Net Neutrality--Google--Fairness Doctrine.

[Hammerskjold]

It has a history of peaceful coexistence, but things have been getting increasingly tense for non-Muslims there. I think part of this is due to better worldwide communications. In the past, if a person converted from Islam to Christianity the people might not hear about it for months, if ever. Now, it becomes evening news and everyone is involved.

It's much more complex than just religion. There's this concept as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pribumi

And economic factors. And the colour of your skin. And regionalism. And education level. Municipal level governance vs national level. Crony capitalism corruption vs micro economics. Generals vs President (who are sometimes surprise surprise ex-military generals) vs Public. Old vs Young. Team Edward vs Team Jacob. All are in play at the same time. Seriously, I'm not being rude here but I have to be blunt.

Stop fixating only on the Islam\religious part. It actually plays a much smaller part than you think. And when it does, it doesn't match up to what you've been talking about.

And I dunno where you get the idea with the modern communication bit vs not hearing it for months in the olden days. One thing people don't hear much and it certainly doesn't get much if any airplay in the west, is that Indonesia is actually a pretty big 'cafe' culture.

It's quite close to the Canadian Coffee\Donut shop culture. Go look up some pictures of 'Warung Kopi' (Coffee stall). When I was there it ranged from portable vendor stands, to brick and mortar vendors\shop\hangouts.

And like any other cafe culture, talks invariably turns to guess what, gossip. Any and all topic to gossip about, just like any other coffee shop.

While it's true that modern communication technology does make things faster, it's not like the coffee clatch communication was that slow. Even without texting or the Inner-nets. One way of gauging that is how fast slang changes. Before the innernets, it was pretty fast, certainly faster than the west. Nowadays, I can't even imagine. Considering that some of the coffee shops are also internet cafes, it'd probably be like adding speed to espresso.

But no, it's not like all people talk about is 'omg did you hear about so and so? She converted! Now let's have a 12 hour discussion about religion, because that's all we do all day.'

Seriously, I dunno where you get your source of info but I suggest looking for better ones. Right now it seems you're watching some SpongeBob then thinking you have a fair handle on what marine life is actually like.

edited fix for grammer rodeo mishap.