In understanding the motives of terrorism, Indonesian scholars split into two big general categories; either religion has an essential role in it or religion has nothing to do with it.
The former category believes the model of Islamic teaching in Indonesia virtually produces ripe ground for terrorism, while the latter category believes that terrorism is completely composed of political and network issues.
The reality of phenomenon is actually much more nuanced, varied and complicated than just these two assumptions.
The book written by Noor Huda Ismail entitled Temanku, Teroris? (Is my friend a terrorist?) is a testimony about how two students from one Islamic boarding school, who have similar teachers and come from the same socio-economic environment could have two opposite life paths. One allegedly becomes a terrorist and another student becomes a friend of the Western world. This shows that religious teaching in Indonesia is not the main factor of terrorism.
Beside the issues of motives, roots and factors causing terrorism, it is also necessary to draw a map, which makes clear the difference between a long-time conflict zone, a recent conflict zone, and a non-conflict zone.
Palestine would be an example of an enduring conflict area, Afghanistan and Iraq are two instances of recent conflict zones, while Indonesia and the US could be classified as non-conflict zones. The term terrorism is perhaps only valid if it is applied for atrocities that occur in non-conflict zones.
To avoid confusion, I will take only one example of terrorist activity, namely suicide operations.
Although currently there has been a tendency for the shifting tactic from suicide operation to conventional assassination, this latter method is still only in plans, and has not been executed yet.
Furthermore, a suicide attack is one specific character of modern terrorism.
In conflict zones such as Palestine, suicide attacks are mostly motivated by nationalism. It is the enduring oppression and occupation that creates a culture of death in society. For people living there, executing a suicide mission is not something frightening. In certain organizations like Hamas, religion would be used to justify the act.
But in a secular organization like Fatah, religious justification is not really needed. The fact that there were several female suicide bombers gives another justification that religion is not the dominant motive.
From a conservative understanding of Islam, it is only male martyrs who would be welcomed by 72 houris or beautiful maidens, while for female martyrs, there is no tradition with the same promise.
Iraq has a different story. Conflict in that area is very recent compared to Palestine. It is surprising that the number of suicide attacks in that country is higher than in Palestine. Even more surprising is the fact that in several incidents the targets are not foreign usurpers.
It is still understandable if a terrorist from the Sunni Muslim faith explodes a bomb in a Shiite mosque because of their persistent rivalry. But it is shocking when a bomb explodes in a Sunni Mosque and is executed by a Sunni terrorist. Can we say that this act is religiously motivated? Is that a patriotic attack? These acts would be difficult to justify from either a religious or nationalistic perspective.
There are several suicide attacks targeting foreign troops in Iraq. But, according to Assaf Moghadam (“Motives for Martyrdom,” 2009) these acts are mostly executed by the al-Qaeda network and the perpetrators are mostly from foreign countries such as Muriel Degauqe, a Belgian woman who converts to Islam. Al-Qaeda opposes nationalism and its mission in Iraq is motivated by religious solidarity and its utopia to create global umma.
Jakarta, Kuta, London, Madrid and New York are not located in conflict zones, but several bombings occurred in these cities. If the bombings are motivated by foreign occupation, then the meaning of it must be wider than the conventional understanding, not limited to physical occupation. However, although the logic of occupation could be employed in this case, it seems that other motives are stronger than this motive.
In Europe, there is a problem of identity for the second and third generations of immigrants. On the one hand, they have been uprooted from the culture of their parents. For instance, they cannot speak the native language of the country where their parents are from.
On the other hand, they are not really welcomed by the host country. They are still considered immigrants. The only friendly place for them is cyberspace. This is also the place where the utopia of global umma something imaginable. The hostile life in their local society combined with religious solidarity for the fate of Muslims in the occupied country makes them willing to sacrifice their lives.
Indonesia is of course different from Europe and the US. The perpetrators of the attacks are mostly those who do not have a transnational network or linkage. However, the operators and the instigators have international linkage either to the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia or Afghanistan. The diffusion of the Afghan jihadits plays a dominant role in this context. The guiding motive is a utopia of a perfect society under the banner of sharia.
The writer is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
