After a four-year lull, terrorists have again struck in Indonesia, attacking two luxury hotels in the capital, Jakarta, one of them the scene of an earlier murderous attack in 2003. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for these latest barbaric coordinated assaults, one of which seems to have been the work of a suicide bomber, but they bear all the hallmarks of an operation by Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the local militant organization closely linked to Al-Qaeda.
There are those who seek to excuse such actions whether in Indonesia or elsewhere on the basis that they are an inevitable response to oppression.
Since when has Jakarta been an occupied Muslim city, groaning under brutal oppressors? Not for 60 years. Today, after a long and difficult subsequent gestation, it is a free Muslim country, the largest in the world, and a healthy democracy at that, whose people have chosen their leaders, their constitution and their way of life. It certainly is not the West Bank or Chechnya or Xinjiang.
Its political freedom is what the militants like JI cannot abide. They despise — and fear — it and want to destroy it. They do not care whether they kill Muslims or non-Muslims in the process. Their aim is that everyone should kneel in terror and blind obedience at their command. That lust for power — being prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way and trying to impose their will by force — is what makes them the fascists they are. The ideology may be different but their political goal is identical to that of Hitler and his Nazis. Those who would excuse them and apologize for their “excesses” are themselves well on the way to being as blind and as bigoted as them.
In condemning these vile attacks, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said that they will have serious effects on the country’s economy, trade, tourism and image in the eyes of the world. He is right as regards tourism. It is only just recovering from the earlier murderous attacks by JI.
It will be hit — and with it the economy. But he and the people of Indonesia need not worry about their reputation. It is not going to be damaged. The world knows that the authorities have worked hard to smash terrorism and that the clampdown has had the full support of the overwhelming majority of Indonesians.
If there is one criticism, however, it is that all the efforts have been put into taking out the terrorists’ organizations — smashing their cells, arresting their leaders — not into challenging the twisted ideology that gives them life and new recruits. This has to be the imperative. Without it security will always be flawed — and security in Jakarta, especially in hotels, is already among the most stringent in Asia, far more so than in India or Pakistan.
A government may think that it has destroyed the terrorist threat but there can be no guarantee that a new generation of brainwashed young men will not don the suicide vests of earlier ones. Breaking the cycle has to involve re-education. That has been the Saudi tactic.
