Last week, police sieged a rented room in a densely populated area in South Jakarta, killing two more terror suspects and capturing one. That was the latest string of crack downs on terrorists responsible for the Marriott bombing in July. As we know, the mastermind had been killed also in a similar operation last month. I have to admit the police did an incredible job in rounding up those people responsible. And this time, I need to cast off our general cynicism toward the police institution and all sort conspiracies theories we always have about them. Thumbs up, Pak Polisi.
Two days ago, I was listening to a talk show on the radio discussing about those young people who were recruited to do the terror attacks. They talked about the whys and the hows of these young people involving themselves in that kind of religious radicalism. The panel framed the discussion as one of the social issues facing the Indonesian society. That discussion has been typical of the ways the mainstream media, and I incur the general population, frame and create tone for discussing terrorism in Indonesia.
For me, discussion or reaction on Islamic terrorism like that is an interesting comparative social phenomena between societies like Indonesia and the western countries, primarily the US. Although Indonesia is not a Muslim country, it has a very large Muslim population with its own blend of distinctive Indonesian Islamic culture. In US or other western countries, Islamic terrorism is viewed as a virulent activity that directly threaten the foundational belief and ways of life of the people. It is a political and a dogmatical war. Whereas here, it is, as I obverse above, a societal problem. Much like people in the US treat the Columbine incidents. It is a society’s ill that need a cure not an existential attack.
Yes its true, the young people were exposed to radicalism first in a mosque or in a pesantren (a local Islamic style school) but the case here is totally different from Pakistan or Taliban’s Afghanistan. Even if the radicalism they got in one or a few mosques, that only represents a very very small percentage of hundreds of thousands or probably millions of mosques all over Indonesia. Think about an occasional radicalism that people sometimes received by speakers in churches in US such as the Jeremiah Wright’s controversy. That’s why I think violent religious extremism will not prevail here. People just don’t buy into it. They dialed the wrong number. And that’s also why I am putting my bet on the moderates, and Islam Indonesia, to counter the tide of Islamic extremism worldwide. This kind of terrorism is really the problem unique to our generation. It is something that can’t be fight with conventional war (only?) but with a concerted global effort of countries like Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia.