[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Talking to Jihadis
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
- Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 01:15:29 +0100
** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List **
** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi:
** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ **
** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral
scholarship, kunjungi
http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com
**http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,391716,00.html
January 5, 2006 Print | Send this article | Feedback
INDONESIA'S HOLY WAR
Talking to Jihadis
By Michael Scott Moore
As the United States tries to spread democracy throughout the Muslim world, a
rare meeting with Islamic radicals in Indonesia shows the downside of the
country's post-Suharto representative politics: It has allowed fundmentalists
to openly thrive in a country where they were once suppressed. Are there
lessons to be learned here for Iraq?
AP
An Indonesian soldier guards a Christian prayer service beside a church
destroyed in religious fighting several years ago in Poso, Central Sulawesi
province, Indonesia.
As people shopped for groceries at an open-air market on New Year's Eve in the
Indonesian coastal town of Palu, a homemade bomb loaded with nails killed at
least eight people and ripped apart a kiosk selling pork. Christians on the
island of Sulawesi eat pork on New Year's, but devout Muslims, of course,
don't. Indonesian police believe the bombing is the latest tragic installment
in a long-simmering religious struggle, like the decapitation of three
Christian girls on another part of the island last October. Militants with
machetes attacked the girls in a cocoa plantation while they walked to a
Christian school, and -- just to make sure they made their point nice and clear
-- they left one of the heads lying outside a church.
The message was war: Sulawesi is half-Christian, but jihadis there think the
island should be sanitized for Islam. The idea is to win a limited war for
shariah law in an area where radicals think they can set up an Islamic
government. Scattered "secure areas" for shariah have existed in other
countries, like the Philippines. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front built base
camps there in the early '90s, for example, and within a few years a network of
Muslim villages on Mindanao Island answered to "the Bangsamoro Islamic
government" instead of Manila.
This war has been mentioned by US President George W. Bush. Lately he's been on
the lecture circuit to refresh everyone's memory about the war on terrorism.
"The terrorists' stated objective," he has said recently in a handful of
cities, "is to drive US and coalition forces out of Iraq and gain control of
that country and then use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against
America, overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, and establish a
totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Spain to Indonesia."
He's right -- that is what the terrorists want. Whether their wishes are in
danger of coming true is another question. The columnist William Pfaff has made
fun of the speech line by calling it, "a farrago of unattainable Islamist
ambitions and al-Qaida's delusions, cobbled together by administration
speech-writers to frighten Americans who are laggard in their support for
Bush's war."
Much of Sulawesi -- like most of Indonesia -- is peaceful and calm. But there
are scattered battlegrounds. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the
world: It has a secular constitution, but (like Iraq) it's new to democracy. I
went there in spring 2004 to research a book and watch the people elect a
president. A right-wing dictator, General Suharto, had ruled the vast chain of
tropical islands for more than thirty years, from 1965 to 1998; but a student
movement inspired by a rotten economy forced him out, and while I was there
Indonesians were casting their first direct votes for president.
I also dropped in on members of Majelis Mujahideen of Indonesia -- MMI, or the
Council of Martyrs -- which is a front group for Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaida
linked group that contributes foot soldiers in Sulawesi. Abu Bakar Baashir, the
famous old radical with a white beard who keeps moving in and out of jail,
founded MMI in 2000. The group's relationship to Jemaah Islamiyah is like Sinn
Fein's to the Irish Republican Army: One is official, the other not. MMI has a
Web site and makes campaign endorsements -- though they don't always talk to
the press. Although Baashir likes to call both Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaida
figments of the government's (or America's) imagination, everyone can agree
that MMI is real.
Meeting the fundamentalists
My guides and translators were university students in Yogyakarta, a lively
cultural hub in the middle of Java. When I asked them to put me in touch with
"fundamentalists," I wasn't sure what to expect, but through Abi and Syihab I
got to have a rare conversation about democracy and shariah law with hard-core
(but unarmed) Indonesian jihadis.
The MMI office was a low bare building in the east of Yogyakarta, on a plain
residential street. It had the shabby uninspiring feel of a tax office. A
concrete overhang shaded a green-tiled porch where a desk stood next to a glass
souvenir case full of pulp novels with Muslim-superhero themes.
A member named Hasyim Abdullah checked us in. He was thin and short but
intense, with a dark beard like a lace curtain, a black peci or pillbox cap,
and a brown callus on his forehead from bowing during prayer. Abi and Syihab,
my translators, mentioned it later: The callus was a badge of radicalism.
First, there were rules: We had to sign in. We had to show I.D. I filled out a
form declaring my intentions. When that was over we talked about Islam in a
casual way. Hasyim sat behind the desk and spoke with brow-creased passion.
Other Majelis members came to sit around us. One of them, Rian Firdausi, said
we were "just talking," since the executive director wasn't in. No one else
could speak for MMI as an organization. They could give their own opinions, but
not the official word.
Rian wore a white peci, squarish tape-mended glasses, and a long off-white
robe. He wasn't bearded so much as unshaven. He had a gentle manner and didn't
polemicize like Hasyim.
With my form in his hands, Hasyim squinted. He wasn't sure if he could trust
me. He started with a few principles: Muslims viewed God as the only source of
truth, and therefore the only source of law. Democracies since the French
Revolution had turned "majority rule" into God. Muslims, on the other hand, had
a perfect way of ordering society. God had given them an unimpeachable set of
laws, through the Koran and the hadiths, or acts of Mohammed, which would solve
every human problem.
I said no one confused God with majority rule in the United States. The
founders of both America and modern France had seen a distinction between the
law of God and the law of man. Christianity allowed this distinction.
Hasyim asked for evidence.
"Evidence?" I asked Abi.
"He's asking if you remember any specific lines from the Bible that allow
people to have laws outside Christianity."
In other words, to Hasyim, western systems were Christian systems. He didn't
believe there was separation of church and state. So I tried to think of a good
line from the Bible.
"Well, there's a proverb from Jesus -- 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give
to God what is God's.' He was talking to Jews about paying tax to the Romans."
Hasyim had never heard this quotation. He asked me to repeat it. Then he
explained that in Islam, law came only from God.
Allah and traffic laws
"Allah makes law for every human problem," Rian said in careful English. "Why
should we make law again?"
"Every problem? Even the small ones?" I asked.
"Yes, of course," Rian said.
"How about parking and traffic laws?"
At first they were confused. I wasn't trying to be facetious. But Rian said
bitterly, "Can you think of a problem with traffic-parking that goes against
the rule of Allah?"
"So human laws are allowed if they don't violate Islam?"
"Yes."
Abi explained, "Minor laws can be extrapolated from larger laws in the Koran."
"Then is democracy an acceptable way to arrive at smaller laws, as long as they
don't contradict the Koran?" I asked.
"Aha." Hasyim had me here. In his aggressive, precise and rapid dry voice he
spun out another argument, and Abi translated: "We cannot divide between Islam
and democracy, because Islam is by nature democratic."
"How?"
"One law in the Koran says, 'Males and females who have done their duties
correctly will be given the same reward.'"
"I see. Equality under God."
"Yes." Abi translated Hasyim: "Islam as a law of living is perfect; it's been
blessed by Allah himself. There's democracy as a doctrine, and Islam as a
doctrine. But the true one is Islam."
A doctrine? Abi had used this word more than once. Hasyim went on: The trouble
with America, he argued, was that it had no single moral standard. There were
many standards; this led to confusion. How did I account for America's social
problems under democracy? They were the result of different standards. In
France, Muslim dress had been outlawed -- was that democratic? In Indonesia or
any Muslim nation I was free to worship as I pleased. In fact, Islam was more
tolerant than western democracy. Since the 14th century there had never been a
church, or temple, or synagogue, or holy house from any foreign tradition
destroyed by Muslims in any Islamic society. Yet there was intolerance of
Muslims in Europe and America. How did I account for these contradictions?
The killing in Sulawesi that had been going on for several years seemed worth
mentioning, but Hasyim's answer had turned into a rant. The idea that no church
or temple or synagogue had ever been destroyed by Muslims in centuries was such
nonsense I had no idea what to say. Hasyim was baiting me. The reason for
violence against other religions in Muslim areas is normally some variation on
self-defense. Islam is under attack -- which is what militants think in
Sulawesi, because so many Christians do missionary work there -- so Muslims
need to take up arms.
I went back to another subject. I asked Hasyim about the word "doctrine." To
me, democracy wasn't a doctrine -- it was a process. Not a perfect one, and
people weren't perfect under it. But a democratic system could evolve.
"But it cannot give answers to the human problem," he said.
I asked how he accounted for social problems in theocracies like Iran, Pakistan
or Saudi Arabia, where shariah was in force.
"They don't stay close enough to the Koran and the hadiths," said Rian. "God
and his law are perfect, men are fallible. Also, people who commit violence in
the name of Islam do dishonor to Islam, in the eyes of the world."
"Then Muslim terrorists aren't true Muslims?"
Hasyim scowled. His forehead furrowed around the dark prayer callous and he
started to shout: "George Bush is the terrorist!" he said. "Not Muslims! There
are no Muslim terrorists! George Bush ..."
But Rian said that in his opinion true Muslims could not be terrorists.
Then Hasyim began to rant -- really rant, in long passionate sentences which
Abi and Syihab interrupted sometimes, just to translate -- about President John
F. Kennedy, who (he said) tried to solve problems caused by America's wayward
youth in the 1960s by sending the social scum to Vietnam. Did I think that was
a good idea? Kennedy, said Hasyim, had promised in a campaign speech to cleanse
American society of its losers and criminals by sending them as cannon fodder
to Vietnam.
"That's not true," I said.
"But have you heard this campaign promise?" Rian asked.
"Never."
"Well," he said triumphantly. "You should look it up."
Of course Vietnam wasn't even a campaign issue in 1960; but I let that go.
Soon the meeting broke up. It had been tense. Abi and Syihab were shaken, too.
They'd never talked for so long to fundamentalists. The fierce defense of
illogical positions, to Abi, was "scary," but also a question of
self-knowledge: He said Hasyim and Rian and the others would never look inward
to question themselves or their religion. "Instead, they looked outside for
enemies."
Abi also said something interesting. In spite of the shabby office building,
and the poor-looking clothes, fundamentalists in Yogyakarta tended to be
middle-class students from technical universities. "Science and religion aren't
separated here, as in the west," he explained. "But some people raised in
secular homes have no exposure to Islam until they are at university." They
discover these ideas as technical students and convert with fervor. Rian at the
MMI office had said his family in Sulawesi was aristocratic -- "but I no longer
call myself an aristocrat; I am a Muslim" -- and Abi thought that was a good
example. "Rian may have been raised in a secular home," he said.
Can fighting poverty help stop terror?
The radicals I met in Indonesia contradict the vague idea in America that
violent Islam is a function of oppression and poverty. Where dictators keep
people destitute, goes the thinking, frustrated young men turn to extreme
religion. That was one point of the Iraq war. Beyond the fizzled excuse about
weapons of mass destruction, one of the main justifications for the invasion
was that "a stable, peaceful, and democratic" Middle East would breed fewer
terrorists, not only because terrorists relied on certain dictators for money
but also because ordinary Muslims would have less reason to bomb London or New
York if they could feed their families and vote for their leaders.
What complicates the situation in Indonesia is that democracy seems to have had
the opposite effect. The collapse of Suharto's dictatorship enabled Baashir to
freely set up MMI in Yogyakarta in 2000, and let Jemaah Islamiyah spread to the
major cities and rebel flashpoints of Indonesia, starting with East Timor.
Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) reports that "fundamentalists in
Jakarta's universities are gearing up to assume power in the 2008 parliamentary
elections" -- but that doesn't mean that what they have in mind is democracy.
When middle-class or even rich young men discover the poetry of the Koran, the
austerities of sharia, along with the fiery rhetoric of rebellion against an
imperial, decadent west, it is easy enough to end up with warriors for the law
of God in any system. And democracy gives them freedom to move. To most
Americans, this tolerance of subversion is the great virtue of a liberal
society, but in Indonesia -- for example -- it fails to move Hasyim Abdullah's
heart with gratitude.
This, of course, raises an important question for Iraq: If fostering democracy
in other Muslim nations has enabled the return of extremism, how can Baghdad
avoid a similar fate?
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Clean water saves lives. Help make water safe for our children.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/CHhStB/VREMAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:
1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi
4. Satu email perhari: ppiindia-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
5. No-email/web only: ppiindia-nomail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
6. kembali menerima email: ppiindia-normal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ppiindia-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List **
** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi:
** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ **
** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral
scholarship, kunjungi
http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **
Other related posts:
- » [nasional_list] [ppiindia] Talking to Jihadis
