Tyler Gnietwotta and Yohanna Ririhena, The Jakarta Post,

Sometimes a phrase can be much more than just words and can find its way into everyday use in all aspects of life.

This holds true with the Indonesian saying ‘from tragedy to opportunity’ as the nation overcame obstacles faced in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to come out on the other side as a well respected ‘middle ground’ society.

“Immediately following 9/11 we had a major challenge because (then US president) Bush took US foreign policy in a very different trajectory by entering Iraq without UN support and declaring a global war on terrorism that seemed to target Muslim societies,” recalled Dewi Fortuna Anwar, the Vice President’s special advisor on foreign affairs, of the early days after the attack.

This rough start to the new millennium included growing concerns about what the future would hold as the US embarked on a war in Iraq with implications that reached across traditional state borders and threatened to touch upon religious entities in what some thought could turn into an East vs. West conflict.

“We were worried that the US attack on Iraq would be seen by our population as an attack on Islam, and more dangerously it would be seen as a war between Muslims and Christians” added then foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda.

Read more