Indonesia: Are People Finally Fed Up With the Antics of the FPI?

A researcher at the Setara Institute said the Dayak tribe’s actions should not be misinterpreted, lest they be used to create more conflict. They were acting not against freedom of association or expression, but against FPI’s violent, vigilante ways.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |
Source/Credit: The Jakarta Globe |
By Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Dessy Sagita | February 13, 2012

For many, the rejection by indigenous Dayak tribesmen in Central Kalimantan of the presence of the Islamic Defenders Front is understandable, given the hard-line group’s track record, while others say there’s more to the incident than meets the eye.

The chairman of the Indonesia Council of Ulema (MUI), Amidhan, said the hundreds of tribesmen who stormed Tjilik Riwut Airport in Palangkaraya on Saturday — to stop front members arriving for the opening of an FPI office in Central Kalimantan — must have been infiltrated by provocateurs.

“I think that there must have been a third party,” he said. “I do not know who provoked them so that the rejection by the local people was so extreme.”

He said that if there really was such strong anti-FPI local sentiment, the group would not have planned to open an office there in the first place.

The Dayak protest stopped operations at the airport for more than two hours. Airport authorities eventually redirected the plane carrying FPI leader Habib Rizieq Syihab and his entourage to an alternate location. The FPI executives were dropped in Banjarmasin before the plane returned to Tjillik Riwut.

However, Amidhan said he understood local concern in view of FPI’s record. The group has been known to raid establishments that sell alcohol, nightclubs and food stalls that remain open during the fasting month of Ramadan, and red-light districts.

He also said the FPI had been negligent in not first testing the waters in Central Kalimantan to see how it might be received before deciding to open an office there.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, the deputy chairman of the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, said the Dayaks’ strong reaction was understandable.

“The FPI is already present in East Kalimantan, and they have already repeatedly engaged in sweeps there and even attacked the Ahmadiyah community in Samarinda,” he said. “It is only normal that the Dayak youths were worried that the same thing would happen in their province.”

He pointed out that Central Kalimantan was home to the largest Ahmadiyah community in Borneo.

Ismail Hasani, a researcher at the Setara Institute, said the Dayak tribe’s actions should not be misinterpreted, lest they be used to create more conflict. They were acting, he said, not against freedom of association or expression, but against FPI’s violent, vigilante ways.

“It also sends a clear message that intolerance and uniformity in the name of religion and the kind of morality promoted by FPI are not an option in Indonesia’s pluralistic society,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Taufik Kiemas, the chairman of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), said the Dayaks’ actions should be understood in the context of their culture.

“Local wisdom should be respected by all, without exception,” he said on Sunday.

Din Syamsuddin, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, the country’s second largest Islamic organization, said on Sunday that harmony between religious-based organizations was imperative to maintain peace.

“We should safeguard this mutual respect,” he said.

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