How to combat barbarism

After sixty years of independence, the question on everybody's lips is not how much does kerosene or gasoline cost in Indonesia? Nor whether the Indonesian police and military will win the battle against terrorists. But it is the question of whether barbarians are growing in number -- without the Central Bureau of Statistics being aware of it.

The beheadings of the three schoolgirls in Poso, Central Sulawesi, recently, certainly could not have been the work of one or two barbarians. How large is their number? Where are they hiding? Why have they become so barbaric so suddenly in an ideal society such as Pancasila society like ours?

It is easy for the President to order the arrest of the perpetrators, dead or alive, but it will not be as easy as catching street criminals. For those with extreme ideologies should be classified as belonging to or being heavily influenced by terrorists' way of thinking. And how many of these that belong to this category are still at large?

The Mahdi religious sect, for instance, seems to belong to such extreme or radical groupings. It is very sad to see that the Police, without gathering enough intelligence, have lost more men in a sudden confrontation (three killed among them and only one loss among the enemy). Intensifying patrol activities by more troops in suspected areas would only scare away the terrorists or the barbarians without addressing their basic grievances.

Many analysts are wondering whether the barbarians are not cooperating with the terrorists and rather radical elements to discredit the central government. Improvements in the country's general economic and social conditions are now more than ever called for. It seems in this connection that distributing money to the poor is not enough.

Perhaps what the majority of the "have-nots" are wishing is the price increases do not look too "barbaric" to them by an increase of 100 percent or more. Alas, we cannot prevent historians from writing that the Pancasila society has become more violent and that way of life now is killing people or killing money (corruption). The task of the government now is to prevent barbarism, extremism and terrorism from spreading further is through initiating more welfare projects, reducing unemployment and eradicating poverty.

Hopefully, the government can prevent sectarianism to develop into barbarism this way.

GANDHI SUKARDI, Jakarta