The jumbled world of Jihad
If the
topic wasn’t so serious this would be a darkly funny book.
Sociopaths
with warped religious views aren’t the stuff of humor, but many characters in The
Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia are bumbling fools rather than sinister
deviants.
They’re
more likely to blow themselves to pieces (or heaven, according to their
beliefs) than their targets, prone to fight each other than their perceived
enemies and forever making clumsy errors that makes detection likely.
About 200
Indonesians went to Afghanistan to train between 1985 and 1991 but found the
courses were taught in English and based on Indian military training. When young men were employed as instructors,
older recruits took offence. The
laid-back Javanese didn’t like the discipline and several dropped out.
None of
this forgives evil intent. A bomb in the hands of an incompetent amateur or
professional chemist is still a weapon that doesn’t discriminate, as the
terrorists realized once body parts were scraped off the sidewalk. After the
bangs, the debate.
Is it OK to
kill innocent Muslim bystanders in a mission to murder unbelievers? Suppose the
innocent are women and children.
Should war
be waged afar (in Western countries) or near, in the Republic run by pluralists
who won’t impose sharia law, but are still brother Muslims?
What’s
jihad – a violent struggle against oppressors, or an internal wrestling with
deviance? What do the holy books say?
As always
it’s the interpretation that determines.
Does the end justify the means? These are questions of deep philosophy
but the intellectuals are too smart to strap on suicide vests.
That’s a
job best left to the misfits who have lost their moral maps and rely on others
to set the compass.
Solahudin’s
book was first released in Indonesian as NII Sampai JI; Salafy Jihadisme di
Indonesia and reportedly well received.
It has now
been published as an English translation by Dr Dave McRae of Australia’s Lowy
Institute for International Policy.
How did
warped interpretations of Islam originate, and why did they take hold in
Indonesia?
Solahudin
found getting answers hasn’t been easy.
People who plot to kill seldom leave lucid explanations for their
actions, or chart their progress in assembling weapons. Then there’s the
disinformation.
One of the
few who articulated his conversion said:
‘From the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) my fanatical
feelings towards (mainstream Islamic organizations) Muhammadiyah, NU and so
forth faded and disappeared – praise be to God – and changed into fanaticism
for Islam’.
Apart from
court testimonies the credible local literature wouldn’t make a doorstop,
leaving the author to seek primary sources.
Even more
difficult. Those who haven’t killed
themselves by confusing the green wire with the red one, or been gunned down,
have died of old age, for the trail goes back to Darul Islam, the movement that
predates Independence.
Those who
have talked have given some dates, names and acronyms for the proliferation of
forums and slogans. However apart from the more recent suspects, like the
jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, these lists mean little to those not in the
security business.
What we do
get is an insight into the fragmentation, disorganization and poor focus that
makes up Indonesian terrorism. The
Western media talks about ‘membership’ of Jemaah Islamiyah and other groups as
though members pay dues and carry laminated cards when the truth is otherwise.
The typical
terrorist is young, disillusioned or dysfunctional, and often both, with a
distorted view of the world. Where
others seek wisdom, they want revenge, hoping to change society by letting
blood. Paranoia is a prerequisite.
To the
rational their actions seem doomed.
What difference have their bombs made?
Little, apart from a boom in security jobs and distrust of strangers.
The 2002
Bali bombing is usually marked as the start of modern terrorism in the
archipelago. It was the biggest but
not the first.
Assassination
attempts were made on president Soekarno, and others planned for his successor
Soeharto. These failed when a shopper
sent to Malaysia with Rp 4 million to buy a rocket-propelled grenade returned
empty handed.
Darul Islam
considered the New Order government to be worse than the Dutch, arguing that
though the colonialists interfered with the economy they left religion alone.
Churches
were targeted, usually as revenge for perceived Western abuses of Muslims
overseas. Borobudur was bombed.
The
inspiration for these outrages came from overseas, particularly the 1979
Islamic revolution in Iran, with the Indonesians conveniently overlooking that
their counterparts in Teheran were the hated Shiites.
The problem
with fanatics of all faiths is that they’re closed to compromise, seeing the
world as an old cowboy film, white hats versus black.
Despite the
record of Detachment 88 and the police, who have arrested over 700 suspects and
killed more than 60, Solahudin offers little solace: ‘The resilience of the
Indonesian jihadi movement is impressive … (reflecting) the idea of upholding
Islamic law’.
While the
success of democracy and a buoyant economy may dilute public support for
extremists, ideological conflict in the Middle East continues to fuel the
zealots’ ambitions – and provide the next generation of terrorists with the
skills to maintain their hate.
The
decades-old stories in this book of splits, plots, betrayals, pursuit and
shootouts read like today’s news. Terrorism remains, an irritant rather than a
movement, yet dangerous still.
The Roots
of Terrorism in Indonesia
By
Solahudin, translated by Dave McRae
Published
by UNSW Press 2013
236 pages
##
No comments:
Post a Comment