Seperti Bulan dan Matahari (Like the Moon and the Sun), written by retired diplomat Stanley Harsha, offers a lighthearted look at complex issues in Indonesia through the eyes of an American.

Harsha, whose diplomatic career spanned 28 years, said that he knew very little of Indonesia prior to his first posting here in 1986.

'€œI had met two Indonesians before,'€ Harsha told The Jakarta Post during a recent interview. '€œThey were both so sweet and so nice that I thought Indonesians were very lovely people.'€

He recalls the depth of his experience with Indonesia at the time: '€œI knew it was a big country. I knew it was very, very far away and I knew the people were very, very nice. I did not know very much else.'€

It was not long before Harsha, born in Colorado in 1956, adapted to life in the nation that would become like a second home.

Soon after he arrived, Harsha met his future wife, Henny Mangoendipoero, at a networking event. Less than a year later '€” and after several attempts to get into Henny'€™s heart '€” Harsha asked her to marry him.

The decision to marry Henny, who came from an aristocratic Javanese-Muslim family, would change his character, from a man posted to work in a distant country to someone who completely embraced the Indonesian way of life.

Marrying Henny meant that Harsha had to convert to Islam '€” a momentous decision that he eloquently describes in his book. Harsha also talks about learning what it meant to be a man in a Javanese family.

The sections of the book where he describes this process '€” and where he discusses Javanese culture and philosophy '€” are some of the most delightful parts of the book

Harsha also frankly discusses his experiences as a Muslim-American, anti-Islamic sentiment in the US as well as anti-American sentiments in Islamic countries, following the 9/11 terror attacks and the US'€™ so-called global War on Terrorism.

Bridging the gap between the US and the Muslim world is discussed by Harsha in the book'€™s next section, where he discusses US diplomatic programs to reach out to Muslims and show that Americans, in general, have no hatred of Islam following 9/11.

Stanley Harsha - Courtesy of Stanley Harsha

Here, Harsha shows his diplomatic skills, offering opinions on the Islamist-inspired shootings at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris that lie somewhere in the middle between liberals and conservatives.

In the book'€™s final chapters, Harsha discusses Indonesian democracy and politics in a very Javanese way '€” without too much sarcasm or blunt talk. Even so, he is quite critical of about the severity of corruption and human rights violations in a nation that he loves.

Harsha, who lived in Indonesia during the Soeharto era, acknowledged the emergence of personal freedoms and the general recognition of human rights under Reformasi, although he said that not enough progress had been made.

'€œEven after Soeharto was overthrown, you continue to have human rights violations,'€ Harsha said. '€œThere is no accountability for human right violations. So that'€™s the biggest danger. You need to account for human rights violations or they will happen again in the future.'€

He continues. '€œThat'€™s why I hope Jokowi [President Joko Widodo] will succeed in changing that, so that you will have respect for human rights, accountability for human rights violations and, most importantly, for the welfare of the people.'€

Harsha said Indonesia needed to avoid the mistakes that the US made in confronting its own human rights violations.

'€œHistorically, all nations have committed human rights violations. The United States '€” what we did to the Native Americans '€” was horrible, and there was never really accountability for that ['€¦] More recently, we have tortured suspected terrorists and also there is no accountability for that yet although the US government has admitted and apologized for that.'€

'€œThere has to be accountability for the human rights violations in order for the country to be united to be strong,'€ Harsha says. '€œMoving forward to the future, anytime someone in power violates the human rights of people who are helpless, there has to be a very serious attempt for accountability for that.'€