Lee's rapped over remark on radical groups

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian Muslim scholars denied on Sunday the statement by Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew that there were some 100 radical groups in Indonesia aimed at establishing an Islamic superstate in Southeast Asia.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur as he is familiarly known, and noted Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra concurred in saying that Lee had miscalculated the number of Islamic radical groups in Indonesia.

According to both Gus Dur and Azyumardi, the facts showed that such groups were still small in number and the majority of Islamic groups here did not support extremism.

"Lee's statement is exaggerated and the figure is not correct. It shows that he really does not understand Islam and Muslims in Indonesia. There are radical groups here but they are only in the dozens and they never get any support from other parties," Azyumardi told The Jakarta Post.

He said that the only strong radical Muslim groups that had ever existed in the country were Laskar Jihad, Islam Defenders' Front, and the Majelis Mujahidin.

Lee, in an interview with the Dec. 12 edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review, said that the monitoring of Internet traffic had led to the identification about 100 radical groups with several thousand members operating in Indonesia.

"They want to create a Muslim state or Daulah Islamiyah, a caliphate that comprises Malaysia, Indonesia, the southern Philippines and Singapore," he was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Azyumardi said that the idea of establishing an Islamic state was not something new here as it first emerged in the 1950s through the Darul Islam movement.

"History and experience show that such a movement could never get majority support and that the goal is unrealizable," he said.

Azyumardi, however, admitted that the growth in radical Islamic groups here was due to the weak authority of the state and a lack of police professionalism in stemming the tide of such movements.

"Such groups will vanish if law enforcement improves and all perpetrators of crimes are punished severely. Therefore, we should push the police to be more professional. Their success in dealing with the Bali bombings is an achievement that should be respected, though," he said.

Meanwhile, Gus Dur said through his spokesman Adhie Massardie that the idea of establishing an Islamic state would be rejected by Indonesians who were not Muslim and also by a majority of Muslims in Indonesia.

"So, there was no reason for Lee to make such a statement," Gus Dur said in a press release made available by e-mail to the Post.

Gus Dur then pointed to Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which represents 60 percent of Muslims in the country, as an example of the practice of Islam that was both humane and democratic.

He warned all Muslims across the country not to overreact to Lee's statement, otherwise the international community would take