A 14TH century Chinese explorer, known as Admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He) is a figure revered for bringing about the convergence of civilizations: he was a Muslim who paid homage to the Chinese Goddess of the Sea as well as being an erudite student of Buddhism. Such an enlightened individual deserves to be celebrated, we are told, as an embodiment of the pluralism that modern Indonesia is striving to achieve in this age of religious extremism.

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