Meatwad wrote:
[size=medium]Large numbers of Indonesian women, [Obama] observed, have now adopted the hijab, the Muslim head covering. Why, Turnbull asked, was this happening? Because, Obama answered, the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs have funneled money, and large numbers of imams and teachers, into the country … [funding] seminaries that teach the fundamentalist version of Islam.[/size]
The adoption of hijab in mainstream Southeast Asian culture was triggered in the 1980s largely as a byproduct of the revolution in Iran. With the growing prominence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there came a resurgence of the early 1900's PanIslamic zeitgeist that reinforced the Islamic identity beyond the nationalist. This led to the re-examining of many Muslims here of what constituted the Islamic identity, the hijab being one such product of this. As this identity grew it also took on a mainstream role in popular culture, and hijabs became fashionable.
While the fact that Arab states have channeled money into local institutions can't be denied, there are great differences between the nature of investment by Saudi and Gulf States (and Iran), and the nature of such institutions also vary greatly. The nature of Islamic movements within Southeast Asia itself is diverse, and Indonesia in particular has a healthy mix of differing Islamic philosophies from Shiism, to Islamic Modernist. Regardless of this, it is actually the case that Saudi influence is accepted grudgingly or not at all, with pro-Saudi voices being in the minority (albeit some in influential positions). Wahabiism in particular carries a stigma strong enough for witch-hunts to be carried out of its alleged proponents.
The direct correlation of the hijab and 'fundamentalism', taken as a proxy word for extremism, is both tenuous and prejudiced.
