Indonesia Using 'Pesantren' To Fight Radicalisation

By Nawridho Alfismartienez Dirwan

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7 (Bernama) -- The Indonesian government is actively engaging with the 'pesantren', which is the Indonesian term for Islamic boarding schools, to fight radicalisation. 

Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Law, Politics and Security policy advisor Dr Sri Yunanto said the government is working with the National Agency for Combating Terrorism (BNPT), as well as Islamic civil societies and organisations, to impart the true interpretation of Islam to the students who study at the pesantren.

While the Indonesian government and related agencies are committed to curbing the dissemination of radical religious ideology by extremists, the rise of radicalisation in Islamic schools in the country with the world's largest Muslim population has been a cause for concern in this region. 

On May 13, three churches in Surabaya, East Java, were attacked by a family of suicide bombers, killing at least 13 and injuring over 40 churchgoers. The next day, the police headquarters in Surabaya was attacked, leaving four police officers and six local residents injured.

Earlier on May 8, a maximum-security detention centre in Depok in the outskirts of Jakarta came under siege by militants, causing the death of five police officers.

FORUM FOR DISCUSSION

"We (the Indonesian government) is currently working with the pesantren to inform them (students) that the Islamic ideology spread by extremists is untrue. They (radicals) are misinterpreting the religion or capitalising on it for violent purposes," Yunanto told Bernama, here, on the sidelines of the two-day Public Venue Security & Counter-Terrorism Summit organised by Kuala Lumpur-based Bosco Training Institute on July 24 and 25.

He said as part of its anti-radicalisation efforts, BNPT has established the Coordinating Forum for Terrorist Prevention (FKPT) in all 34 provinces in Indonesia.

The forum enables the government, civil societies, academicians and religious leaders to discuss the true interpretation of Islam and promote counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation measures in Indonesia.

“We have found that the majority of pesantren is supportive of this (programme).

 “We also believe that the majority of Indonesian Muslims, including those in the pesantren, are in line with our moderate stand. They are fighting radicalisation too,” he said.

From the discussions that took place during the two-day summit, it was clear that radical ideology was the root of terrorism and brought about by the misinterpretation of Islamic teachings.

The pesantren by itself was not involved in terrorism, Yunanto pointed out, adding that problems only arise when radicals penetrate the schools and influence the teachers and students.

RADICAL DOCTRINE

In 2016, BNPT head Saud Usman Nasution was quoted as saying that 19 pesantren in Indonesia were known to impart the radical doctrine.

The same year, Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said a true pesantren would never teach a doctrine that was contrary to the essence or substance of Islam itself.

The pesantren is viewed as a vital Islamic educational institution in Indonesia and, as such, the government and related agencies must work with the religious schools to ensure that they impart true Islamic teachings and prevent the seeds of terrorism from being sown.

As Queen Rania of Jordan once said, “You cannot kill an ideology with a bullet, you can only kill it with a better idea," the pesantren that remains true to Islamic teachings has what it takes to shatter radicalisation in Indonesia.

STOP THE FUNDAMENTALISTS

According to the former head of Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency A. M. Hendropriyono, the development of the extreme Wahhabi/Salafi movement in Indonesia is seen as one of the contributors to the birth of radical ideology in the country.

In his book titled 'Filsafat Intelijen Negara Republik Indonesia' (Philosophy of the Republic of Indonesia's Intelligence), he wrote that this faction's extreme, rigid and literal understanding of the Al-Quran and Sunnah made them feel that they have the right to label people other than their followers as 'kufr' or non-believers.

Giving a description of his analogical 'terrorist tree', Hendropriyono said the terrorist organisation is like a tree – the roots representing its radical-extreme ideology and the soil, the fundamentalists themselves.

The tree will wither and die if the soil is infertile. Likewise, the terrorist organisation (the 'tree') will perish if the fundamentalists ('soil') are not allowed to thrive, he wrote.

Edited by Rema Nambiar

-- BERNAMA