Reviewed by NELLA SCOTT.
On October 13 2002, foreign correspondent Sadanand Dhume stood in the shell of the famous Sari Club surrounded by police tape and disarray.
The night before over 200 people including 88 Australians had died while hundreds more were severely injured when a massive car bomb was detonated in the street outside, the horrific events marking the demise of Indonesia’s reputation as a moderate Islamic country.
For Dhume, the rubble around him was an ashen reminder of lives lost and journeys ended, but it was also the beginning of an journey that would wind its way through the Indonesian archipelago as he explored the extent to which Islam had infiltrated traditional Indonesian culture.
His findings are woven into My Friend the Fanatic, a tightly written and enormously readable story which chronicles the travels of Dhume, an Indian-born self-proclaimed atheist educated in the United States, and his unlikely friendship with Herry Nurdi, a passionate young Indonesian Islamist who hero worships Osama bin Laden.
Despite long and detailed descriptions of Indonesia’s political history – a necessity in most cases for readers unfamiliar with Indonesia – Dhume’s astute sense of humour and his inclusion of intimate human moments at key points in the narrative make his writing agreeably accessible.
In particular, Dhume’s problematic friendship with Herry Nurdi, allows for some of the most poignant moments in the book as the author struggles to separate his affection for his friend and his utter abhorrence at Nurdi’s extremist Islamic beliefs.
Dhume is quite forthright about his limitations as an objective observer of Indonesian Islamic culture – his concerns about the rise of fundamentalism are always apparent –but his openness about where he stands lends his writing a welcome frankness and honesty.
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