- Our IGP said before there was 'rumah putih'.
- Then it morphed and became Al Arqam.
- Al Arqam then morphed and became Rufaqa.
- Then Rufaqa morphed and became the present outfit.
Here is news (it is long but it should be read - this time I am not editing it) that Indonesian, terrorist jihadi outfit Jemaah Islamiyah is "morphing".
- Do note the highlighted passages.
- I have highlighted some passages in read. These are scary.
- I have highlighted some passages in black. These are really sh-t scary.
This is an analysis of Jemaah Islamiyah by Julie Chernov Hwang who is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College. My comments at the very end.
JEMAAH ISLAMIYAH DISBANDS ITSELF: HOW, WHY, AND WHAT COMES NEXT?
Bottom Line Up Front:
* Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Islamist extremist group based in Indonesia, declared it would disband itself in late June.
* Jemaah Islamiyah leaders chose to eliminate the organizational JI so that the underlying community could survive.
* Jemaah Islamiyah will retain its network of 60 Islamic boarding
schools but must revise the curriculum to eliminate extremist content.
* A team headed by Bambang Sukirno, a Jemaah Islamiyah leader, in
conjunction with representatives from the Indonesian Ministry of
Religious Affairs and counter-terrorism unit, is socializing the
decision to rank and file members in JI strongholds and at JI schools to
increase the likelihood of in-group acceptance and to prevent
splinters.
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), Southeast Asia’s most significant and influential
Salafi-jihadist organization, declared it was disbanding earlier this
summer on June 30. Surrounded by 15 senior leaders, spiritual leader
Thoriqudin (alias Abu Rusydan) declared on video that he and the other
leaders were dissolving the current structure and “returning to the lap
of the Republic of Indonesia.” As part of that effort, they would work
with the Indonesian Ministry of Religion to revise the curriculum at
their 60 schools to eliminate extremism and conform to the national
curricular standards (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
Jemaah Islamiyah chose to sacrifice the organization to ensure the
survival of their community. This was a multi-generational jihadi
community bound by familial ties, marriages, friendship, shared
experiences, mentor-protégé ties, and business relationships. By
prioritizing the community over the organization, its members could be
free to form new dakwah (Islamic propagation) organizations, open new
schools, to join various above ground organizations and in so doing,
work toward an Islamic society and state through political, economic,
and societal mechanisms.
This decision to disband was the culmination of a 16-year process of
reconsidering tactics and strategies that began with a revision of
perspective on the use of violence. In 2008, when Para Wijayanto took
over as JI’s amir, Jemaah Islamiyah had already begun shifting to a
dakwah first strategy, eschewing the use of violence or participation in
jihad within Indonesia proper. According to the Institute for the
Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a non-profit organization based in
Jakarta, “Abu Rusydan had argued in 2009 that JI could not hope to
survive without the support of the [Indonesian Muslim] community and
there was clearly no support for violence.”
Evidence of this strategic shift can be seen through changes in JI’s
decision-making calculus and in its discourse. For example, JI forswore
retaliation against Densus 88 (the Indonesian counterterrorism unit) for
the 2007 raids on the Tanah Runtuh compound in Poso that had resulted
in the deaths of 14 of its members. In 2010, Para Wijayanto forbade JI
members from participating in a training camp in Aceh, the westernmost
province in Indonesia, even though all other major violent extremist
organizations had sent members.
Writing together, Sidney Jones, executive director of the Institute for
the Policy Analysis of Conflict and Solahudin, author of The Roots of
Terrorism in Indonesia, note that between 2009 and 2019, no Jemaah
Islamiyah member carried out any terrorist attacks or participated in
jihad in Indonesia proper. During the same period, Para Wijayanto was
socializing a broader and more inclusive perspective on jihad. In 2016,
after a lengthy debate on this issue, Para Wijayanto permitted JI
members to join in the demonstrations against then governor of Jakarta,
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). According to Alif Satria, an associate
research fellow with the International Center for Political Violence and
Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), JI issued a fatwa supporting participating
in peaceful demonstrations as “jihad through words.” This was new as
the organization had typically associated jihad (struggle) with qital
(battle). Moreover, JI permitted its members to vote in the 2019
presidential elections, confirming the political direction JI had already embarked upon.
However, it had not revised or abandoned its goal of an Islamic state or
its view that I’dad (preparations) were necessary. To that end, it
created a training program to improve its capacity to defend that future
state. According to professors Julie Chernov Hwang and Kirsten Schulze,
this included basic training run out of private homes — “the gym
program” — and three to six months of paramilitary training in Syria for
the top graduates of that program. Para Wijayanto shared that JI
members were sent to train with the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat an-Nusra,
Ahrar as-Sham, Suquour al Izz, and Hayat Tahrir al Shams. Eventually, JI
set up its own training camp for its members near Salma, Syria.
The discovery of domestic and international training resulted in a
massive crackdown by Indonesian police. Alif Satria states that by 2023,
JI members accounted for 59 percent of all arrested terror suspects. It
is during this period, with JI’s top leaders in prison, that dialogue
between key JI leaders both in and out of prison and a select group of
Densus 88 officers began about the future of JI. These discussions
ultimately resulted in the decision this summer to dissolve the
organization and its structure, with JI retaining control of its
schools.
Interviews with two of the signatories of the June 30 statement explain
the logic that underpinned JI’s decision to dissolve the organization.
One senior Jemaah Islamiyah leader shared an ideological justification
behind the decision to reconcile with the state and dissolve: “We came
to the realization we cannot make war with the state and we’ve been
coming to that realization for some time…. There was broad agreement
between Para Wijayanto, the JI ulama and JI intellectuals that the
government and the state were not kafir (infidel) or thoghut
(unIslamic). Therefore, they cannot be the enemy.”
Another senior leader who had been intimately involved in the dialogues
with Densus 88 offered a pragmatic assessment: “We cannot hold any
activities, or we will go to jail. We cannot choose an amir because he
would be sent to jail. If we don’t exist as an organization, all the
wanted men can come out of hiding and come home. This is the key reason
we dissolved. We looked at historical precedent. We assessed our
experiences. We analyzed all of this, and we came to the conclusion that
we are a community based on brotherhood. We do not need an
organization.”
As IPAC notes, if JI continued its current path, its schools would
eventually have been seized and more members would have been arrested.
However, JI was a community first; even if they dissolved the
organization, they would retain their core social ties. Disbanding would
liberate them from the straitjacket in which they were operating and
free them to continue their non-violent activities under other names.
They could join other organizations already in existence that performed
dakwah for a more Islamic society; they could establish new
organizations to work for a more Islamic society and state; and they
could continue to run their schools.
However, first it was necessary to explain the decision to the
rank-and-file members, supporters, and the local leaders who may not
have been a party to the dialogues. Therefore, JI set up a team under
the leadership of Bambang Sukirno, a senior JI leader, to socialize the
decision among the grassroots together with representatives from the
Ministry of Religious Affairs and Densus 88. At these meetings they
explained the Islamic basis of their decisions and answered questions.
According to one senior leader who played a key role in the dialogues
with Densus 88, these efforts have been met with acceptance. “[Our
members] understand samino wa’atonah (To hear and to obey). That is part
of our internal socialization that members and candidates for
membership learn in the study sessions.” Another leader who played the
role of facilitator between JI and the government concurred, asserting
that the members who would have dissented had already departed JI to
join Noordin M. Top’s al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago in 2004, Jemaah
Ansharut Tauhid in 2008, or the Aceh training camp in 2010. Those who
remained were loyal, committed, and obedient.
To date, JI’s socialization efforts resulted in hundreds of ex-terrorist
prisoners, rank and file members, and sympathizers declaring they would
“return to the Republic of Indonesia.” According to local news reports,
these include 177 members of the province of North Sumatra; 180 members
from the city of Cirebon; 500 members from the city of Klaten, 124
sympathizers from the district of Poso and the towns of Morowali, North
Morowali and Tojo Una; 54 members from the city of Palu; 56 members from
the province of South Sumatra as well as members from the cities and
towns of Indramayu, Kuningan, Subang, Majalengka, Bengkulu and
Tasikmalaya.
The question remains: what will come next for the community formerly
known as Jemaah Islamiyah? They still have members abroad, including
10-12 in Syria and 20 studying in Yemen. Whether they will accept the
decision is an open question. However, JI’s former leaders appear
committed to dakwah and education and if members of the community are
disillusioned, they are keeping that quiet.
One of the key leaders involved in the dialogues spoke about his views
on what the future held: “We will keep our schools strong. JI won’t stop
struggling for an Islamic state because an Islamic state is not just
for JI but for humanity. We will do dakwah and education through good
works. Not through violence. Five to six years from now, I will be doing
dakwah to bring people closer to JI’s perspective, without using JI’s
name.”
Densus 88 and the Ministry of Religious Affairs should do their part to
help JI members reintegrate back into society through destigmatization
campaigns in villages, towns, and cities to ensure that former members
and their children can be accepted by broader Indonesian Muslim society.
Programs like Community-Based Correction, a mentoring program run by
local governments in tandem with local civil society and businesses, can
assist individuals in developing a post-group identity. Densus 88 would
do well to allow JI some measure of privacy in this socialization
effort rather than turning these meetings into a media spectacle, which
could have the adverse effect of humiliating JI members and sympathizers
in a tenuous period. JI members need to feel as though they belong, and
that Indonesia is inclusive enough to also include them.
Julie Chernov Hwang is an associate professor in the Department of
Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College, a
Senior Research Fellow at the Soufan Center, and a Harry Frank
Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar.
My Comments : Nothing will really change. A leopard cannot change its spots. You cannot be 10% pregnant or 55% pregnant. Either you are pregnant or you are not.
The same applies for religion. You cannot believe only 10% of your religion or only 55% of your religion. Either you believe all of it or you do not.
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants.
If your religion insists that apostates must be killed and you also believe the same you have a terrorist mind. Its as simple as that.
"If you do not believe as I believe then I will kill you".
If you believe that it is OK for the government or the religious authorities to use state sanctioned force or state sanctioned violence to enforce their version of religion it fits perfectly into the definition of terrorism.
"If you do not believe as I believe then I will arrest you, throw you in jail, whip you, fine you etc".
Because this is exactly what the Jemaah Islamiyah and ALL other jihadi terrorists see. They see that the State authority have the right to legally use force and violence in the name of religion. As a clear cut example the Jemaah Islamiyah did join the "peaceful" protests against Jakarta mayor, Chinese-Christian Basuki Jahaja Purnama or Ahok which eventually saw Ahok jailed for two years for "insulting the Quran".
In their reckoning, the use of force and violence is ok in the name of religion.
You cannot be 10% pregnant or 55% pregnant.
