Ba'asyir's: A historical view

Ba'asyir's: A historical view

Onghokham, Historian, Jakarta

For weeks the Indonesian press has reported on the
difficulties and reluctance of the Indonesian police and security
forces in arresting or interrogating the old, frail cleric Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir, founder of a religious school (pesantren) in
Ngruki on Central Java's north coast. However, finally the police
arrested Ba'asyir.

Is Ba'asyir somehow untouchable because of political reasons
or other reasons? With regard to the religious establishment
there are always those who could offer resistance; The arrest of,
say the Archbishop of New York or the Archbishop of Canterbury
would create a big political stir.

In our age we have seen the mightiest earthly king, the Shah
of Iran overthrown by a frail old cleric, the Ayatollah Khomeni;
the most totalitarian of regimes in Eastern Europe were even more
recently being heavily influenced by the Roman Catholic clergy.

No wonder Indonesian security forces hesitate in dealing with
Ba'asyir, whatever the reasons. This is an entirely new attitude
departing from usual practices in Indonesia.

Under Soeharto there were the ruthless Tanjung Priok killings
involving the death of a religious leader, the practice of
mysterious killers who executed arbitrarily, without trial and
police warrants, thousands of suspected criminals and trouble
makers.

In view of this still relatively recent arbitrary policies of
police and security forces, its attitude towards the Ba'asyir
case is indeed entirely new; especially with regard to the
centuries-old principle of state supremacy and security as its
prime objective. Is there suddenly a new consciousness of the
limits of state power?

It is not politics but primarily human rights considerations
and principles of innocence before proven guilty that has likely
led to this stance. If the latter is the case, then this is
progress, aside from one's political sympathies or religious
allegiance. Human rights cases are always political, thus the
Ba'asyir case might have both aspects.

The Ba'asyir case should be depoliticized and be made into a
purely criminal case for both domestic as well international
purposes -- as the whole terrorist question should be -- instead
of the silly issue of being an Islam-versus-Christian (Western)-
conflict.

First, terrorism is always criminal. Although its events, if
successful, are always spectacular such as the bombings of the
World Trade Center in New York or the Kuta beach nightclubs in
Bali, history has shown that such acts can never bring victory
over modern nations and states or cause their overthrow.

As for the conflict between Islam and the West, for the large
part of the 20th century during the Cold War there was more
cooperation rather than conflict between Islam and the West.

For a real conflict or clash of civilizations similar to the
author Samuel Huntington's model, one really needs two equal
powers of equal political and military strength -- and there are
none of those in Islam which can match the wealth, power and
strength of the West, let alone its current standard bearer the
United States. Within the Islamic world, in the foreseeable
future, there is no country or society, not even Iraq, which
could become anything near such a power.

The only civilization which could challenge the West is that
of East Asia (Japanese and Chinese civilizations). However, both
the Western civilization and the Eastern civilizations are too
esoteric and too isolated from each other to invite a conflict or
even a skirmish.

Terrorism nowadays is not a conflict but a phenomena of the
lunatic fringe and the best way to treat it is not by counter
terrorism of the state -- which is equally useless as history has
shown, such as in the case of Indonesia under Soeharto.

If the new hesitancy of the state in dealing with the Ba'asyir
case is because of concerns over human rights and legal
procedures, then the security apparatus deserves praise.

Whatever the state's hesitancy in the Ba'asyir case was,
relations from now on between the state and society might well
have undergone a big change -- hopefully because of reformasi.