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Indonesia between Bush and bin Laden
By Ehsan Ahrari
The
terrorist attack of October 12 that resulted in the
deaths of 180 people in the erstwhile paradise island of
Bali spells trouble for Indonesia. Islam in that country
has traditionally lacked the militancy that is the
hallmark of its Muahid (or Wahhabi) version in the
Middle East and South and Central Asia. But the militant
Islamists have become much more visible in that country
in recent times.
While no single reason can be
pinpointed for the increased surge in Islamic militancy,
Indonesia's prolonged economic slump might have played a
substantial role. The loss of East Timor and the visible
roles of Australia and the United States in managing its
independence caused ample anti-Western resentment. Then
the post-September 11, 2001, dismantlement of an Islamic
government in Afghanistan exacerbated those emotions on
the one hand and enhanced sympathies toward Osama bin
Laden and his al-Qaeda on the other.
The United
States has increased pressure on the Indonesian
government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri to get
tough with the Islamists. However, her administration
thus far has been making sure that its treatment of
indigenous Islamists not be driven primarily in response
to the US pressure. If the leading Islamists were to be
thrown into dungeons with a willful disregard for the
due process of the law, the fledgling Indonesian
democracy might come under serious pressure from which
it might not recover for a long time.
The
Indonesian economy has never returned to the good old
days before the financial crisis of 1997. That was also
a time when Indonesia was the darling of global
investors. To put things in perspective, it should be
pointed out that Indonesia's average growth between 1987
and 1996 was 7.6 percent. However, between 1998 and
2002, it was 0.1 percent. Last year, a healthy 5.9
percent rise in consumption kept the economy moving.
This year, characterized as its third year of "steady
but tepid growth", Indonesia's gross domestic product
(GDP) is expected to expand by 3.5 percent. The
International Monetary Fund has kept the government's
spending under tight rein. According to the estimates
put together by the Asian Development Bank, "investment
as a percent of GDP has fallen from 22.8 percent before
the crisis to just 4.4 percent last year" - a
substantial decline, indeed.
As its major
trading partners - the United States, Japan, and
Singapore - continue to experience economic slowdowns of
their own, Indonesia's prospects of getting out of
economic doldrums remain slim. The saving grace,
however, is that the Indonesian rupiah remains
competitive at about 9,000 to the US dollar, and if
economic activities in the United States and Japan were
to pick up, the Indonesian economy might also manifest
noticeable recovery.
Until recently, Islam in
Indonesia has not been exposed to the radical fringe
that has been so vibrant in such Middle Eastern
countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria for the
past two decades. The Afghan war of the 1980s and the
policies of Islamization that Pakistan's dictator of the
1970s and 1980s, General Zia ul-Haq, vigorously
implemented were largely responsible for the popularity
of radical Islam in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact,
the Afghan war of the 1980s was an event in which the
Indonesian Islamists participated, albeit in smaller
numbers than the Islamists of other Muslim countries.
But the US military action against the Taliban
regime and Washington's constant focus on radical
Islamist groups since then have been utilized by the
Indonesian Islamists to promote their perspective that
the George W Bush administration is bent on fighting
Islam. Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
on its soil, there is little doubt that the United
States has been dealing with the Islamist groups
worldwide not as criminal elements but as "terrorists"
or "potential terrorists" who should be crushed either
through full-scale military operations or at least
through paramilitary action. Islamist groups worldwide,
not just those of Indonesia, are constantly focused on
that particular idiosyncrasy of the US policy to win
sympathizers and supporters.
The charged
post-September 11 global environment on the subject of
Islam has created an especially precarious situation for
Indonesia, which, after all, is a country where 85
percent of the populace is Muslim. Even though the
followers or sympathizers of Islamist groups are
certainly not in the majority up to this point, there is
no certainty that, with the expected worsening of the
economic situation in the aftermath of the Bali
terrorist attacks, those groups will not escalate the
pace of their endeavors to win the majority of
supporters.
Since the latter part of the 1990s,
the US government's overall policy toward radical
Islamist groups was driven by promoting a template
approach to deal with terrorism. That approach comprised
demands that the government in question initiate a
policy of outlawing Islamist groups, arrest their
leaders and activists, and freeze their funds. That
policy has been rigorously implemented only since the
September 2001 attacks. Pakistan was the chief focus of
that policy during the waning days of president Bill
Clinton's tenure, and Indonesia is about to become the
recipient of its intense focus in the coming months.
For the government of Indonesia, on the other
hand, implementation of an umbrella policy of labeling
most, if not all, Islamist groups as terrorists,
outlawing them, and implementing massive arrests goes
against the grain of remaining a fledgling democracy.
Therein lies the dilemma. How far should the Indonesian
government go in order to please (some say appease) the
US government and jeopardize the very prospects of the
emergence of democracy?
Alternatively, how
tolerant should it be of various Islamist groups or of
some highly visible Islamist leaders who are regularly
being tried in the kangaroo courts of the Western media
before the Bush administration carries out it reported
behind-the-scenes threats of publicly labeling Indonesia
as a "haven for terrorist groups"? One can indulge in
legal hair-splitting and establish a distinction between
the aforementioned label and the label of "a state
sponsoring terrorism". However, the international
capital is not likely to make such distinction and is
likely to vote with its feet by bolting from the
Indonesian market, thereby worsening the plight of its
already weakened economy.
As a stopgap measure,
Megawati has signed a decree to give the Indonesian
security authorities sweeping new powers to combat
terrorism. The retroactive aspect of this decree will
include the Bali attack. Police are granted power to
arrest and detain people on suspicion of a terrorist
link. The death sentence is to be applied to those
convicted of terrorist attack.
So the terrorist
incident in Bali has created a no-win situation both for
Indonesia and for the United States. The need of the
time is the implementation of a multi-faceted strategy.
First, both governments should consider avoiding
public posturing on the issue of dealing with Islamist
groups of Indonesia, and initiate unending rounds of
private diplomacy.
Second, such a forum should
be used to develop a clear-cut understanding of each
other's requirements and constraints, which should then
become the basis for the evolution of a common framework
of policies acceptable in Jakarta and Washington. There
is little doubt that after declaring a global war on
terrorism, the United States cannot sit idly and watch
the rising power and political influence of Islamist
groups in Indonesia. As a major donor to the Indonesian
economy, and as the chief balancer of power in the Asia
Pacific, the US stakes are much too intricate and
valuable to be jeopardized. At the same time, the
Indonesian government cannot continue to use its
conventional policy of tolerating Islamist groups at the
risk of enhancing their power to a level from where one
has to retreat only by causing serious damage to the
very social fabric of the Indonesian polity.
Third, the Indonesian government should consider
reviving the policies of the Suharto regime of
integrating various Islamist groups in the mainstream
politics of Indonesia, and, more to the point,
reinvigorating the interfaith dialogue and cooperation
that promoted religious tolerance. The multicultural and
multireligious nature of Indonesia is much too precious
to be sacrificed by vituperate and venomous rhetoric of
Islamists, or promoters of any extremist ideology.
Fourth, there is a dire need for the government
of Indonesia to revisit systematically the Madrassahs
(religious schools) with a view to moderating their
curricula, a policy that has been given a lot of
publicity in the case of Pakistan.
The real
alternative for Indonesia is to remain a stable,
moderate democracy where Islam remains a major force for
tolerance and moderation - traits that were repeatedly
and fervently emphasized by the Prophet of Islam.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, writes about
strategic affairs from Alexandria, Virginia.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
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