COVER STORY Standing Up for Islam
Muslims are fighting back—not just against the West but also against the militancy in their midst. A TIME Special Report on the diversity of Islam in Asia
Yogyakarta, February 2003: Two dozen university students gather in a sparsely furnished house on a darkened street. They're bright, politically engaged kids, and they have lots to discuss. Local television has just shown Ali Imron, the accused bombmaker in last October's terrorist attack in Bali. With startling enthusiasm, he described how he and his associates built and deployed the bombs that killed 193 people. "His expression looked strange," asserts Yanto, a civil engineering student. Kiki, an Islamic studies major, nods in agreement: "With all the cases the police couldn't solve, how did they solve this one so fast?" Concludes Yanto: "There must have been something behind it."
Unable to swallow the official version of events, this group of Indonesians—with access to the Internet, CNN, the BBC—instead turn to rumors: that the CIA was behind the Bali blasts; that the Indonesian military must have played a role. What about the mysterious blue flash that preceded the explosions? Have you heard that a micro nuclear device was found nearby?
The grapevine is a powerfully binding force in Indonesia and, indeed, much of the Muslim world. But its power has more to do with a perpetual state of uncertainty than with religion. Rumor, much of it politically charged, will thrive in a struggling nation with a history of repression, a place where citizens have grown used to disenfranchisement and learned not to trust the government or the media. Indonesia's press has been free since Suharto's ouster in 1998, and most political offices are filled by elections. But "people here are used to being deceived by the police, politicians, even ulama," says Emha Ainum Nadjib, a Yogyakarta-based poet, playwright and preacher. When truth is malleable and governing institutions suspect, says Mohammed Farid, a member of the Indonesian Committee on Human Rights, "people can be easily manipulated." Nadjib quotes a proverb: "People here are like dried grass. They can be ignited with one match."
The students in Yogyakarta say they don't accept rumors blindly. But they can't help but see beyond news reports. Several students say they still believe the canard that no Americans died in Bali—in fact, six did—just as they mistakenly believe that no Jews died in the World Trade Center. The question they can't answer, for which there is no passable rumor, is what it would take to convince them of the truth?
