This is the first of two reports on the blooming Islamic radicalism at universities. Questions surround the potential of such conditions to propagate future religious violence and intolerance. The Jakarta Post’s Nani Afrida visited several universities to explore the issue. Here are the stories:

The tranquility of secular Sebelas Maret University (UNS) in Surakarta, Central Java, was shaken recently when the police sniffed out underground activities tied to an attempt to form an Islamic state.

“We heard later that two of the university students were arrested for their roles in the NII (Islamic State of Indonesia) movement,” Berry Nur Arif, a student, said recently.

The police arrested Ervin Setiawan and Mike Vera Susanti — both part of the university’s teacher training faculty — in nearby Yogyakarta for allegedly recruiting students to the NII.

The NII, founded by charismatic ulema Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosoewirjo in August, 1949, is a political movement to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state with a full implementation of sharia law.

Although Kartosoewirjo was executed by the military in 1962 for propagating separatism, his ideas and teachings remained alive and well today, and inspired thousands of Muslims across the archipelago to dream of an Islamic caliphate.

Thirteen years since the fall of the authoritarian Soeharto regime, the influence of NII teachings and of other hard-line groups has increasingly taken hold on campuses.

Based on The Jakarta Post’s observations at several universities, the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), the Ikhwanul Muslimin (IM), the Salafy, the Jihadi and the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) have also been gaining student support.

These hard-liners can now step up to compete for recruits with the long-standing moderate groups such as the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Front (KAMMI), the Association of Islamic Students (HMI) and the Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM).

National Anti-Terrorism Agency (BNPT) chief Ansyaad Mbai said he received reports from high-ranking university officials three years ago that students were increasingly lured to hard-line groups rather than moderate ones.

“Such a phenomenon has ignited concern that these hard-line groups have been cajoling students into supporting future violence and intolerance,” he said.

The police have recently detained five graduates for masterminding the distribution of mail bombs and plotting an attack on a church in Serpong, Banten. According to Ansyaad, their leader, Pepi Fernando, became radicalized after joining a prayer group organized by NII supporters.

The recent incidents mark the second time university graduates have been connected to a terrorist ring. The first was in mid 2010 when a graduate and two students of the prestigious Syarief Hidayatullah National Islamic University were convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for harboring the masterminds behind the JW Mariott and Ritz Carlton hotel bombings in 2009.

Terrorist attacks in Indonesia have generally been masterminded and executed by alumni of Islamic boarding schools, known locally as pesantren.

Lia Marlia (not her real name), a recent graduate of the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) said hard-line groups had flourished on campus for the past three years.

She said the groups penetrated student activities without flag waving, blending in through preaching and discussion.

“I was a member of one of those groups. They have something in common, purifying Islamic principles through sharia. But they are all operating in discreet,” she said.

She also said there were many supporters of the terrorist network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) and its above-ground affiliation Jamaah Ansharud Tauhid (JAT) actively trying to inspire students to join their fight.

“We usually just met [members of the hard-line groups] during discussions or street rallies,” she said.

UNS student Berry could not single out the presence of such groups at his campus, saying that, aside from the NII supporters, there were others actively propelling the HTI and the FPI.

The university’s vice rector for student affairs, Dwi Triyanto, said such organizations operated underground and were not easy to detect.

Central Java, East Java, Yogyakarta and Jakarta are among the hotbeds of NII followers.

JI co-founder Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who resides in Surakarta and is facing trial in Jakarta for terrorism, was inspired by the NII.

According to Ken Setiawan, the founder of the NII Crisis Centre, there have been approximately 400 reports this year of people involved in the NII, mostly university students and workers.

“The reports are generally from Surakarta, Yogyakarta and Jakarta,” said Ken, a former NII member.

Lecturer Yon Machmudi, of the University of Indonesia, who is also an expert in Islamic student movements, said the NII and other hard-line groups entered campuses through informal means.

“For example, besides the NII, the university also has HTI and the IM operating to lure students.”

According to Yon, the university authorities have found that the HTI and the IM are “safe” organizations for students, meaning they don’t condone violence.

“Previously, the HTI had a minor problem with university authorities when it refused to accept the existing system and insisted on adopting pure Islamic principles,” he said.

HTI spokesman Muhammad Ismail Yusanto said the HTI had been on campuses for a long time and rejected allegations it was attempting to radicalize students.

“The HTI is similar with the HMI and the KAMMI, which grow from student communities. People know we exist, as we are not sneaking to campus looking for new cadres,” Ismail said.

“And, more importantly, we are not hard-liners, we are straight-liners.”

While many experts have pointed out the hard-line groups operating on campuses, questions arose to what actually inspired the students to joining such groups?

Terrorist expert Noor Huda Ismail said he was not surprised by the phenomenon, as 50 percent of the world’s population were young people who see some problems differently than older generations.

“Teenagers are exposed to many resources around them which can influence them to be radical and finally to be terrorists,” he said.

He also said many students usually sought Islamic organizations suitable to them.

“Today, formal organizations cannot answer the challenges, so students require other alternatives to settle on. This is when small and radical groups such as the NII get their opportunity.”

Ansyaad Mbai believed the student motives to join hard-line movements might need a more complex understanding of conditions within society where religious leaders failed to live up to their ideals and more often than not incited hatred.

“Students joining the radical groups may be triggered by frustration in dealing with their daily lives, hatred for the protracted global injustice or even by a penchant to copycat, inspired by previous terrorist attacks,” he said.

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