Bali tragedy may deal fatal blow to violent Islamism

Martin Woollacott, Guardian News Service, London

After the massacre of foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997, the shock and grief felt by Egyptians was tangible. The journalist and academic Geneive Abdo describes leaving the relatively quiet campus of the American University in Cairo to find that "all around me, Egyptians were cursing the violence. They stood in crowds in the middle of downtown, waving their hands in the air and looking past one another as they shouted in anger and frustration".

The spectacular violation of Egyptian ideas of decency and hospitality by the Luxor terrorists turned the population decisively against a violent Islamism about which they already had grave doubts. The main radical Islamist movements in that country condemned the attack, went on to the defensive, and began a reconsideration of strategy.

In retrospect Luxor can be seen as the last desperate throw of the terrorist brand of Islamism in Egypt. A slow Islamization of Egyptian society continued, which many westerners and secular Egyptians deplore, but it has nevertheless been pursued by non- violent means. Most of those who could not reconcile themselves to this course left the country, some of them to become founders and associates of what came to be known as al-Qaeda.

Five years after Luxor, it looks as if al-Qaeda and its local allies in Indonesia have repeated the same mistake in Bali. Just as Luxor alienated Egyptians from the path of violence, so it is likely that Bali will have the same effect on Muslim Indonesians. Extreme Islamists are far less a force in Indonesia than they once were in Egypt, and their chances of increasing their influence must be narrowed by what has happened.

The operation that al-Qaeda and its helpers have chosen to conduct illustrates the almost unavoidable contradiction between national political objectives and the kind of transnational war on the west and its friends which al-Qaeda's leadership, whatever remains of it, wishes to conduct.

This broader war may be served by a blow which shows that young westerners enjoying themselves abroad are very vulnerable; and so is an Indonesian economy dependent on income from tourism, in particular that from Bali. There are potentially scores of such targets all over the globe and the impact will go well beyond Indonesia to damage the tourist trade of many other countries. But, as a tactic designed to gain political power in Indonesia, Bali is deeply dubious.

The objective of the more extreme Islamist groups in Southeast Asia is supposedly a Muslim superstate uniting Indonesia, Malaysia, parts of the Philippines and Thailand. But the way there, if we give this fantasy room for a moment, would have to be through the achievement of political control in Indonesia and Malaysia as at present constituted.

Quite apart from the non-Muslim minorities in these countries and the secularized parts of the middle classes, any serious Islamist has to take into account the needs and views of the mass of ordinary Muslims. Bombs in Bali are not a way to gain influence in a complex polity where there are substantial moderate Muslim political movements.

The interests of ordinary Muslims as they see them, it may be hazarded, do not include the destruction of livelihoods, the collapse of local economies, or the slaughter of guests in one's own home.

This last is a critical point of difference to the twin towers attack, and to strikes against tankers, warships or embassies. Justifications can be offered for, and conspiracy theories woven around, such events. It is not so easy to do this when innocents have been killed in your own country.

Abu Bakar Ba'aysir, the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, has made statements implying that the U.S. might have a motive for the Bali bombs, but it remains to be seen whether this notion will gain any credence among Indonesians, however jaundiced their view of America.

Above all, events such as Luxor and Bali have the potential to greatly increase the kind of informal social policing that is the only really effective basis for preventing terrorist activity. It is true that the situation in Indonesia is complicated by serious strains between a central government of a somewhat secular character, a resentful army, and a number of disappointed Muslim groups, some moderate and some not.

Ethnic and confessional strife, fomented by elements in the military who use such conflict as a way of dominating whole islands and regions, has marked the lackadaisical presidency of Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Violence in Hindu Bali might be thought to fit into such a pattern, but its consequences may signal an improvement in it, with the bombs producing a different approach at all three points of the triangle. Government, army and radical groups cannot proceed, after Bali, as they did before.

The government will have to respond to the American urgings it seems to have resisted and ignored until now. The games played by army commanders will be under more serious surveillance. Radicals will be under pressure both from the security forces pursuing them for real or alleged involvement in violence, and from within their own ranks. In none of this should there be much comfort for al-Qaeda or its Indonesian associates.

The Brazilian guerrilla Carlos Marighella defined the classic terrorist strategy as "turning political crisis into armed conflict by performing violent actions that will force those in power" into a military response "that will alienate the masses". It is an old thought and an old trap, but people -- and nations -- still fall into it.

There have been warnings that too militarized a response to the Bali bombs could play into such a strategy. It is interesting that Luxor was followed by a limited relaxation of Egypt's very repressive methods. The government was blamed for not having responded to ceasefire offers by extremist groups, and perhaps having missed an opportunity to divide them. Now it tacked in that direction, releasing repentant extremists from jail. For whatever combination of reasons, it worked. There were no more Luxors, Egyptian politics changed, and, in time, Egyptian tourism recovered from the impact of the killings.

Before Bali, some knowledgeable people criticized the U.S. for exaggerating the extent to which extremist Islam had penetrated the region. There is no obvious reason now to deem them wrong. One big operation that came off and one that was foiled -- the planned attack on targets in Singapore -- do not prove that al- Qaeda and its friends are everywhere.

Rather, they suggest that they have to go to new places and pick new targets in order to succeed, and it will not be so easy a second time around. In these dangerous times it does not do to be too sanguine, but it is to be hoped they will also show that a big "success" at one level can also be a big failure at another.