INDONESIA: Jihadist terror and US policy in Southeast Asia
The Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford University and The Asia Foundation will hold a joint seminar of Stanford's Southeast Asia Forum on February 11,2002. Don Emmerson has convened a discussion on faith, politics, and violence in indonesia. The speakers are
Ulil Abshar Abdalla, Executive Director, Indonesia Conference on Religion and Peace Moeslim Abdurrahman, Vice President, Muhammadiyah
Lies Marcoes Natsir, Researcher, Association for the Development of Pesantren and Society
Douglas Ramage, Representative, The Asia Foundation (Jakarta) Don writes: "American news from Indonesia has been alarming. "Asian Terror: Al Qaeda Seeks Niche in Indonesia, Officials Fear," headlined the New York Times on 23 January 2002. A few pages later, in a column ambitiously subtitled "What the Muslim World Really Feels," Tom Friedman described "an iron curtain of misunderstanding separating America and the Arab-Muslim world"--a world marked, in his view, by "enormous cultural resistance to believing anything good about America."
Indonesia is mainly Malay, not Arab, but it has more Muslims than any other country. How seriously should signs of jihadism there be taken? Ostensibly Islamist or jihadist movements include Darul Islam, HAMMAS, Laskar Jihad, the Islamic Defenders Front, the Islamic Youth Movement, Jemaah Islamiah, and KISDI. In Maluku and Sulawesi, Christians have killed Muslims and vice versa. Americans and their embassy in Jakarta have been threatened. How should such groups, events, and risks be described, explained, and responded to? In what specific ways are faith, politics, and violence intersecting in Indonesia--and with what implications for Indonesians and Americans?
Analysts have long portrayed Indonesian Muslims as exemplary in their openness and tolerance toward non-Muslims and, within the Muslim community, toward religious diversity, creativity, and reform. Were these observers naïve? Or have jihadism and Islamism been grossly overdrawn, and for reasons that involve politics, prejudice, and sensationalism far more than actual conditions? In this volatile context, how realistic are current reformist projects to foster a "liberal Islam," a "moderate Islam," a "feminist Islam," or a distinctively accommodative "Indonesian Islam"--as against an avowedly "militant Islam" that would impose an "Islamic state"?
[Indonesian] officials have wavered between claiming and dismissing the existence of local links to Al Qaeda. This pattern of ambiguity reflects, among other factors, the incoherence of central authority and the tension between two opposing risks: between alienating the United States, whose support Megawati needs, with insufficient firmness against domestic groups bent on jihad, and alienating politically aware and active Muslims, whose support she also needs, with excessive firmness against such groups. The insertion of American military forces in such a delicate setting still seems to me, at best, unwise.
Jihadism can--in Al Qaeda's case, does--have transnational roots and aspects. But it cannot be understood, let alone reduced, without timely and sustained attention to the local environments in which it occurs. As a long-run solution to terrorism in Indonesia, good government--honest, effective, and accountable--will be far more productive than foreign intervention".
Ronald Hilton - 2/9/02
For more information, see http://APARC.stanford.edu.
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