Fighting terrorism: Between idealism and realism

Mochtar Buchori, Educator, legislator, Jakarta

Osama bin Laden said that the world is divided into two camps, that of the faithful and that of the infidel. The present war is one between the faithful, represented by Islam, and the infidel, represented by the West. In this war every Muslim has a duty to defend Islam and fight side-by-side with his fellow Muslims. This is how Osama bin Laden wants us to think about this chaos.

On the other hand, George W. Bush and Tony Blair have told us that the present war is one between civility and terrorism. Every man or woman who has chosen to live by the rules of civility has the duty of defending civility to resist the encroachment of terrorism into our cherished way of life. Everyone must either stand on the side of civility or on the side of evil. This is how Bush and Blair want us to think.

Indonesians are divided. There are people who have immediately decided to take sides, either advocating jihad in defense of Islam, or condemning any violent reaction to the present situation, such as "sweeps" or noisy rallies.

But there are also people who seem to have been paralyzed by the debates. They have been wavering between the two stances. Worse, some seem afraid to express their opinions about this big controversy. They fear they could be attacked, verbally or physically, by those who happen to hold a different view.

I see three dangerous tendencies among politicians and the public alike in the entire affair. First, many tend to overlook our national interests in our efforts to deal with the issue. Second, there is the tendency to be intolerant toward those who happen to have a different stance on the issue. And third, a great number among us clearly tend to oversimplify matters.

So far the rhetoric has been over the interests of Islam and Muslims, that of the West, of humanity, and so on. But what about our real interests as a nation? What will and what might happen if we take hostage all Westerners in this country, if we nationalize Western assets and sever diplomatic relations with all Western countries?

What will happen if all these things happen? Can we really afford to carry out such drastic measures?

No single political leader has ever pondered seriously such questions. Now that the tourists have begun to leave, that our hotels are almost empty, that some Western companies are at least temporarily closed down, that exports have been stalled, and so many have been out of a job, are we only beginning to realize that we have to pay dearly for our fiery rhetoric.

Still, I'm afraid that there are still too many among us who refuse to look at this grand ideological and political controversy from our national standpoint and in a realistic way. Our nation could therefore be heading to an even more perilous existence, both economically and politically.

The tendency to be intolerant is a social trait that has been in our pluralistic society for quite some now -- which shows we do not fully realize yet what it actually means to be a pluralistic society.

When this emotionally charged controversy broke out the immediate tendency among many was to react according to their primordial feelings. Yet not one among our political leaders has seriously tried to restore calm and inject some kind of rationality and clarity into the public mind.

Intolerance means that we have failed in managing our various biases. The violence that has ravaged certain parts of our societies has been caused by our intolerance, be it ethnic, religious, or political. And as long as we are still a pluralistic society, various kinds of prejudice will always reside within each of us. And it is our obligation to manage or "domesticate" these prejudices.

Failure to do so will lead us toward a societal existence characterized by jealousy. If trivial disputes have been capable of sparking physical and psychological conflicts that have divided our nation, a highly emotional issue like the current one could eventually tear our nation apart.

Do our political leaders realize this?

The third tendency, that of oversimplifying an issue also has dangerous consequences. An issue like the one we are facing now can never be simplified, let alone oversimplified. If we want a genuine and lasting solution to a problem, there is no choice but to face the problem in its full complexity.

Even if this issue really does involve the entire Western world versus the entire Islamic world it cannot be considered simple.

When we talk about Islam, we actually talk about two things: Faith and civilization. Islam as a faith is relatively quite uniform, quite homogeneous. But Islam as a civilization is quite diverse. The reason, writes professor Bassam Tibi, is that when Islam manifests itself as a revelation, it is quite universal.

But when it touches ground the teaching of the faith cannot possibly ignore the impact of local cultures. This is why Islamic civilization in the Middle East is not quite the same of that in any other part of the world. Islamic civilization in Central Asia is not quite identical to Islamic civilizations in Southeast Asia or in Central Europe.

Thus, while Indonesian Muslims sympathize with their Arab brethren in Palestine, their emotional immersion into this Middle Eastern conflict is not quite the same as that of the Palestinians.

In this "West versus Islam" issue, the emotional intensity of this problem for Muslims throughout the world is not the same, and never can be the same.

If all Indonesia's syuhada -- those willing and ready to fight to the death for the holy cause of defending Islam -- were successfully mobilized and sent to Afghanistan, would we be able to remove those lifestyles that separate Islam and the West, and find reconciliation between the two? I sincerely doubt it.

I sympathize with the idea of lending support -- at least moral support -- to the weak and the suppressed. But it would be wise to look for a balance between idealism and realism. To what extent can we lend support that will really be effective? Is it really wise to assist others in their search for justice, and in the process weakening or even destroying ourselves?

I do not think so. I may sound selfish. But I just want to be realistic. A realistic idealist, if you wish.