Quasi-Religious Terrorism

ANTARA FOTO/RONY MUHARRMAN

Residents from various backgrounds attend a vigil in opposition to radicalism and terrorism in Pekanbaru, Riau, on Tuesday (15/5/2018) night. The participants sent prayers to victims of the bomb attack in Surabaya and expressed support for the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police in its efforts to eradicate terrorism.

In his essay, The End of History (1989, 1992, book), Francis Fukuyama, an American sociologist, describes his hypothesis about the victory of liberal democracy and the free market along with the end of the Cold War between the Western bloc (the United States and its allies) and the communist bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies).

In its development, the hypothesis was aborted by two facts that are beyond Fukuyama\'s calculations. The first, the dissolution of the Soviet Union state and subsequent transformation into Russia under Putin, who remains communist and emerges as a new force that the US cannot dictate. Also, communist China is getting stronger and unshakable, challenging the US hegemony. The ideology of communism survives by adopting capitalism and the free market.

According to Jacques Derrida (Spectres de Marx, 1993), the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was simply the failure of the ghostly experiment of Marxism. Until now, communism remains attractive in places of high social imbalance. For us, the ideology of communism has lost its appeal. Even if the ghostly narrative of Carl Marx tries to be revived, it is loaded with electoral political interests.

Mondialization of terrorism

Relevant to us and urgent is the mondialization of terrorism in the name of religion as applied by the Islamic State (IS). The term “mundialization” (worldwide movement) is borrowed from Derrida in his dialogue with Giovanna Borradori (Philosophy in the Terror Period, 143).

Terrorism has existed for a long time, but it has never been accounted for in international politics until Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, quasi-religious terrorism has succeeded in dictating the political pattern of US bilateral relations. During the Cold War era, the politics of US bilateral relations was based on the affiliation of a country with communism.

Post-Cold War, US bilateral politics is based on an affiliation of a country with terrorism, and it turns out that even the democratic parameters usually used by the US can be ignored such, as in its relations with the Pakistani authoritarian regime when they jointly fought Taliban forces.

In Fukuyama\'s optimism, the triumph of a free market and consumerism becomes a channel to the destructive desire for warfare, so that trade increases, especially for electronic products. Again, beyond Fukuyama\'s calculations, the Taliban regime even banned the use of all electronic products. Afghanistan was not conquered by capitalism and free market, but ultimately by US-trained and super-sophisticated war machines, ironically dealing with fighters who struggled in the name of religion.

Instead of ending, history was even repeated. That is, the history of violence, the history of terror. History repeats, but we are slow to learn from history. When we were still debating whether there was a terrorist training camp in Central Sulawesi, the government of Singapore published an easily accessible white paper on the structure and operationalization of quasi-religious terrorist organizations. Until now, not a single bomb has exploded in the country, one of the world\'s trading centers.

Instead of history ending, the mondialization of quasi-religious terrorism begins a new history of a world that is haunted by a war with a new mode against an organizational power of formless cells, not interstate wars, without accumulating arms. The enemy of the state is its own citizens, who have the opposite ideology.

Terrorism cells have high mobility. The location of their residence is difficult to detect. The public is only aware of their location after a suicide bombing or when the bomb being assembled explodes in their own residence. The weapons they use range from propaganda on social media, to conventional weapons and homemade bombs, and possibly one day, even chemical or biological weapons.

Acts of terror not only target civil society, but also the police as a state institution. Indonesia’s highly trained counterterrorism law enforcers were taken hostage and killed at their command headquarters. Those praying at houses of worship were targeted by bombs. The community\'s security fortress is about to be broken down. There is a great design of social engineering to frighten as a ghost of life, which is more real than on the big screen.

KOMPAS/BAHANA PATRIA GUPTA

People attach streetbanners condemning a terrorist attack to Kembang Market Bridge in Surabaya on Tuesday (15/5/2018). After the terrorist attacks in Surabaya, residents adorned the city with streetbanners calling on actions against terrorism.

Terror for the state

We cannot just hide behind the rhetoric that the state will not be defeated by terrorism. The target of terrorist attacks is not to defeat the state, but to spread fear. An intergroup of communities becomes suspicious of each other. Mutual trust is eroded. The people finally doubt the government\'s ability to guarantee security. Investors are also hesitant to do business in Indonesia.

With the accumulation of the people\'s doubts toward the government, it is expected to form an opinion that this government is weak (if necessary, worth replacing). By undermining the authority of the state, terrorists expect the state to soften in the fight against terrorism. Though they are small, terrorist cells are in fact facing the country with a huge allocation of human and financial resources.

They are in fact faced by the state with a huge allocation of human and financial resources.

The issue of terrorism is a serious disturbance so that the state fails to focus on its basic function of "protecting the whole Indonesian nation [...] to promote the common welfare" (paragraph IV, Preamble of the 1945 Constitution).

From where does such a small force have the great motivation to terrorize the state, even until willing to die? Religious beliefs. Indeed, religious beliefs are not the same as religion, but cannot be totally separated. Religious consciousness is so close to self-awareness, even collective consciousness, as the first consciousness (primordial) before the consciousness of the nation and state.

Historically, religions did exist before the formation of government. Even, there is a belief that religion comes from God, while the state comes from human consensus. Therefore, for a greater cause, religious people dare to oppose the state.

It is true that the mainstream religion in the modern era does not justify cruelty in the name of religion. However, a religion in the free market era is also freely believed in various ways, including in radical ways. Terrorists do not care whether their actions are considered barbaric and not justified by religion, as long as they are justified by religious beliefs. They even consider themselves to be the most religious and consistent in performing the religion. Believing to be on the right path, they are radical in religion. And, their piety is recognized by the social environment.

In the US, there are also radical groups fighting for the establishment of a government based on the laws of religion (Frederick Clarkson, Eternal Hostility: The Struggle between Theocracy and Democracy, 1997). However, religious radicalism there does not have a fertile ground to grow, because the country is basically secular.

That is not the case with Indonesia as a country with people who believe in God. Quasi-religious terrorism is comfortable because its political struggle is seen by a part of the community as a struggle on the path of religion. There is public sympathy, even openly. As a radical form of intolerance, quasi-religious terrorism is conducive amid religious practices that are tolerant to intolerance.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Yonky Karman

Here is its root: Tolerant to intolerance. There are the portions of the government, religious followers and religious leaders. The loss of vigilance in religious practices has made the nation\'s children captivated by the IS ideology, going to fight abroad, then returning to fight the nation and the country itself. Even, the parents managed to unify the hearts of their children so that one family committed suicide bomb attacks.

De jure, our state\'s ideology is clear. De facto, too much politicization for the state ideology from religious perspectives. Pancasila effectively wards off communism as a foreign teaching in the formation of self-awareness. It is not so when Pancasila confronts religious radicalism. As a nation-state, the life of the nation and the state must not be subject to primordialism in any name.

Yonky Karman, Lecturer at the Jakarta Philosophy Theology School