“My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist”
by Sadanand Dhume Sadanand Dhume BY HD DAVE
Washington-based journalist, Asia expert and longtime South Asian Journalist Association member Sadanand Dhume has his first book out called “My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist.” It’s just been published in Australia (no U.S. edition yet).
My Friend the Fanatic is a portrait of the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, a land once synonymous with tolerance that finds itself in the midst of a profound shift toward radical Islam. This portrait is painted through the travels of a pair of unlikely protagonists. Sadanand Dhume, the author, is a foreign correspondent, an Indian atheist with a fondness for literary fiction and an interest in economic development. His companion, Herry Nurdi, is a young Islamist who worships Osama bin Laden.
Dhume’s quest to understand the ongoing radicalization of Indonesia gives My Friend the Fanatic the contours of a travelogue. His attachment to the country’s fading culture of pluralism and the inherent tension of his friendship with Herry supply the emotional undertow of a memoir. Both strands come together to answer the same question: how does a society go from broad inclusiveness to shrill intolerance in the space of a generation?
By turns disturbing and amusing, My Friend the Fanatic addresses two of the most pressing questions of our times. Is Islam compatible with liberal democracy? Is it compatible with economic development? Is Herry an anomaly or does he in fact represent his country’s future?
Between 1999 and 2004 Sadanand lived in Asia. He served as India bureau chief and an Indonesia correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Wall Street Journal Asia. As a freelance writer he continues to contribute essays and op-eds to FEER and WSJ, as well as to, among others, Commentary, YaleGlobal and Foreign Policy. In 2007 he was an inaugural Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society, with which he remains affiliated as an associate fellow.
He is currently working on two books: an allegory about the growth of radical Islam since World War Two, and a work of narrative nonfiction about India.
