Indonesian political analyst Rizal Sukma is among the Top 100 Global Thinkers alongside US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and US President Barack Obama, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

Rizal is honored by the magazine for “pushing a radical new view of Indonesia’s role in the world”. “Sukma is a leading theorist of the relationship between Islam and the state, and the global role of his country, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim *majority* nation,” Foreign Policy says of the executive director of Jakarta-based think-thank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The magazine also references Rizal’s recently-published book, Islam in Indonesian Foreign Policy, which is said to outline the tensions that have existed between the Indonesian identity and the government’s largely secular institutions since Indonesia’s independence in 1945.

“With Indonesia still grappling with the legacy of Suharto’s 32-year dictatorship, Sukma’s ideas could help chart a course that firmly integrates Indonesia into the world – and finally disproves the canard that Islam and democracy can’t mix,” the magazine adds.

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