AND YOU THOUGHT ONLY THAT MORON, GEORGE W. BUSH, BELIEVE DEMOCRACY WOULD SUCCEED IN THE ISLAMIC WORLDF:

Democracy proves a winner (Anita Barraud, February 14, 2009, The Australian)

While waiting at Denpasar airport in Bali, I meet a young man from Flores, an island off the coast of West Timor. We chat and I tell him my brief: four radio programs exploring Indonesia's transition to democracy.

He laughs. "Indonesia has had democracy for just over 10 years. There are countries that have had it for 150 years and still haven't got it right," he says.

He has a point. Since 1998, Indonesia has transformed. There are now more than 30 political parties, a robust anti-corruption drive and the military, officially at least, is banned from political influence. The conservative Islamic parties have suspended campaigns for the introduction of shariah law. The two main Muslim organisations are stressing a just and prosperous nation rather than an Islamic state.

In little more than a decade, Indonesia has guaranteed freedom of the press, expression and association, and has signed all the major UN conventions on human rights and disability and mandated sexual equality, aiming for 30 per cent female representation in all government administrations.

East Timor gained its independence and Aceh achieved special autonomy status. Open a newspaper in Indonesia, watch afternoon talk shows on television and you'll find vigorous discussion and criticism, even ribald satire, on issues that rival any in a Western democracy.