Among Indonesia's Islamic radicals, Bin Laden is popular while Bush is
seen as the major threat
"Do you want to buy an Osama T shirt?" asks Ahmad Saifullah. "I know many shops." Ahmad is 18 years old and a true believer—as you might be too if you had spent the last four years at an Islamic boarding school in the Javanese city of Solo run by radical cleric Abubakar Ba'asyir, the man some suspect of involvement in the Bali blast. Standing beneath a sign that reads NO PRESTIGE WITHOUT JIHAD, Ahmad shares his theories behind the Bali tragedy—theories passed down like scripture by Abubakar and other teachers. It was the Americans who did it—probably the CIA. He flashes a challenging look: "Don't you agree?"
In Indonesia, where Muslims pride themselves on practicing a tolerant form of Islam, Ahmad's convictions are marginal. Or so we've been led to believe. For while Abubakar's depressingly predictable views on the Bali bombings were widely publicized, the fact that many respected political commentators echoed them was not. A former dean at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta suggested that the Bali blasts were a "retaliatory action" by the U.S. to punish Indonesia for its opposition to war against Iraq, while another academic pointed to a sinister collaboration between the CIA, Israel's Mossad, and other foreign spies. Such theories found further airing in the nation's mainstream press. An editorial in the daily Bisnis Indonesia proposed the Bali bombing was orchestrated by "other countries" bent on destabilizing Indonesia and seizing control of its natural resources. Even wilder opinions are circulating among the Indonesian public, including the theory that American citizens were warned about the explosions.
All this suggests—at the very least—a yawning perception gap between Indonesians and the rest of the world. It might also indicate greater support among the population for extremist views than previously thought. The Bali bombings served as a belated wake-up call for Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri and her Cabinet, long in denial about the threat posed by terrorism. But the atrocity has also laid bare a distrust of Western—usually American—motives in Indonesia that has only deepened since Sept. 11. The opinions expressed in villages and kampongs throughout Indonesia also speak volumes about Indonesian attitudes towards their own government, which seems terminally incapable of solving the nation's problems. Some Indonesians, viewing history through the tarnished lens of hate, find a scapegoat for Indonesia's ailments in the great Satan—America.
Abubakar once encapsulated his loathing for Americans in seven words, "I am a Muslim. They are infidels." But the origins of anti-Western sentiment in Indonesia are more complex, and not necessarily religious in nature. Many Indonesians trace it back to the injustices of Dutch colonialism, or to CIA complicity in the excesses of the Suharto era. With Suharto's fall came bitter austerity measures imposed by another U.S.-based organization, the IMF, while Australian peacekeeping troops became the focus of resentment during the breakaway of East Timor. Events since Sept. 11—the Afghan campaign, the Bush administration's perceived indifference to Palestinian suffering, the dispatch of American troops to Muslim Mindanao in the Philippines—have only deepened popular resentment. "There is now a widespread conviction that America is using its superpower status to undermine Islam around the world," says Sidney Jones of the policy research organization International Crisis Group. This conviction undoubtedly lends credence to the many far-fetched but widely believed conspiracy theories circulating in Indonesia today, including the notion that no Jews died in the World Trade Center attacks, and no Americans perished in the Bali bombings.
It is not only Indonesian Muslims who feel threatened by the U.S.—as Sindhunata, a Catholic priest and journalist, is pained to admit. "In times like these, we Christians sympathize with Americans. But to be frank, that's not always how we think. Many Christians here feel that the U.S. is arrogant and unjust." But Sindhunata does not suspect the U.S. played a role in the Bali bombings. Or does he? "On an emotional level," he slowly replies, "I do.
Middle-class Indonesians like Sindhunata were shocked and saddened by the tragedy in Bali, a place often referred to as "the last safe place" in the archipelago. Yet while the event received blanket media coverage, the grassroots response outside of Bali itself was more muted. "It's not that we don't care," says one Solo resident. "It's just that we have so many other problems—and no solutions."
Indonesians long ago lost any faith in the Megawati government's ability to tackle the nation's epidemic of problems. Up to 40 million people are unemployed according to unofficial sources, the bureaucracy is mired in corruption, and crime is soaring; there is so little public confidence in justice and the rule of law that suspected criminals are routinely beaten to death by street mobs.
In such a desperate climate, concerted U.S. pressure on Indonesia to toe the line in the war on terror may win it more enemies than friends. As Indonesians see it, the anti-terror campaign is primarily about U.S. national security. Why should this concern them when, until Sept. 11, it didn't concern most Americans either? "If the world thinks Indonesians will now be united behind a single issue," says Jones, "they've got another thing coming." Human rights activists fear that new anti-terrorism legislation will put more power in the hands of the police and military, who already abuse it, and that other pressing domestic issues will be sidelined. "There is a real concern among reformers that terrorism will now swamp all other issues," says Jones, "like stopping corruption or cleaning up the legal system."
Or resolving Indonesia's many simmering conflicts. In Aceh, the nation's northernmost province, a brutal campaign by the military and police to crush separatist rebels has claimed thousands of lives, mostly civilians. "What people face here daily—killings, kidnappings, intimidation—is just as bad as Bali," insists one Acehnese analyst, who fears the war on terror might stall recent peace initiatives in the province. The war-weary people of Aceh, he adds, regard the investigation into the Bali bombings as a crucial test of the government's sincerity and resolve. "If the government is not keen to solve a bombing in Bali, how keen are they to solve a conflict in Aceh?"
INDIA/PAKISTAN
Back from the Brink
On both sides, forces pull pack from the India-Pakistan border. How long can this thaw last?
MOVIES
A Sigh for Old Saigon
The made-in-Vietnam film of Graham Greene's The Quiet American looks at love and war, and the strange bedfellows they make
NORTH KOREA
Look Who's Got the Bomb
Confronted by the U.S., North Korea brazenly admits it's building nukes. Now what does President Bush do?
TRAVEL
Homestay on the Range
In the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan, My Yurt is Your Yurt
