I was born, raised and educated in Indonesia. I still live between Australia and Indonesia, so I often forget that what I can see in Indonesia’s social and political landscape is not necessarily visible to most Australians.
When Australians think of Islam in Indonesia, they now think of Amrozi, the Bali bomber who can’t stop smiling; Abu Bakar Ba’ashir, who may or may not be the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah; and terrorism. Who could blame them?
I can’t blame Australians for being cynical, or at best confused, when told that the majority of Indonesia’s Muslims are moderate and peace-loving. Moreover until the October bomb attack, the Indonesian government continued to maintain that there were no terrorists in Indonesia. Political analysts prior to the attacks were saying that the government was reluctant to take tough action against the hard-line Muslims for fear of a backlash from the wider Muslim community, whose support they could not afford to lose. There is some truth in all of the above.
Indonesia does have Amrozi, Abu Bakar Ba’ashir and Jemaah Islamiah.
Violence has been employed as a political means by some militant Muslims. And the majority of Indonesia’s Muslims are moderate and peace-loving.
There were reasons for the government’s reluctance to act against militant Muslim groups suspected as being behind a number of violent incidents. The most important was that Indonesian society then believed that while many of the terrorist acts were committed by militant Muslims, they were also aided, even manipulated, by elements of the army for their own purposes. Seeing the government crack down on militant Muslims might well invoke the sympathy of the majority of Muslims, because it would have been regarded as targeting the weak. It would be too difficult to prove anything against members of the army, and even harder to get a conviction. It seems that behind the government’s lack of action were inertia and denial.
It’s not clear whether the resulting complacency contributed to the Bali bombing. The attack certainly jolted the Indonesian government out of its denial. They also have to face the fact that for many Australians, Amrozi has become the face of the Indonesian Muslim.
However, it would be wrong to assume that all moderate Muslims have been unaware of the presence of Islamic militants. For years Muslim intellectuals have been unhappy about the way the militants are using the name of Islam to perpetrate very un-Islamic acts. They