Kate at OTB links to an interesting study that argues that public opinion in Indonesia is shifting away from anti-American and pro-Osama Bin Laden attitudes following the US-led tsunami relief efforts.

This is surely good news but I doubt whether relief in one of the country’s far away and renegade provinces really was the only driver behind this significant shift in opinion. Indonesian sentiments are notoriously fickle and the country was never a place noted for deep-rooted anti-American sentiments. You’ve got to wonder whether the short-lived wave of OBL-popularity wasn’t just a fluke at a time when the nation itself was going through some intense political turmoil with both domestic and imported Muslim radicals fanning the flames. If you take a closer look at the poll results it seems that the recent terrorist violence (notably the Bali bombings and the Marriott Jakarta attack with many local victims) have left a far deeper imprint on the average Indonesian. A solid majority agrees that violence against civilian targets is not justified under any circumstances and OBL’s rapid drop in popularity from 58 to 23% over a two-year period indicates that he was nothing but a short-lived phenomenon in a non-Arab country noted for its moderate brand of Islam.

Both the al-Qaeda and the anti-terror crowds considered the island republic a battleground that it never was and never will be. Still, as events of this week reveal, Indonesia remains an interesting and fairly unpredictable partner.