The Age [Australia], October 14 2002
Radical Islam taking centre stage
Extremists may be the tool, yet again, to foment instability in the archipelago, writes
Louise Williams.
Radical Islam has long played a bit part in Indonesia's murky domestic political
scene. The crucial question raised by the Bali bombings is whether the same forces
of Islamic extremism have now been recruited to play a similarly destructive role in the
international arena - as terrorists.
Domestically, Indonesian adherents of radical Islam have, to date, been cast in the
shadowy role of agents provocateurs, while moderate Islam has held centre stage.
While several thousand Indonesians are thought to have trained with the mujahideen
in Afghanistan in the 1980s, their concerns at home have been decidedly parochial.
Indonesia's small bands of so-called "jihad" warriors have been largely supported and
manipulated by Jakarta's politicians to fuel religious and ethnic tensions in the
tinderbox of multicultural, religiously diverse Indonesia. Such chaos has frequently
been fomented for political gain - either to discredit the government or strengthen the
hand of the military in "securing" the nation.
While such conflicts continue to cost numerous Indonesian lives, they have been
generally dismissed as local disputes in security assessments of the global
implications of radical Indonesian Islam.
Several important factors, however, have fuelled the recent rise of radical Islam in
Indonesia. Domestically, the economic crisis of 1997 and the fall of the authoritarian
president Suharto the following year had a profound influence on the freedom of
hardline Islamic groups to recruit, and the willingness of the swelling ranks of poor,
under-employed young men to follow. The US "war on terrorism" added a potent
international dimension to the volatile domestic picture.
Kumar Ramakrishna, an expert on terrorism at Singapore's Institute of Defence and
Strategic Studies, argues that external factors, particularly aggressive US war plans
for Iraq and Israel's continued military incursions into Palestinian territory, are
strengthening the credibility of radical Islamic agents provocateurs in the region.
"South-East Asian Muslims remain overwhelmingly law-abiding and moderate," he
said. "But this does not mean they do not struggle honestly with the arguments
advanced by radical ideologies that the problems of the wider Islamic world are due to
the biased foreign policies of the US."
President Megawati Sukarnoputri is trapped between a growing perception among
Indonesians of US foreign policy arrogance and pressure from Western governments
to crack down on Islamic extremists. As leader of a fledgling democracy, Megawati
does not have at her disposal the instruments of repression used so effectively
against Islamic hardliners during more than three decades of authoritarian rule under
Suharto.
In the final years of his rule, Suharto made a perilous attempt to shore up his regime
by secretly recruiting Islamic hardliners to foment violence, mainly against Christian
minority groups. The strategy backfired and Suharto was forced out of office after
riots. But he had unleashed the genie of Islamic extremism.
Islam continues to be used to provoke instability. Forces loyal to Suharto, as well as
factions in the security forces, are thought to be behind the most recent rise of armed
"jihad" groups.
Indonesia is only slowly recovering from the extraordinary economic collapse of 1997.
Grinding poverty has disempowered Indonesia's young Muslim men, and the "jihad"
movement offers them authority, arms and, in many cases, financial support for their
families.
Islam came to Indonesia in the late 13th century through trade, not war.
Overwhelmingly, Indonesian Muslims are moderates with a deep, historical
commitment to pluralism and tolerance. But historically Islam has provided
Indonesians with an identity that stood them apart. Under Dutch colonial rule, Islam
was a force of opposition. In the bloody chaos of the mid-1960s, Islamic youth groups
were used in massacres of Communists and left-wing sympathisers.
To date, the Indonesian Government has not arrested extremist leaders, probably
because of the perceived danger of being seen to be doing Washington's bidding.
Megawati's detractors are only too eager to use such an opportunity to destabilise
her.
She knows she has much to lose if her cooperation with the US is seen as
anti-Islamic at home.
* Louise Williams is a former Indonesia correspondent for The Age.
Copyright © 2002 The Age Company Ltd
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