The recent controversy over the visit of a German Embassy staffer to the headquarters of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) shows what happens when a diplomatic event has a brush with domestic politics. Here is what we know. On Dec. 17, 2020, an employee of the German Embassy visited the FPI headquarters in Petamburan, Central Jakarta. Her entry into the compound and the car she arrived in, which bore a diplomatic license plate, was photographed, most likely by an intelligence officer assigned to watch the goings-on at the compound. Two days later, FPI secretary-general Munarman confirmed her visit to the media and the incident went viral. Reports began to surface that the woman in question was a member of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

As if COVID-19 and the economic recession were not enough, the world today has to bear with a wrangle between France and the Islamic world, sparked by controversy over President Emmanuel Macron’s recent statements about Islam. Macron made his comments after the gruesome beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad to his students as part of a class discussion.