A wake up call from Paris
Noor Huda Ismail; Founder of the Institute for
International Peace Building; He is now pursuing a PhD in politics and
international relations at Monash University, Melbourne
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JAKARTA
POST, 18 November 2015
Following the attacks
on Paris last Friday, the Islamic State (IS) movement claimed responsibility
for the well-coordinated shootings and bombings outside the group’s territory
in Iraq and Syria.
The attacks that
killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds of others took place in
venues symbolizing the cosmopolitan, urban and cultural life of Paris; a
sports stadium, concert hall and restaurants. Places that most of us can
easily relate to.
This cold-blooded
attack resembled, for instance, the 2008 Mumbai Hotel attack and must serve
as a wake-up call for the world that the threat from IS and its supporters is
no longer a future threat coming merely from returned foreign fighters with
IS in Iraq and Syria.
The effect of veterans
from the Afghanistan war in the 1980s is an important point of reference;
feeling proud of being able to kick Russia out of Afghanistan, veterans led
by Osama bin Laden formed al-Qaeda and challenged their former mentor, the
US. From his hideout in Pakistan, Bin Laden orchestrated a string of
terrorist attacks from New York to Bali.
Indonesia has suffered
severely from the “veteran effect”. The lethality of home grown Islamic
groups like Darul Islam and Jama’ah Islamiyah increased and their splinter
groups brought carnage to the country, killing hundreds of innocent victims,
mainly Muslims.
Despite their arrests
and deaths, some “veterans” such as the late Imam Samudra, one of the main
perpetrators of the Bali bombing in 2002 and Abu Jibril, a senior leader of
Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, successfully passed on the spirit of violent
jihad to their sons who have fought alongside rebels within IS and another
group engaging in armed battle, An Nusra.
Such figures actively
encouraged potential recruits and, once they died, they were hailed as
martyrs and heroes in their communities. Their tales of bravery and
commitment to wage jihad in foreign lands like Syria and Iraq serves as a
bedtime story for children raised within their network. Wives and female
members of the fighters ensure that their children will become martyrs. For
them, jihad and dying on the battlefield is a life goal worth fighting for.
It took more than nine
years for the US and its allies to neutralize bin Laden, who, at the time,
did not control a territory larger than the UK with a constant stream of
income from oil like IS does today.
However, history has
taught us that closed parochial ideologies, like that of IS, will eventually
die because of its own extreme and utopian political goal. We have been hearing
stories from disenchanted foreign fighters who have managed to run away from
the clutches of IS and yet, as a society, we have failed to engage them
properly.
The question is, how
much damage can a society bear from a seductive and destructive ideologies
like that of IS? How many more innocent victims have to die? How many more
women have to be raped and victimized? How long can we endure with the
constant prejudice between Muslims and the West that has been successfully
instilled by IS acts of terror?
Indeed, the
administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, like most world leaders,
has condemned the attack in Paris but this is not enough. Using the momentum
of this deadly attack, the administration must take bold actions in counter
terrorism.
These problems include
Indonesia’s weak criminal justice system, ranging from prison to post prison
management. The warden of Cipinang Prison recently said that his prison was
designed to cater for only 900 prisoners but today, the prison is inhabited
by almost 3,000 inmates. “How can I think of rehabilitation in this setting?”
he said. “My obsession is only to make my prison secure”.
How do young people
read IS political tractates? Yes, on the internet and social media. But who
translates IS propaganda? The answer is beyond appalling: It was a terrorist
recidivist inmate, Aman Abdurrahman who is now incarcerated in “Indonesia’s
maximum security prison” in Nusakambangan Island.
Surely, stopping him
from agitating other potential recruits from his prison must be a key
priority for the administration.
Aman’s teaching, known
as takfiri, will eventually wreck the very foundation of Indonesia’s plural
society through intolerance against differences. Takfiri is an act to accuse
another Muslim of apostasy, simply because they don’t share their beliefs.
The accusation itself is called takfir, derived from an Arabic world kafir or
infidel. Its teaching matches perfectly with IS’s core tenets, which are to
divide the world in black and white; either you are with us or against us.
This a very simple yet
powerful teaching that will easily mushroom in a society like Indonesia where
critical thinking skills are still lacking, among widespread addiction to
social media — that has sadly been flooded with messages of hate.
It is any wonder that
one of Aman’s hard-core recruits, Bahrumsyah, who is now in Syria with IS, so
easily managed to radicalize local IS networks in Surakarta who, failing to
travel to Syria, planned to mount attacks at home, targeting churches and
police offices.
Luckily, the
antiterrorism force Densus 88 successfully disrupted the plot before they
executed their deadly plans. But Mr. President, how much luck do we need to
prevent more terror attacks from happening in Indonesia? ●
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