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Now for our What in the World segment.

The Muslim world is too often plagued by dual threats, extremism on the one hand, authoritarianism

on the other.

But the largest Muslim majority country in the world has long served as a rebuke to that

narrative.

I'm talking about Indonesia.

A country where Muslim piety, pluralism and democracy have coexisted for years.

But things appear to be changing.

A new politicized hardline version of Islam is gaining ground, catalyzed in part by the

growing influence of Saudi Arabia and its money.

That hardline strain has already taken its toll on the upcoming national elections this

month, where the incumbent Joko Widodo faces a tough challenge.

A moderate when he was elected in 2014, Joko drew comparisons to President Obama as a relative

unknown who inspired hope.

He is not the first choice for many Islamist hardliners whose power is now ascended.

There is no more revealing moment of their growing power than the largest protests in Indonesian

history.

As the journalist Margaret Scott writes in the New York Review of Books, the unrest happened

...