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People who know Indonesia may not like to hear negative comments on Indonesian society. Generally speaking, Indonesians tend to be friendly, open, respectful, tolerant (also of other religions), hospitable and helpful. By and large relations between people of different religions, tribes and races are good and in many places they cooperate very well to build a better society, increasingly called civil society.

But there is another side to this rosy picture, described, for example, by Jacob Sumardjo (2005):" Indonesian people often promote themselves as a nation of friendly people, however suddenly they can become intensely cruel and sadistic. They claim to be very religious; however they often act like people who are not religious at all.”