Indonesia: Sunni Islam, IS and return to extremism

Indonesians joined Islamic State in Syria, with some returning to carry out attacks in Jakarta in January 2016, killing two civilians.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The Interpreter
By Bobby Anderson | December 13, 2017

[Excerpt]

In a trend that began under then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's first term, intolerant strains of Sunni Islam have increasingly been used as electoral tools. Politicians across the Sunni Muslim-majority areas of the archipelago have campaign on Islamic piety, and numerous sharia-inspired local regulations and bylaws passed, most of them contradicting Indonesia's constitution and secular identity.

This radicalisation has been accompanied by demands that Indonesia 'return' to the originally proposed 1945 constitution, which would apply Sharia to Muslims. Through Yudhoyono's second term, churches in Muslim areas of Jakarta were shuttered, and in the national curriculum, science ceded ground to religion.

The Islamic Defenders Front, a gang of extortionists with an Islamic flavour, increased raids on food-sellers during Ramadan and closed bars (but not the bars that 'donated' to them). Shia Muslims and Ahmadiyah were persecuted and driven from their homes.

These local trends deepened alongside even more worrying ones: twin bombings in Jakarta hotels in 2009 killed nine and injured 50. An al-Qaeda inspired camp was uncovered in Aceh in 2010 after several failed attacks on foreigners. Bombing plots were uncovered in Sumbawa; an Islamist insurgency simmered in central Sulawesi, and across Java, cells of young radicals targeted police in actions more akin to gang skirmishes than jihad. Indonesians joined Islamic State in Syria, with some returning to carry out attacks in Jakarta in January 2016, killing two civilians.

But while aspects of Sunni Islam are increasingly persecutorial in Indonesia, the link between this intolerance and the Islamic State's brutal millenarian nihilism is, for now, tenuous. While many young radicals who began persecuting Ahmadiyah have gone on to kill police or travel to Syria, nearly all do not.

This intolerance decoupled from millenarianism is reflective of how Islam is used in Indonesian politics; the Yaumul Qiyamah, or end of days, is not discussed by politicians or their imam allies. They denounce rival politicians, steer votes, and ensure the obedience of local communities by preaching vigilance against immorality and the fictitious encroachment of other religions. Such an approach is geared toward electing politicians based on their ability to recite Koranic passages rather than their non-religious policy platforms. Islam is the answer to everything, especially if one has no other answer. Threats to business and investment are predatory, not extremist – and a recent constitutional court ruling that the Ministry of Home Affairs does not have the right to rescind new local regulations unilaterally will surely increase rent-seeking by local politicians. This will increase instability far more than recent attacks.


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