As counterterrorism squad (Densus 88) commander Tito Karnavian explained on Metro TV some weeks back, a terrorist campaign has three essential components: first, individuals who become disposed to perform terrorist acts; second, an enabling organization which brings together the personnel and logistics required for an attack; and third, an ideology which legitimizes the terrorists' actions in their own eyes and motivates their campaign.

Densus 88 focuses on the second element, destroying the networks and equipment that terrorists use to mount bombings. But to effectively prevent terrorism, a more comprehensive approach is needed covering all three components of terrorism mentioned above.

First, regarding individuals disposed to terrorism, there has been little progress beyond the clich* that poverty and unemployment produce terrorists. More efforts are needed to identify precisely the kinds of psychological and social marginalization that incline people to joining terrorist groups. An effective strategy here will probably involve removal of some terrorist recruiters from society through longer detention, better monitoring and "rehabilitation" programs for others convicted of terrorism-related offences, as well as wider attempts to reduce social marginalization. For example, continually expanding the prison population in order to accommodate citizens classified as "enemies" in the war on drugs is a fast track to social exclusion.

Second, as many commentators have pointed out, it makes little sense to vigorously pursue networks of bombers, while cosseting groups like the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), which prefer more "restrained" forms of violence. Attacking peaceful demonstrators, breaking up human rights conferences and smashing up property may not be fatal, as bombings are. But they are justified by the same ideology of hatred for "infidels" and have the same aim of spreading fear in order to show off power and to cripple the development of democratic and accountable institutions.

Yet instead of prosecuting members of these groups, police and politicians treat them as privileged partners. This encourages the growth of fanatic networks whose members might easily switch over to bombings and shootings. It also sustains the conviction that violence is an effective tool of political power that can easily trump democratic accountability if used strategically.

Third, Indonesian politicians and pundits struggle to deal with Islam as the legitimizing ideology that sustains terrorist groups. Many commentators stick to clich*s that "Islam is peace", "Islam is perfect", or, at best, that the terrorist have "misinterpreted" the true Islam for their own ends.

Unfortunately, Islam is a relic of a bygone era that promotes a tribalist division of people into believers and non-believers and an absurd belief in the superiority of the legal and social traditions of seventh century Arabia.

The reality is not that the fundamentalists have misinterpreted Islam, but rather that many Indonesians have diluted Islam through the accretion of local spirituality, communal values and 21st-century humanitarianism.

Thus, campaigns to combat "terrorist ideology" are doomed to fail, since they aim mostly to convert people from "extremist" Islam to "moderate" Islam, while continuing to promote "moderate" Islam as the social and political foundation of society. This only further undermines the local spirituality, traditional values and humanitarianism that helped to moderate Islam in the first place and allows a continuing drift toward tribal monotheism as the state ideology.

To put it another way, politicians do not neutralize the terrorists' devotion, but rather become propagandists in favor of it!

The real solution is to promote values of freedom, tolerance and equality which have proved effective in combating religious oppression elsewhere and which alone can be a foundation for peace and fulfillment in the 21st century.

Thus, in order to achieve their ambitious goal of eradicating terrorism, leaders of the new antiterrorism agency will first have to overcome the mindset common among the politicians who will be appointing them.

John Hargreaves
Jakarta

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