http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,16826356,00.html
Struggle for the soul of Islam at a critical stage 06oct05 SUICIDE bombing appeared as a mainstream tactic in Indonesian terrorism in the first Bali bombings three years ago. Last weekend's suicide bombs, again in Bali, demonstrate that it is now the mainstream tactic of Jemaah Islamiah, the al-Qa'ida-linked Indonesian terrorist group almost certainly responsible for last weekend's outrage. This, in its way, is one of the most depressing developments of all. One of the most difficult tasks in battle is to make a net assessment. Some things are going well, some badly, but what is the net position: heading for victory or heading for defeat? The war against Southeast Asian terrorism is exceptionally complex, but you would probably conclude a net assessment leans slightly to the negative. There are many things going right, chief among them the excellent police work the Indonesians have done during the past three years. But three essential dynamics lead to the net (temporary) pessimism: one, the mainstreaming of suicide bombing; two, the proliferation of regional conflicts in Indonesia, The Philippines and Thailand; and, three, the interaction of conservative Islam with terrorism. Suicide bombing has become mainstream because JI, like similar terrorist groups in the Middle East, has elevated it to a positive, religious experience. Recently, an Arabic website published a document entitled The Martyrs of the Land of the Two Rivers, which is an account of the lives of 430 insurgents who have died in Iraq. It is drawn from many sources, including newspapers, and there is no reason to doubt its overall validity. Three things about the study are striking: the clear religious motivation of the "martyrs", their generally affluent background and the fact 175 of them came from Saudi Arabia. Their affluence is a key to the new phenomenon of suicide bombing. Once it was automatic to think of suicide bombers in terms of despair, but these stories emphasise the affluence the young men gave up to pursue religious martyrdom. They didn't claim to have been driven to suicide by injustice but said they were choosing a higher path, rejecting a perfectly good life in this world to attain religious sanctity. This is not, it hardly needs to be said, the mainstream teaching of the vast majority of Muslims. But now, in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, this teaching has become dominant among such a substantial minority that there will likely be, in effect, a bountiful supply of suicide bombers who cannot possibly be dissuaded by outsiders. Abu Bakar Bashir, JI's spiritual leader, gave an interview in his Jakarta prison in August to an American researcher, Scott Atran, in which he again confirmed the virtue of suicide in the cause of jihad. He also authorised the use of nuclear weapons, a statement we should take very seriously. Second, the regional conflicts. Since the beginning of last year about 1000 lives have been lost in southern Thailand in the conflict between Islamic separatists and the Thai state. The Islamic separatists in Thailand have links with JI but are certainly operating independently. In the southern Philippines two separate terror-insurgent groups have deep links with JI and continue to provide training camp facilities for JI. It is quite possible the Philippines camps played a role in the weekend bombings that killed Australians. In 2004-05 dozens of bombings and other terrorist actions took place in Indonesia, with numerous fatalities. However, like the deaths in Thailand and most of the action in The Philippines, these incidents did not involve Westerners so we didn't pay them any attention. But in terms of the war against terror, they involve a polarised, and generally radicalised, militant Islamist group with a recent experience of violent conflict. This furnishes new crops of recruits for terror operations, which are now carried out by many loosely connected, quite diverse groups. The culture of jihad and the cult of suicide martyrdom are spreading. Indeed, many analysts believe that JI will pay increasing attention to sectarian conflict within Indonesia as a method of revival and recruitment. All of which brings us to the third dolorous dynamic: the interaction of conservative Islam with terrorism. Conservative Islam is not terrorist. It generally eschews violence and its adherents are often doughty opponents of terrorism, sometimes to their own considerable risk. However, conservative Islam tends easily to paranoia and a cosmology that sees Muslims as victims in every possible circumstance in the world. It also tends to intolerance of liberal Muslims. The Indonesian Ulema Council is a mainstream Islamic umbrella group that has an excellent record of opposing violence and extremism. Yet it has recently issued fatwas against a range of liberal Muslims, fatwas that have had the consequence, if not the intent, of authorising a degree of harassment and persecution of these people. Moreover, this kind of attitude helps limit democratic Indonesian politicians in taking direct action against JI and its ilk. Thus in 2002 the Indonesian government of Megawati Sukarnoputri supported a UN resolution to list JI as a terrorist organisation, but even now the Government feels too abashed actually to ban JI. Given that JI is an underground organisation, banning it would have little practical effect. But not banning it continues an official ambivalence towards JI and its leaders, an ambivalence that has often seen senior Indonesian politicians visit Bashir and otherwise lend respectability to him. The conservative Islam world view shares a great deal of the civilisational paranoia that motivates the terrorists, as well as the endless crazy conspiracy theories. One Indonesian politician has suggested the Bali bombings were a consequence of commercial rivalries in the tourist industry. Such conspiracy theories reinforce the terrorists. Moreover, in a religion that emphasises militancy, if you keep telling people they are being persecuted, some will decide to take action. Suicide bombing requires very little money or technical expertise. Similarly, it is known that at least 18 readily identifiable schools in Indonesia have close links with JI. Some have been at the absolute heart of terrorist recruitment, with an alumni roll of bombers. That the Government feels it cannot shut them down is a tribute to the political confusion and ambivalence on the subject, notwithstanding the excellent police work the Indonesians have done. The struggle for the soul of Southeast Asian Islam, especially Indonesian Islam, is of acute importance to Australia, not least because of its effect on the success or failure of the whole Indonesian national project. 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