LEARNING WRONG LESSONS - WILL INDONESIA GET JUST AS BAD AS PAKISTAN?

Among the Muslim countries of today, Pakistan has become the torchbearer in religiously-inspired chaos

Ahmadiyya Times | Opinion | Imran Jattala
Los Angeles, California - USA

In the November 2nd publication of The Wall Street Journal, an opinion writer wondered if Indonesia will get run over by the new wave of religious extremism.  The author termed the local politicians’ unilateral enactment of many ‘Sharia’ inspired laws in some parts of Indonesia as a ‘worrying trend’.

Indonesia has many examples to learn from; a few of her own, and many from the other places where religious fanatics were allowed to run amok. Pakistan would be a good example for Indonesia; in that, a majority of Indonesians share a common faith with the majority of Pakistanis.

Among the Muslim countries of today, Pakistan has become the torchbearer in religiously-inspired chaos and the resulting devastation where no day is spared the indignity of someone dying uselessly. Long before Al-Qaeda and Taliban started to take ownership of the chaos, Pakistan has been the scene of some of the most horrific sectarian violence of this age. In fact, it is the decades of sectarian violence that provided the softening of the grounds for the Al-Qaeda and Taliban inspired terrorists.

Indonesia obviously has not, but Pakistan certainly has reached the threshold where one has to decide if the victims of the mayhem there are really the 'victims' anymore. One wonders if there has to be a point in time where a judgment ought to be made - a decision of a sort - that the so called victim is now a participant. Whether a willing conspirator or a forced accomplice - a participant nonetheless. And both, the so called victim and the aggressor, are dancing to a mutually destructive tune. Should it really matter if the two have independent reasons for their participation in the deadly dance?

Back to Indonesia - the country, for the most part, used to have a reputation of being an all-inclusive Muslim society. Over time, however, the politicians of national standings have stopped taking note of the growing extremist-driven sentiment in remote areas of their country. The fanatics of Indonesia, having learned the tactics from the extremists of Pakistan, are starting their efforts by inciting aggression against minority Muslim groups such as the Ahmadiyya Muslims.

Historically, the Ahmadiyya Muslims have been an easy target as the community has always maintained a non-violence stance. Now the fruits of the easy targeting of Ahmadis are becoming increasingly popular and making their way into the larger cities of Indonesia where intentional lack of notice, entirely due to shortsightedness of the politicians, is sure to put their country on the same path of destruction and violence where Pakistan and Afghanistan already find themselves today.

We know for fact that Muslims of Indonesia – and, for that matter, Muslims of the world - have a very large but silent moderate segment to offset the very small but extremely vocal and, sometimes, violent extremists’ wing. The obvious question for the silent majority is, why don’t they want to be part of the reasons that will bring respect and honor to Islam and to the Holy Founder of Islam, Mohammad. Because, if they don’t speak up now, their silence will certainly force them into those unfortunate groups whose own evil actions have already caused the peaceful religion of Islam to be known as (God forbid) a religion of doom and destruction in the world.