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n Monday Singapore and its neighbors woke to the news that the founding father of the island state, and one of the region'€™s great statesmen, Lee Kuan Yew, had passed away in the early hours. We convey our deepest condolences to his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his family and to all Singaporeans, who owe much of their progress to the man who built the nation jokingly referred to as '€œa fine city'€ owing to its authorities'€™ penchant for issuing fines for a host of misdemeanors, but to which everyone looks for lessons in stability.

Among them are lessons in curbing terrorism. On Saturday the Densus 88 counterterrorism squad arrested five people in separate locations across Greater Jakarta, suspected by the police of facilitating the journeys of around 20 Indonesians currently fighting with the Islamic State (IS) movement in Syria.

As The Star, a Malaysian daily, noted on Monday, policies implemented in the simpler times of Lee'€™s generation, including by former president Soeharto, would no longer be politically viable. Authorities would love to enact laws as harsh as those of Singapore and Malaysia to curb terrorism, but Indonesians still bear the trauma of, for example, the kidnapping, torture and murder of anyone suspected of dissent. In the wake of terrorist attacks here, suggestions to have the police screen sermons, as they do in Singapore, for instance, were quickly dismissed.

Amid such fears of a reemerging police state, we have seen much abuse of our freedoms '€” such as the freedom to air sermons regardless of respect to others'€™ faiths and a high-school textbook on Islam endorsing the murder of '€œinfidels'€. The Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan was quoted as saying that he had ordered the book'€™s withdrawal and would '€œinvestigate the suspected radical material'€.

Weak law enforcement and intelligence, along with gullible communities, has further enabled terrorists to blend into dense neighborhoods, supported by the easy forging of documents, marrying into surrounding families and even gaining respect and protection as local religious leaders.

The law on funding terrorism carries a maximum sentence of 15 years and a Rp 1 billion (US$77,012) fine. But even though banks now must '€œknow their customers'€, evidently they and the authorities are still largely ignorant of terrorists and their sponsors. These latter find fertile recruitment pools from weakly supervised prisons to people in even relatively affluent communities, drawn to the simple solutions and appealing campaigns of groups like IS.

Our counterterrorism squad'€™s ability, therefore, to crack down on terrorists and their sponsors needs much more support in the area of prevention. Lee Kuan Yew'€™s Singapore long ago introduced community-level interfaith groups that help prevent incitement to violence.

A harsher law on mass organizations is among tempting solutions. But the goal of better monitoring potential terrorists, it is feared, could be abused to stifle hard-won freedoms of association.

Indonesians have failed to fully employ their freedom to stand up against spiteful convictions '€” despite frowning on or ridiculing stricter neighbors like Singapore.