Indonesia’s rising tide of terror and intolerance

Jihadi family values. The Guardian, yesterday:

A family of five including an eight-year-old child have carried out a bomb attack on a police headquarters in Indonesia’s second largest city, a day after another family killed 13 people in co-ordinated suicide bombings (at three Christian churches).

A promise of action. ABC News, Monday:

Indonesian President Joko Widodo … pledged to push through a new anti-terrorism bill to combat networks of Islamist militants in the country.

Vulnerable Indonesia. Clive Williams in The Australian, yesterday:

Wawan Purwanto, communications director at Indonesia’s intelligence agency, says the (recent terror attacks and a prison riot) involved suspected members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (which has) close links to Islamic State … Indonesia now faces new security challenges for which it looks to be largely unprepared.

Some have stood up for religious pluralism. The Sydney Morning Herald, December 23, 2016:

Every Christmas the youth wing of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation provides security outside churches to protect them from ­attacks by radical groups. The volunteers put their lives on the line.

Minorities under pressure. Asian Correspondent, August 2 last year:

Ahmadi and Shia Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities are being increasingly targeted by radical Muslims in Indonesia, according to a report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide. CSW arrived in Jakarta in May, the day after the city’s Christian-Chinese former governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama was jailed for two years under Indonesia’s strict blasphemy laws.

After Ahok. Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, April 6:

The Islamist alliance that brought down the Jakarta governor in 2016 … has left many politicians convinced that they need conservative Muslim support to win elections, and it has convinced many Islamists that they can achieve their social and political goals by working through Indonesia’s democratic system.

Just a few bad apples, says Widodo. Sydney Morning Herald, March 15:

(The President) dismissed the idea that Indonesia faced a growing threat from foreign fighters returning from the battle front in Syria or Iraq, following the defeat of Islamic State. “No, no. We are the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia. We have 220 million Muslims in Indonesia. I think if there’s only one, two or three people do this, it is very small, it is very small. We are modern Muslims, tolerant Muslims, moderate Muslims compared with other countries,” he said.

Founding father of Indonesian studies, Monash University’s Herb Feith, seemed blind to Islam’s fortunes. Jean Gelman Taylor, Inside Indonesia, March 12, 2012:

There is no sense, in Herb’s writing … that Herb was studying a Muslim society with its inner tensions between native Islamic folkways and influences from Islam’s Arab heartland … As a student of Herb I was astonished to discover, the day I arrived, that Indonesia was a Muslim country. Perhaps his peace activism obscured Indonesia’s Islamic cast, enabled him to understand a Gus Dur, but not an Amrozi? … From (Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, Herb) apparently did not observe the growth of Islamism, its definitions of enemy other — the West, Israel, “deviant” Muslims, Christians — … the demands for implementation of complete sharia …