Last week the Indonesian government sponsored an event attended by dozens of former jihadist militants and terror victims in Jakarta. It was a forum of reconciliation and communication, part of a program to counter radicalization. It invited some controversy as survivors found it insulting to the victims. The official National Agency for Combating Terrorism (BNPT) defended the event, saying the program supports reconciliation as an important path to radicalization. Suhardi Alius, head of BNPT, said in his closing remarks mutual respect and understanding is the first step towards peace.
The BNPT enjoys a deserved measure of credibility in Indonesia because of success in closing several cases of terrorism and bringing perpetrators to justice. This has not been met with the appropriate credit, with the press preferring to highlight alarming signs of increased radicalization with terrorist attacks around the country. Most notable is the bombing in 2002 in Bali that claimed 200 lives. The investigation revealed members of Al-Qaidah linked groups who were arrested in a joint campaign by the Indonesian and Australian national police.
Indonesia, an important ASEAN country, has built a record as a model society where Islam coexists with a secular system. Political leaders, presiding over multi ethnic and multi religious societies, have largely thwarted hard-line religious groups from dominating political life.
This year Indonesia faces two waves of national elections at the local and national levels where the ugly head of religious extremism could find its way to center-stage. The vehicle for creeping radicalization raises alarm bells in the infrastructure of democracy, general elections. Hardline extremists are finding ways to become respectable members of political organizations. They are dangerously identifying themselves with populists and the silent majority. Lurking in the background is the spectre of terrorism outbreaks. The Indonesian answer to the challenge is not to confront the problem head-on but by mitigating the threat by using soft social skills such as reconciliation and communication in combination with proven hard skills and techniques of counter-terrorism
In Indonesia, conservative and hard-line religious parties have contested many elections, and debates about the role of Islam in the state have existed since the country was founded. Meanwhile, hard-line, sometimes violent groups have been active for twenty years, applying vigilante violence against moderate citizens of every persuasion.
Where the religious divide separates society in terms of adherence to religious practices, terrorist potential exists independent of any political culture. They evolve as breakaway groups drawing strength from the fissures driven by belief systems and political ambitions.
In this amorphous world, soft skills of reconciliation and communication shapes are instrumental to exposing terrorism potential. It is the way forward to fight radicalization in the least abrasive manner.
wimarw@gmail.com
