I

n 2010, Indonesia witnessed the police’s triumph, and in particular that of the special antiterrorist squad Densus 88, over terrorists.

The successful year was preceded by a long effort that peaked with the killing of top terrorist suspect Noordin M. Top in 2009.

However, terrorism is not a consequence of cause, but of result. Terrorism is an act triggered by ideas. The acts of terrorists do not stand alone. Ideology, plans, strategy and network precede these acts. Thus, if the police chase after these terrorists and eventually catch, or even shoot them, that would not mean an end to the story.

Ideas cannot be eradicated by the deaths of those who promoted them. People may die, but their ideas live on. In fact, the network runs well. Its gears of recruitment are still active. The cell system has operated confidentiality and the continuation of the movement can be guaranteed. When a group is annihilated, another group, with its robust branches, grows.

The cell system is in fact not new in Indonesian history. Communist movements — prior and after Indonesia declared independence — employed this tactic, with loyalty of and a mode of expansion that was impressive. With regard to this method of developing an organization, nowadays terrorism, particularly in Southeast Asia, and communism a long ago are deemed comparable.

Thus, we should not put the task of annihilating terrorism on the police alone, who will never be able to eradicate all aspects of terrorism. By the same token, do not persecute too many people, simply because they are suspected of having connections with certain radical groups.

Indonesians should learn more lessons from the way in which the communist movement was extinguished in 1965 under the banner of Soeharto’s New Order. The regime imposed strict rule upon its own citizens by screening for signs of communism.

The New Order regime successfully frightened its own people. Communism was defined as Marxism which teaches atheism, according to which God does not exist — a doctrine that would destroy this nation.

If those who are suspected of terrorism are treated in the same way as those alleged communists were, old mistakes will be repeated. In fact, everybody, with no exception, deserves equality and unprejudiced treatment.

So far, the war against terrorism has been conducted through a campaign of hunting “terrorists”. If this method is still employed in the future, the root cause of terrorism — namely the ideas that precede its actions — will remain untouched. In short, this method has a blatant flaw.

In fact, many Indonesians — who have boldly appeared in public and have had so far plenty of room and freedom to voice their radical dogmatic views — share the ideology that the terrorists embrace. To put it differently, the ideology firmly held by radicals is spreading in Indonesian society.

According to this ideology, the world is sharply divided between the believers and infidels, and war should be waged against those who fall into the second category.

Many mass organizations in this country — the FPI (Islam Defenders Front), the HTI (Indonesian Hizbut Tahrir), the FUI (Islamic Community’s Forum) and the MMI (Mujahidin Council of Indonesia) to mention but a few — exhibit dogmatic and narrow minded religious interpretations of various issues in Indonesia. Worse still, they intimidate the moderate majority Indonesian Muslims and non-Muslims.

These groups dictate the public by arrogantly showing that what they offer is the only “truth”, whereas those who stand against them are categorized as misleading. In showing their might in response to many cases, they hold mass rallies on the streets, demanding the government meet their needs.

This can be seen in their responses to the pornography bill in the case of the Playboy magazine chief editor, of Ariel’s and Luna Maya’s video tape, their demand to remove Obama’s statue in Menteng, and many others. Unfortunately, the government often gives into their demands.

In imposing their dogma upon the public, these groups also demonstrate their “shallow” reasoning in the media. They force the public to follow the way they think.

This can be seen in the way in which they articulate arguments in defending their atrocities, such as the stabbing of priests in Ciketing, Bekasi, the mass attack on Ahmadiyah, their support for Sharia local ordinances, and their support for all edicts pronounced by the MUI (Indonesian Ulema Council).

The HTI also relentlessly promotes their most valuable commodity, namely khilafah (a traditional Islamic system of monarchy). No matter how sophisticatedly some experts of Islam already can explain the concept of true ancient khilafah, which is very different from theirs, this group persistently hold that their own concept of khilafah should replace the current democracy we are nurturing.

Apparently, Indonesians are not interested in buying into any Islamist agenda in politics. The people prefer secular political parties to Islamist parties. Learning lessons from this, the PKS (the Prosperous Justice Party) has applied a new gambit. To fix their image, this “Islamist” party states that they intend to accept the values of pluralism as clearly defined by Pancasila (the Five Principles). Nobody, except God, knows whether they are telling the truth or not.

Nevertheless, the Indonesian future generation is still at stake. In fact, radical ideas have already penetrated public schools, universities and mosques.

In the curriculum set up for these educational institutions, religion, particularly Islam, is treated as a mere symbol rather than as a set of ideal moral values and spirituality. As a result, more female students wear veils (jilbab) in order to look pious. The spirit of tolerance, and inter-faith dialogue is not being cultivated.

Thus, in 2011, the campaign should be waged not only against acts of terrorism but also against the root causes of this, namely ideas and ideology, from which terrorists were inspired to commit atrocities. Never underestimate ideas.

The writer is a lecturer at State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta.