T

he US is expecting its efforts in building common ground between Indonesians and Americans to keep improving.

US Ambassador Scot Marciel says many Americans still have misperceptions of and prejudice toward the Muslim world, while Indonesia often regards the US as having double standards in dealing with the Muslim world, for example.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, while the US is proud of its pluralism. “Our relationship is based on respect… A big part of what we’re trying to do [is enhance] how Indonesia understands America and America understands Indonesia,” Marciel told an audience in a joint videoconference dialogue at the University of Indonesia’s Salemba campus in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He said the US’ main focus in building understanding between the two nations was to increase the number of Indonesian and American students involved in exchange programs, as US President Barack Obama promised during his visit to Jakarta last year.

He said Indonesians might gain false impressions of Americans from Hollywood movies. Meanwhile, Americans may find it hard to understand Indonesians well because they rarely meet Muslims, let alone those from Indonesia, although US policy does not tolerate discrimination against different religions.

“We don’t ask people about their religion in our census. It is estimated that there are 2 to 5 million Muslims in the US. There are around 1,200 mosques in [the US] and 70 percent [of Americans surveyed] said they had no problem with a mosque being built [near] them,” Marciel said, underlining that the presence of Islam was not a problem in the US.

He also condemned the Koran burning, which took place on March 20, by a Florida pastor, Wayne Sapp, whom Marciel said did not represent true Americans.

“I wish he were not American. People who burn churches here do not represent Indonesia either,” he added.

But Marciel said there was already progress in US efforts to increase understanding between Indonesians and Americans.

For example, he said, a conservative Indonesian Muslim woman had lived with a conservative American Jewish family during her studies.

After her stay, he said, the student testified that the family celebrated Ramadan with her and she celebrated Jewish holydays with the family.

The dialogue was also organized for participants from other universities to join, including Syiah Kuala University in Aceh, Riau University in Riau, Sriwijaya University in South Sumatra’s Palembang and Brawijaya University in East Java’s Malang.

But there were less than 30 participants from the University of Indonesia, including students, teachers and staff, around eight participants from Syiah Kuala University and at least 10 participants from Riau University. There were no participants from Brawijaya University.

A participant from Syiah Kuala University complained of a bad connection during the videoconference, causing those university attendants to miss most of Marciel’s introductory statement.