Muslims urged to stand up to radicalism

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Radicalism will remain a serious problem among Muslim individuals and groups in the future as several problems including poor law enforcement, global injustice and the abuse of Islamic doctrines to justify violence were not rectified, scholars said here on Tuesday.

They were speaking at a three-day seminar on Islamic militant movements in Southeast Asia and claimed that most of the current problems with terror and violence stemmed from a literal interpretation of Islam by misguided devotees, many of whom have been held responsible for a series of terrorist attacks across the globe in recent years.

Rector of the State Islamic University (UIN) Azyumardi Azra said moderate Muslim leaders should educate people about the danger of literal interpretations of the religion in order to counter extremism and terrorism.

"It is time now for moderate Muslim leaders to speak more clearly and loudly and explain to their followers that a literal interpretation of Islam will lead to the type of extremism that is unacceptable to Islam, and that Islam cannot condone, let alone justify, violence or terrorism," he said in his opening speech at the seminar.

He urged police and other security authorities to embrace the country's largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, as well as other moderate groups in their efforts to combat terrorism.

"This problem should be addressed by moderate Muslim leaders hand-in-hand with law enforcement authorities for the sake of the image of Islam as a peaceful religion," Azyumardi said.

The police have arrested dozens of Muslims who are allegedly members of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network blamed for the devastating bombings in Bali on Oct. 12, 2002, killing more than 200 people, mostly tourists.

All of those arrested profess to be devout Muslims, and without proper education from their schools and elsewhere, many moderate Muslims here, may start to think that the police are just out to get Muslims, warned Azyumardi.

"To deal with such suspicions the authorities should also handle those arrested in compliance with due process of the law," he emphasized.

NU leader Hasyim Muzadi and Muhammadiyah chairman Syafii Maarif have held regular meetings to discuss joint efforts to fight extremism and radicalism among Muslims following the Bali terrorist attacks.

However, Azyumardi said the efforts lacked effectiveness as they had no "systematic agenda of activities" to follow up on the talks. He did not elaborate further.

Such a campaign has also been seen to fall short because the National Police have not made much of an effort to win over moderate Muslim groups and join them in the fight against militancy, he said.

Another respected Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid and American academic Mark Juergensmeyer concurred with Azyumardi, saying that Islam should not be equated with terrorism, despite the widely held belief that almost every terror act of late had been perpetrated by Muslims.

Nurcholish, better known as Cak Nur, who has announced his bid to contest the 2004 direct presidential election, attributed religious radicalism to the "sense that Muslims have that they are being deprived, alienated or marginalized" from real power.

"They have been denied participation in politics. They are deprived of power," he said.

Cak Nur cited as an example, former president Soeharto suppressing or sidelining many Muslim groups, such as NU and Masyumi, from politics during the 32 years of his iron-fisted rule until 1998.

"So, Pak Harto played a role in making Muslims angry and alienated through his heavy-handed rule, not Islam," he added.

Juergensmeyer, the author of the book on Terror in the Minds of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence published in 2000, said Islam was not what makes people violent, although some believe that was what jihad meant.

He says terrorism and radicalism are "cultures of violence" that led to the establishment of militant movements in Islam, Christianity and other religions, he added.

"The appearance of cultures of violence around the world is indeed linked to contemporary global forces and trends," said Juergensmeyer from University of California, Santa Barbara.

He said during the seminar that a religion should be made part of the solution to terrorism.

Cak Nur also dismissed worldwide claims that the Islamic concept of jihad was the root problem which caused terror attacks. However, he admitted the term was misunderstood by many Muslims who only see it as a way to justify violence.

"In Islam, jihad is a generic term. It could imply something physical, rational or spiritual," he said.