Cloak and dagger tactics to crack down on terror

Ray Zulfirman Parsioan Pulungan, Jakarta

As a senior high school student in Jakarta only a few years before the spectacular fall of Soeharto in May 1998, I witnessed the antics of Indonesians of my age or slightly older who were involved in political activism in their own school or as street protesters.

The school is located near a housing complex for senior officers of the Army in South Jakarta. Only a few schoolmates, many of them the sons and daughters of these servicemen, participated in the movement, probably because their parents were also targeted indirectly by these demonstrations.

So instead, like teenagers elsewhere in the world at that time, they indulged in hedonistic pursuits, seeking refuge in music, romance, drugs and a sad esprit de corps of male bravado through clashing with students from rival high schools.

A small subset within this narrow-minded insular world was the extracurricular Koran study groups that took place every day in the school mosque after classes.

The students in these groups not only recited the Koran with proficiency but also excelled in the daunting fourteen-subject curriculum. Since I spent most of my childhood abroad, I decided to join these groups to gain a better understanding of Islam and at the same time get up to speed with unfamiliar subjects such as civics. But perhaps a more practical aim, I also wanted to wait out the routine rock-hurling and sword-swinging brawls as soon as the school day ended.

The personal invitation to seek further knowledge of Islam outside this setting came shortly and in hushed tones. A schoolmate one year my senior approached me, offering to unlock a new way of viewing the world around me -- but God willing, of course. We held holding meetings twice a week at his house accompanied by two other schoolmates and a well-groomed, older man who supposedly held the key to our spiritual awakening.

He spoke fluent English and Arabic, and often recounted his travels to Los Angeles and Bangkok. For transportation, he switched regularly between driving a motorcycle and a nearly mint car. The sharp contrast between his studied elegance and his preaching of a militant brand of Islam sowed suspicion. I began to think that he was some sort of covert agent with the misguided mission of infiltrating a radical student group. Consequently, I refrained from talking politics.

But he relished in it. In fact, our meetings broached such worldly affairs as Bosnia-Herzegovina's ethno-religious strife and Soeharto's ethnic Chinese cronies more frequent than, as I had expected, moralistic narratives about the travails and triumph of the prophet Muhammad and his cadre of devoted followers. This politically charged atmosphere culminated in calisthenics on an empty field lined with trees located about 30 to 45 minutes from south Jakarta. Our well-traveled group leader evidently was also well-fit and wanted us to shape up.

The purpose, he hinted before our return, was to prepare spiritually, physically and mentally-- as must all Muslims who aspire to carry out the will of their maker. Correctly sensing that the first run at training might have unnerved me, he reminded me, in English no less, that I should not "rupture the womb."

That was the last time I attended such a meeting.

The intention is to point out some gross misconceptions about the young men (and women) who join these groups. First and foremost, they aren't necessarily recruited from a feeder pesantren network. I attended a secular public school while another friend, who too was exposed to such groups, graduated from an elite Roman Catholic school.

And finally, familial ties to such groups do not appear to be the main motivation in turning to their teachings. My friend and I are from liberal-minded families. Members of her group and those in mine mostly came from trading families preoccupied with material concerns. In short, we were drawn by the veneer of an intellectual, moral and social sophistication that these groups seemed to afford.

So how, then, can the government check the spread of these multifarious groups? In lieu of a clean answer, I can offer two suggestions regarding what the government should not do.

First, it should not single out, especially through formal pronouncements, obvious hotbeds of militancy.

By announcing that the government will monitor a few pesantrens, Vice President Jusuf Kalla committed an egregious mistake. Such a policy will only lend itself to the worldview of militants and those inclined toward militancy as being victims of a depraved state and embolden and hasten their efforts to subvert it. Cracking down on these highly secretive groups requires cloak-and-dagger tactics.

Second, the government should not think in narrow parameters by concentrating on pesantrens alone, although they're surely the most visible and vociferous quarters where militancy seems to flourish. Public and private high schools, and increasingly junior high schools as well, in Indonesia's largest cities have been serving as recruitment centers for militant groups.

The appeal is that most students in these schools are better off financially than those in pesantrens, making their induction into these groups doubly rewarding. The lack of attention to these important pockets of militant activity is indicative of the myopia in government policy.

The writer is now working on a documentary on militant Islam in Indonesia.