The Rage Culture — page 2

The investigation is also being watched carefully in the Maluku Islands, where violence between Muslims and Christians has killed over 5,000 people and left half a million homeless. Activists there hope—probably in vain—that the arrival of foreign investigators in Bali might pressure the Indonesian authorities to probe a series of unsolved bombings in Ambon, the capital of Maluku. They can also understand why U.S. officials are so frustrated with the Indonesian government's failure to act against suspected terrorists, since the same inertia has blighted their attempts to establish schemes that might help reconcile Maluku's warring communities. What peace prevails there today is largely to the credit of local activists, who feel they must struggle constantly to even get Jakarta's attention, let alone its support. As an Ambonese activist put it wearily, "We discuss the problems, we make recommendations to the government, and then—blah, blah, blah. Nothing ever happens."

For U.S. officials, the investigation will hopefully reveal new links between Indonesia's homegrown extremists and al-Qaeda's global terror network. It might disclose how much support the cause of radical Islam enjoys amongst the nation's 180 million Muslims. That clerics like Abubakar have powerful military and political allies is no secret: the nation's Vice-President Hamzah Haz is one of them. The 62-year-old leader is, in his words, "very close" to Abubakar and Laskar Jihad leader Jafar Umar Thalib, although many see this relationship as a purely political ploy to woo Muslim voters ahead of the 2004 election.

Hamzah has a reputation as a wily politician, which is ironic, since he will be remembered for a particularly ill-judged speech before Muslim clerics at Abubakar's Solo boarding school in May. "If they can prove there are terrorists here I'll be the first to order an arrest," thundered Hamzah, before stepping from the podium to kiss Abubakar on both cheeks. (In the self-denial stakes, Hamzah is perhaps rivaled only by his government's Chief Economic Minister, who declared that the Bali bombing would have little effect on the economy—even as the rupiah sank to a five-year low and investors scrambled to dump Indonesian shares.) Hamzah has kept a conspicuously low profile in the last week. "He's kind of checked out for a while," says one Western analyst.

Indonesian politicians are generally reluctant to publicly criticize extremist groups for fear of offending powerful supporters. Nor do they want to be seen as "un-Islamic," especially at a time when both their faith and their country seem under siege. "For many people," says Sindhunata, "Islam is the only thing left in Indonesia to be proud of." This silence can easily be misconstrued as popular support, he suggests. "Sure, most Indonesians are Muslims, but we don't live like Middle Easterners," says Sardono Kusumo, a leader in contemporary dance who has lived most of his life in that hotbed of radicalism, Solo. "Abubakar Ba'asyir does not represent most Muslims in this city. If the international media take him as somehow representative—well, that's their own fault."

That would suggest that Abubakar's opinions were not of the mainstream. Yet more than half the 2,000 people questioned in a survey by the National Muslim University in Jakarta early this year favored the introduction of Shari'a law. An even greater percentage believed non-Muslims should not be allowed to teach in public schools. Such opinions not only destroy cherished Indonesian notions of tolerance, they also serve to bolster widely held fears that any government crackdown on radical Islamic groups in the wake of Bali might spark a violent popular backlash. But Amien Rais, the Western-educated speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, questioned both the survey's findings and its implications. "I don't buy the backlash fury argument," he says. "The Indonesian people will be happy, even excited, to see that the perpetrator has been caught."

Already the Bali blast has sent shock waves throughout Indonesia's radical outfits. Only two days after the event, Jafar announced the disbandment of Laskar Jihad amid reports that hundreds of his followers were fleeing Maluku. Jafar insisted that "no external pressure" influenced the move, but many observers find the timing suspect. Laskar Jihad has apparently lost its military and political support, and its members could be scattering to avoid an imminent crackdown. Even so, it is still too early to predict the demise of radical Islam in Indonesia. Indeed, many moderates fear that a U.S. invasion of Iraq—which most Indonesians resolutely oppose—will only reignite it.

If Megawati's government does begin to rein in the extremists in the aftermath of Bali, the true extent of support for radical Islam in Indonesia will become easier to discern. Yet unless the war on terror is accompanied by action on pressing domestic issues much closer to Indonesian minds, American pressure alone will do little to change Indonesians' apparent tolerance of extremists, or their ambiguous attitudes towards the West. And attitudes can change—even, one suspects, young Ahmad's. His loyalty to Abubakar, the nation's most anti-Western cleric, is clearly non-negotiable. But is the same true of Ahmad's own hostility towards the West? One suspects he disagrees with the school shop's boycott of American products ("I like Coke," he remarks). Nor has his indoctrinated distrust of the outside world snuffed out his teenage curiosity to see it. "Would I visit America?" he wonders. "Sure. Why not? I want to go everywhere."

—With reporting by Zamira Loebis/Jakarta

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