With the rise of radicalism worldwide and Islamic State (IS) on the march, Indonesia is seeing an increase in Islamist militancy. That begs the question of just how big a threat radical Islam is in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
While Indonesia is a moderate Muslim nation, it unfortunately has a long history of extremism, from groups like Darul Islam (DI) to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) – the group that carried out the infamous 2002 Bali bombings that killed 200 people. The latest of these threats is IS, the barbaric militants that have overrun vast swaths of territory in Syria and northern Iraq and beheaded scores of enemies along the way. While not physically located in Indonesia, they are seen as jihadist rock stars and their influence is growing on the archipelago, as well as worldwide.
Navhat Nuraniyah, associate research fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security in Singapore, told Borderless News there are an estimated 2,000 supporters and sympathizers for IS in Indonesia, judging from various pro-IS rallies and allegiance pledging events across the country, and she believes the numbers are growing. Indeed, participants’ numbers are on the rise at religious study groups run by pro-IS groups. Likewise, there are currently more than 300 Indonesian fighters not only with IS but also other groups such as Ahrar Sham, the Nusra Front, and other smaller groups, said Nuraniyah, a specialist on extremism in Indonesia.
While those numbers represent a mere fraction of Indonesia’s 250 million people, it only takes a couple of hundred motivated fighters to wreak havoc in a country. It only took 19 hijackers to murder nearly 3,000 people during the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. That shows that small numbers of motivated terrorists can do enormous damage to a country’s economy, as well as dramatically impact foreign policy, geopolitics, domestic policy and a nation’s psyche — all of which the 9/11 attacks achieved.
Already, more Indonesians have linked up with IS in the Middle East than the number of Indonesians who went to Afghanistan to train with al-Qaeda in the 1990s, Nuraniyah said. There were some 200 Indonesian Afghan alumni between the 1980s and 1990s. And now there’s already 300 and counting – only in 3 years – Indonesians fighting with IS.
Why is this? According to the Washington Institute, there are several reasons, including the existence of seasoned grassroots support networks; radicals’ use of Twitter and Facebook to market their vision; and the Syrian government’s brutality against Sunni Muslims. Reasons also include an easy life in Syria, where foreigners have lived in villas with swimming pools, as opposed to the very rugged conditions in Afghanistan.
Nuraniyah added a couple of other reasons that are specific to Indonesia. Back when al-Qaeda was top dog in the terror world, there was only one channel through which Indonesians could go to fight as terrorists overseas — the Darul Islam — though many members later split and joined the JI faction. Also back then, the two groups sent their people not to fight jihad but to get military training, which meant that only the selected people could go. Fighters were also discouraged from going to the battlefield unless they had successfully completed their training, she said.
Nowadays, people go purely for jihad and when there’s a fatwa that jihad is “fard ain” or individual obligation, that means anyone can go. It’s also easier to make the journey, as there are now multiple channels, both formal and informal. The formal channel can give an individual a recommendation from Indonesian clerics that are trusted by IS and al-Qaeda central command, which will make that person’s journey easier and help them get accommodation and other facilities upon arrival in Syria. Many people arrange their own travel because it’s more flexible, and it helps that it’s very easy to get tourist visa to Turkey. And while it’s getting increasingly difficult to get into Turkey, would-be jihadists keep coming up with new routes, she said.
THE LURE OF RADICAL ISLAM
IS uses several narratives for people from different walks of life.
First are humanitarian narratives that highlight the sufferings of Sunni victims in the hands of President Bashar al–Assad’s Shiite regime in Syria. Second are the doomsday narratives that preach the end is nigh, and that Syria is to be the epicenter of the Last Caliphate and where the Final Battle, or Armageddon, against the Anti-Christ will take place, Nuraniyah said.
Based on jihadist interpretation of selected hadith, some radicals argue that the current conflict against Assad may not be the final battle, but is certainly a divinely sanctioned mechanism to get rid of infidels from the holy land and attract pious Muslims worldwide to migrate there, she said.
The last narrative is the caliphate dream, and radicals have interpreted a hadith related to the five Islamic stages in a peculiar way. The hadith explains five phases of Islam: Prophet Muhammad era; the right guided caliphs; Islamic dynasties; the “dictators,” or post-colonial Muslim rulers, and finally, restoration of the caliphate with Syria as its epicenter. Some militants have gone as far as to say that the caliphate of Abu Bakr al–Baghdadi – IS’ brutal and twisted leader – is the embryonic caliphate of the messiah.
No matter what their personal motives are – whether it’s the desire to help Syrian Muslims, adventurism, or searching for meaning in life – ideology is the single unifying factor to most fighters, she said.
BUT THERE’S GOOD NEWS
Extremism has always been and will remain at the fringe of Indonesian society, and Nuraniyah doubts it will gain any significant traction in Indonesia unless there are some drastic changes, such as if a nation-wide sectarian conflict blows out, which is highly unlikely at the moment.
Moreover, while there are some Islamic boarding schools, or pesantren, that are linked to terror groups, Nuraniyah said that contrary to popular belief, graduates of Islamic boarding schools are generally less prone to radicalization because they have a deeper understanding of Islam and the concept of jihad – except for those who went to schools affiliated with Jemaah Islamiyah.
While she said most graduates of those schools are not radical at all, she added that there needs to be a mechanism to monitor informal religious study groups – at mosques, schools, universities, and private houses – because extremists often use those venues to target ordinary people who lack religious knowledge but are very eager to become more pious and to become part of an Islamic community.
Currently, experts and law enforcement fret that the right laws are not in place to prevent Indonesian extremists from spreading their ideology at home. There are no laws that allow ISIS supporters to be arrested or detained and no laws barring Indonesians from traveling overseas to get military training, although some officials are pushing for tougher restrictions.
This is a difficult issue to deal with because the government wouldn’t want to be seen as too restrictive or discriminative toward Muslim groups, Nuraniyah said.
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