The Age (Melbourne) Thursday, October 6, 2005 Opinion
Indonesia Must Win Minds, as Well as Hearts By Greg Barton The political elite in Indonesia is out of touch with reality. HOW do you stop a suicide bomber? There are no easy answers. Unfortunately, however, after October 1, 2005, this is a question that we need to be asking ourselves. Even more shocking than last Saturday's attacks in Bali is the prospect that pedestrian suicide bombers might represent the future of terrorism in South-East Asia. It is only human that our shock and outrage at what happened in Bali give rise to anger and tough questioning but we need to take heed lest our emotions serve the interests of the terrorists. It is tempting to condemn the Indonesian Government and police but to do so is neither fair nor helpful. It is no secret that the Indonesian police force is in need of substantial reform. The poor cousin of the military, from which it was only recently separated, the Indonesian police force is grossly under-funded, prone to corruption and frequently less than professional. Nevertheless, the achievements of the police and other agencies in pursuing and dismembering Jemaah Islamiah, the jihadist Islamist organisation almost certainly behind Bali's terrorist bombings last week just as they were the ones three years ago, have exceeded all expectations. To their lasting credit they were quick to invite the help of the Australian Federal Police immediately after the attacks in 2002 and, working together with the AFP and other regional police over the past three years, they have contributed to the arrest of more than 300 JI operatives across South-East Asia and the substantial crippling of the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network. In this respect they have performed much better than the members of Indonesia's newly democratic parliament who, among other things, have frustrated the aspirations of the police to have JI declared illegal. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is becoming less popular by the day as he moves to reduce the subsidies on petroleum products, has been a much more determined adversary of JI and terrorism than was his predecessor Megawati Soekarnoputri but he is yet to get his cabinet, much less the parliament, to respond in unison to the insidious threat of terrorism that many wanly seem to hope will disappear of its own accord. It is no more reasonable to have expected Indonesia's police to have predicted and prevented last Saturday's attack in Bali than it is to have expected the British police to have foiled the eerily similar walk-up suicide bomb attacks in London in July. Professional skills honed by years of battling bomb attacks by the IRA in London and some of the best counter-terrorist equipment and systems in the world were not enough, and could never have been enough, to make London completely safe. In fact, given how unequal their resources are to the challenges before them it can be argued that the Indonesian counter-terrorist police are no less worthy of praise than their British counterparts. Without their many successful arrests and capturing of weapons and explosives, including caches of explosive vests, there would have been many more successful terrorist attacks in Indonesia in the manner of Saturday's attacks in Bali. If there is any to whom blame should be apportioned it is to certain members of the political elite. The recent statement, for example, by chairman of the Consultative Assembly Hidayat Nur Wahid suggesting that international competition in the tourism sector rather than jihadist terrorism was behind Saturday's suicide bomb attacks deserves vigorous scrutiny by his peers at home and abroad. A similar statement from a less well-informed person could be understood as simply the product of genuine anxiety and confusion. Across the Muslim world, the level of trust in Western governments is at an all-time low. The war on terror has unfortunately been accompanied by populist Islamophobia in some quarters and this has made life difficult and confusing for many peaceable and sincere Muslims. And given the virulence of conspiracy theories across many communities, by no means just Muslim communities, and the incredibly horrible perversion of Islam that jihadist terrorism represents, we should not be surprised that many ordinary people are genuinely perplexed. Much more is expected, however, from leaders such as Nur Wahid. An impressive and generally professional political operator, he heads an Islamist party on the rise, the Prosperous Justice Party, that has built support by seizing the moral high ground. No one should accuse him of supporting or condoning terrorism but it does appear that he has succumbed to the temptation to cynically employ wedge politics, regardless of the consequences, to position himself as defender of Muslims and Islam itself. Ever since the first attack in Bali public apologists of jihadist terrorism such as JI's one-time spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir and his colleagues in the Indonesian Mujahideen Council have played a diabolically clever public relations game to confuse the public and turn the sympathies of the vulnerable to the jihadist cause. Ultimately, they seek to undermine the credibility not just of Western leaders but also of Muslim democrats such as the embattled Yudhoyono. What is in play is no less than a battle for hearts and minds and a true struggle of ideas. We need to give credit where credit is due and support where support is needed. There is no simple answer to the threat of pedestrian suicide bomb attacks but if the present situation in Indonesia is difficult it will become truly impossible if the transition to liberal democracy stalls and fails. Dr Greg Barton is associate professor in politics at Deakin University and is author of Indonesia's Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the soul of Islam. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Click here to rescue a little child from a life of poverty. http://us.click.yahoo.com/rAWabB/gYnLAA/i1hLAA/aYWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Milis Wanita Muslimah Membangun citra wanita muslimah dalam diri, keluarga, maupun masyarakat. 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