Overreaction hands victory to terrorists

M. Ali, MBA Student, Nottingham University, United Kingdom

Nobody can for a moment underestimate the pain and horrific damage caused by the bomb attacks in Bali. The loss of life and the damage to people and property was appalling, while for Indonesia the damage has spread to infect the world's perception of us. Any semblance of recovery is going to take a long time to achieve.

The world's view of Indonesia prior to the Bali bombing was not exactly complimentary, but now that what is probably Indonesia's most famous location has come under attack the world's view of the whole archipelago has dropped to an all-time low.

But is it reasonable that the whole of Indonesia is now seen as a black spot for tourism, travel and business? In the aftermath of the Bali bombing the whole of Indonesia seems to have become a "no-go zone" for Westerners -- officially anyway. The list of European/Western embassies that have issued warnings to their citizens either not to travel to Indonesia at all or to travel very little around Indonesia if already in the country has steadily grown.

The official line has been to err on the side of caution, although some might suggest this leans toward panic and paranoia.

Of course we must understand caution in times that seem perilous and fraught with dangers; but over-cautiousness does tend to lead to paranoia, some degree of panic and, perhaps worst of all, making prejudices even more entrenched.

Take a seemingly mindless poll on travel plans that was recently taken and published in Germany. Among a variety of shallow, jingoistic and xenophobic findings was the remarkable claim that the German people have concluded that it is no longer safe for them to travel to any Muslim country.

What a strange and overbearing conclusion this seems to be, and how far from reality it seems to be as well. Just during the last few days a party of tourists from Europe returned from a tour of Java and Bali, and among this party were two Germans who seemed to have no misgivings about traveling to and around Indonesia.

They were traveling to Bromo at the time of the Bali attack but they felt no great fear or problem with continuing their trip. They went on to Yogyakarta and completed their trip with a few days in Bali, from where they took a flight home to Europe.

When asked what they felt about the fact that various embassies had announced that Westerners should not visit Yogyakarta because it was considered to be "particularly dangerous for foreigners", their reaction was rather dismissive. "Well, they [the embassies] would say that wouldn't they," was their response.

The apparent overreaction from embassies is the unfortunate truth for Indonesia. Embassy warnings are as much about the embassies covering their respective national governments as they are about protecting their respective nationals.

The reaction of some Australians after the Bali bombing illustrates this concern. Many tearful, distraught and dismayed Australian tourists returning from Bali expressed their anger that the Australian government had received warnings of potential terrorist threats but had not communicated those warnings to traveling Australians.

For fear of being exposed to such criticism again, the Australian government has been highly active in warning its citizens against travel to Indonesia, and other Western nations have followed this pattern.

But clearly this "pattern" has the potential to become overzealous and damaging not only to the Indonesian economy, through lost investment and tourism revenue, but also in terms of the relationship between Indonesia and other nations. Unfortunately much of the Western reporting of events in Indonesia after the Bali bombing has had the tendency to entrench and bolster prejudiced, xenophobic and even ignorant thinking toward Indonesia.

Typically, reporters that are bringing news of the investigation into the Bali bombing will preface their reports with lines such as "Indonesia, which is the world's largest Islamic nation and home to many radical Islamic terror groups, is now trying to track down the terrorists responsible"; or "Indonesia is now struggling to control Islamic splinter groups that have, since the downfall of Soeharto, been terrorizing Christian communities".

This kind of reporting seems to enjoy the prospect of linking religion with the fear of terror and it gives the impression that Indonesia is held in a vice-like grip by terror groups and radicals. It leaves no room for the reality that Indonesia is one of the most moderate of Muslim nations. Instead it casts a deep and dark shadow that promotes negative thoughts.

This kind of negative thinking is damaging to Indonesia, and it is also damaging and divisive for the world community as a whole. The ease, and apparent pleasure, with which links are made between religion and violence is damaging to the world community as it promotes the notion that the mostly Christian West is facing an enemy in the Islamic East. This is a dangerous and totally unwanted precedent.

But besides this kind of divisiveness, there is also the danger that the way in which embassies and (Western) governments have been quick to warn against traveling to places such as Indonesia is handing a victory to the terrorists. One of their twisted aims would, after all, be to disrupt and destroy the normal way of life of their enemies.

Terrorists are the enemies of Indonesia too and Indonesia must, and surely will now, work hard to tackle this problem. But this is also a problem for the world community.

Embassies and national governments should perhaps be a little more guarded and a little less reactionary in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The kind of paranoia that suggests that people should suddenly evacuate countries that have fallen victim to terrorist acts is myopic and not far short of being a concession of defeat in the "war on terror".