Speaking up, finally

One may be forgiven for wondering how many more deaths our esteemed clerics were waiting for before speaking out against homegrown terrorists; for wondering if the clerics would have taken a stand had it not been for Vice President Jusuf Kalla inviting them to a screening of a chilling videotape captured in a raid on a terrorist hideout.

The tape shows a masked man, thought to be Malaysian terrorist suspect Noordin M. Top, saying the recent Bali suicide bombings were part of a holy war against the West. Also shown are the three suicide bombers, unmasked and calmly discussing in both Indonesian and Arabic what they have planned for the innocent people of Bali.

One of the suicide bombers smiles and says he is going to heaven for his role in the "jihad against the enemies of Islam".

Only after the screening of the video, which police seized in the raid that killed top terror suspect Azahari bin Husin, did Muslim clerics announce they would join a government-sponsored "antiterror task force".

This task force will play an active role in countering the false Islamic teachings being spread by terrorist groups to justify their use of violence against civilians.

Some religious leaders continue to question the authenticity of the tape and to speak darkly of mysterious foreign plots to cultivate terrorism in Indonesia. However, it is time for all Indonesians to move past these conspiracy theories and accept that terrorism here has everything to do with religion, or as the clerics said, the misinterpretation and abuse of religion.

This new antiterror task force finally ends the conspicuous absence of clerics in the battle against terrorism, and this step has been rightly applauded.

Simply condemning terrorist acts and dismissing the perpetrators as a misled few has, as we have learned to our misfortune, done little to stop the cycle of violence. This points to the continued success of terror networks in recruiting foot soldiers susceptible enough to blow themselves up for a promise of heavenly delights.

Without the assistance of Muslim clerics with the authority to fight the "ideological war", the police have been involved in a fruitless battle to shut down the terror networks. In the words of the Vice President, we can arrest 10 terrorists "but the (false) ideology continues unchallenged and the extremists recruit 1,550 more people".

Even apparent cracks in the terror networks, as analysts and investigators have suggested are beginning to appear, do nothing to reduce the potential threat to civilians on Indonesian soil and elsewhere, as only one suicide bomber is enough to kill and maim anyone within range.

If our clerics fear upsetting Muslims by taking too strong a stance on extremism, they need only remember the shock and grief expressed by relatives of the three Bali suicide bombers at the actions of their loved ones, and the relatives' support for the fight against terrorism.

"I beg the police to catch the satans who dragged Agus into all this," said the uncle of Agus Purwanto, one of the suicide bombers.

Apart from countering the terrorists' violent view of jihad, we need religious scholars and leaders of all faiths to actively encourage the preaching of tolerance in schools and in other public forums.

As much as people might like to have preachers screened before they are allowed to blare out all sorts of things that justify violence over their loudspeakers, memories of the authoritarian New Order remain fresh. What we need instead are religious scholars and leaders to take up positions on the front line in these frightening times.