RUSLE factors description

The aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombing saw an immense regional crackdown on the organization which had existed up to that point with impunity. The Indonesian government, responding to domestic calls for action in the wake of Bali – and after much regional, US, and Australian pressure – began to ferret out JI operatives. While Singapore and Malaysia began to aggressively detain JI suspects and discover additional plots after the bombing, these countries knew about the potential of the then-newly discovered JI network well before the attack and had issued repeated warnings to Indonesia (“Huge death toll from Bali bombing,” 2002, October 13). It took a deadly incident such as Bali to arouse an Indonesian response.

There is little doubt that JI was a cohesive threat during this period, but its existence as a united front today is highly questionable. Despite sources ranging from scholars to government officials to media that lump all Indonesian, Singaporean, and Malaysian terror incidents and personnel under the banner of JI, much of the current terrorist activity may be ascribed to “ad hoc alliances” and “autonomous jihadi factions”

that have their roots in JI. An example of these alliances is the breakaway Noordin Top network, a violent splinter cell that dissents with the larger JI organization because of the latter’s softened tactics. While the goals of these terrorist groups may, at least superficially, seem identical to JI’s, they actually represent the unique tactics of numerous factions and offshoots of the grander JI and Darul Islam projects. These

smaller groupings “resemble bundles of personal associations more than integral corporate bodies,” and the remaining JI mainstream “may be less of a danger … than at any other time since 2002” (Collier, 2006). This subtlety is important, as attributing the work of a breakaway cell to JI proper may suggest the wrong motives, although all groups are obviously striving for some kind of Islamic state. The JI notations in this study, while used as sort of shorthand for the various mainstream and splinter factions of the group, should not be taken as such a generalization of motives, but only as a generalization supporting the radicalization and de-radicalization processes.

Despite the regional successes in detaining JI members the group remains a concern for a number of reasons. The first is that it retains an organized element. While the old Mantiqi (regional) organization has been dismantled, the group still maintains a structure on Java that is led by a small, elite group and that incorporates cells outside of Java into the organization (Conboy, 2007). In contrast to the old top-down method of organization stipulated by the group’s PUPJI (Pedoman Umum Perjuangan al-Jama’ah al-Islamiyyah, or General Guide for the Struggle of Jemaah Islamiyah) document, JI now likely functions as a horizontally integrated organization with little central control and individual units now possessing a high degree of autonomy. Second, the group has learned from its defeats, shifting tactics to assassinations and using charities and humanitarianism to maintain relevancy (Abuza, 2007). Third, while many operatives have been captured, a significant number have not. As many as fifteen JI leaders remain at large, and all of these men have the ability to mount crippling attacks under the right circumstances (Abuza, 2007). Noordin Top, regarded as the organization’s top financier and the most wanted terrorist in Southeast Asia, has likely formed a new cell with designs on attacking soft targets. Dulmatin, an organizer that helped plan the 2002 Bali operation, also remains on the loose despite claims (now debunked) that he was killed in the southern Philippines earlier this year. The escape of purported head of the Singaporean branch if JI, Mas Selamat Kastari, from a Singapore jail in March has also given rise to fresh security fears and has led to a massive manhunt. The ability of operatives like these to elude capture is a testament to the continuing security challenges within the region.

Fourth, and most important for the purposes of this study, is the fact that the group still has a significant ideological base from which to recruit. JI is allied with several Indonesian pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), long the primary sources of JI’s recruiting, which still openly teach an extremist brand of Islam to impressionable students. While these radical schools only constitute about one percent of all pesantren in Indonesia, institutions like Ba’asyir’s Al-Mukmin school have been confirmed as centers of extremist ideology. The question of radical schools’ curricula has become something of a public debate; a recent survey notes that over 90% of educators support the concept of democracy, but that over 80% of the same sample also supports the implementation of sharia (Hefner, 2007). Recent calls from a moderate council of Indonesian ulama (clergy specializing in Islamic law) for educational moderation are aimed directly at these radical schools. Specifically, the ulama state that “such terms as jihad (Islamic holy war), dzimmi (non-Muslims living in Islamic states) and kafir (infidel) need to be reinterpreted” in order to “stop violence committed in the name of religion”

(Maulia, 2008).

These calls for moderation are, however, somewhat muted by the increasing fundamentalism of Indonesia’s political system which follows the trends of the country’s Muslim majority. While modern political Islam in Indonesia is characterized by political parties that are more “Islam-friendly” than outright radical, there does remain an organized, radical Islamist element that wants a national implementation to sharia (Baswedan, 2004). This begs the question: can a democratic government fighting religious extremism also cultivate religious fundamentalism for political purposes? Many sources have drawn attention to this dichotomy in Indonesia. Hefner’s (2007) work on societal attitudes on schooling is an example, noting that that the moderate Islamic

“mainstream” in society understands the need for curricula of tolerance and democracy but that sharia still commands a strong preference. Another example is recent comparisons between the government’s treatment of JI and the small Ahmadiyah Islamic sect. Despite recent court findings that the group is illegal, JI is still not officially outlawed. Conversely, the government has essentially banned the peaceful Ahmadiyah group; this is seen as a capitulation to the strength of fundamentalist groups like the

Islamic Defender Front and Ba’asyir’s own MMI that consider Ahmadiyah to be heretical. The Wahid Institute, the eponymous think tank founded by the former Indonesian president, believes that the current president’s political survival is tied to fundamental Islamists, hence his administration’s recent agreement to consider the ban.

Other, more moderate members of the ulama have urged the government to protect all its people, but when compared to the government’s stance on JI – the administration is content to “wait for the noise to die down and … leave it at that” on the issue of JI’s legality – it’s clear that little effective political pressure will be brought to bear on the schools that transmit JI’s ideology (Chew, 2008).