile recruiting ground, the Islamist ranks grow. Regrettably, though, most of Dahlby's narrative takes the form of asometimes cute ("Did I just hear somebody use the phrase 'gross overstatement'?"), sometimes merely self-indulgent travelogue full of set pieces-guerrillas out of Terry and the Pirates, strange food, mysterious rajahs, and so forth-that is at odds with and ultimately undermines the dire import of Dahlby's findings on the ground. Useful, but trying of the patience. Agent: Philip Spitzer/Philip Spitzer Literary Agency
Art & Photography
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