TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Attack on E. Lombok Ahmadis seen as political gambit
Devastated: A man walks by one of the houses belonging to an Ahmadi family that were attacked by unknown assailants on May 19 in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara
Change Size
D
evastated: A man walks by one of the houses belonging to an Ahmadi family that were attacked by unknown assailants on May 19 in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara. (Tribunnews.com)
Angry mobs attacked a community of Ahmadis in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, last month, destroying eight houses, four motorcycles and forcing out 24 villagers from seven families. The unprovoked onslaught came in three waves, on Saturday afternoon of May 19, Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Why police and government authorities were absent when they were most needed during such frightening moments remains a mystery. What people know is that the assailants accomplished their mission; the 24 victims took shelter at a local government property; none of the attackers have been charged and bureaucrats’ sympathy largely goes to the perpetrators.
East Lombok acting regent Ahsanul Khalik said the Ahmadis were safe and sound at the regency’s vocational training center. He said the displaced persons retained their basic rights and that the authorities were working to help them return to the fold of “true Islam” and disconnect them with the “Ahmadiyah network”.
“We believe in the compassionate approach in the hope that in return for the government’s noble intentions, they will go along with our plans for them,” Ahsanul said in an interview with The Jakarta Post.
Like their West Lombok Ahmadi brethren who have lived in shelters in the provincial capital of Mataram for the past 12 years since they survived a similar sectarian attack in 2006, the newly displaced people have already pleaded for a safe homecoming to start life anew, and Ahsanul is having a hard time convincing them it is not possible right now.
“Citizens would not welcome them under the present circumstances,” Ahsanul said. “We’re cautiously giving them [those who reject Ahmadiyah] the understanding that the Ahmadis are our brethren who should be embraced when they come back.”
If the Ahmadis eventually do what the local government tells them to, Ahsanul has promised descent substitute housing for them.
In East Lombok, Muslims mostly follow the more paternalistic and cultural Islam. The majority are associated with Nahdlatul Wathan (NW), which is comparable to Nahdlatul Ulama in Java in that they teach adherence to the traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
NW was founded in 1935 by Maulana Syaikh TGKH Muhammad Zainuddin Abdul Madjid (1904-1997) as a network of Islamic boarding schools, which currently has over 700 schools with more than 200,000 students in West Nusa Tenggara. Following Madjid’s death in 1997, NW bitterly split into NW Pancor and NW Anjani, each is led by his two daughters. As it continues growing, politicians vie for support from the rival factions. Gubernatorial candidates in the present election campaigns are no exception.
Followers of both Pancor and Anjani pay high respect to their clerics and unquestioningly follow their words. So Ahsanul, who is a functionary of NW Pancor, has promised he would join hands with Islamic gurus to handle the burning Ahmadiyah issue.
Governor Muhammad Zainul Majdi, who is Abdul Madjid’s grandson and affiliated with NW Pancor, is seeking reelection. He alleged that the latest persecution on the religious minority in East Lombok happened after mainstream Muslims found the Ahmadis proselytizing their unsuspecting Sunni neighbors.
The latest persecution of the religious minority in East Lombok happened after mainstream Muslims alleged the Ahmadis were proselytizing their unsuspecting Sunni neighbors.
“Our Ahmadi brethren swear they do nothing wrong but their neighbors wouldn’t buy their claim because the number of Ahmadi followers has increased to more than 30 from four a few years ago.”
In West Nusa Tenggara, where ongoing campaigns are heightening political tensions, the latest attack on Ahmadis is very much regarded as part of the game. Four tickets will contest for the governor position. The frontrunners are incumbent Majdi and East Lombok regent Moch Ali Bin Dachlan.
The incident brings back memories of a televised candidate debate on May 12 in which Ali gloated that under his leadership, East Lombok had never been more stable. He vowed to protect all marginalized groups, including Ahmadis. His running mate, TGH Lalu Gede Sakti is associated with NW Anjani. So, one theory goes that the sectarian violence may have been engineered by political foes to disprove Ali’s claim.
Among the province’s 10 regencies, East Lombok is the largest constituent, where 1.2 million of the 3.7 million registered voters live.
In Jakarta, religious freedom activists who conducted their own investigation into the East Lombok Ahmadis’ prosecution say they have sniffed politics in last month’s violent incident.
A fact-finding mission jointly conducted by the Indonesian Legal Foundation Institute (YLBHI) and GP Ansor, a Nahdlatul Ulama youth wing, found that the attack was “state-sponsored” with the involvement of local politicians to contest for the governorship this June 27.
A conspicuous piece of evidence, the activists said in Jakarta on Wednesday, was the absence of the police’s attempt to stop the ransacking mobs that descended on the Ahmadis’ village in three waves of attacks despite the obvious tensions building up for weeks.
The independent probe singled out Ahsanul as a key actor in the prosecution. Known as staunchly anti-Ahmadiyah, he took over in February after regent Ali Bin Dachlan took leave and entered the gubernatorial race.
Muhammad Isnur, a YLBHI activist, said that during a mediation meeting at the East Lombok District Military Command headquarters on May 21, a day after the incident, Ahsanul insisted that the Ahmadis convert to Sunni Islam before their request for a homecoming would be considered.
“Ahsanul openly displays his hatred toward the Ahmadis; we have a long list of his statements that prove this,” Isnur said.
Ahsanul’s subordinates followed his lead, the probe found. Montong Tangi village chief, Tohir Endang Tohri, for example, aggressively sent his men to Ahmadis’ houses with the mission of seeking confessions that they were indeed Ahmadis. In some instances they resorted to intimidation.
While governor Majdi claimed the attack was unplanned, the independent investigation found that signs of tension had begun on May 7 when the village chief accompanied by community leaders visited the neighborhood to take the names of Ahmadi followers. Provocative anti-Ahmadi messages were also broadcast from mosque loudspeakers.
The local authorities’ palpable bias in handling the latest sectarian conflict in East Lombok is yet another blight on Indonesia, which is fond of portraying itself as a peaceful multicultural Muslim majority country.
______________________________________________
It has been 12 years since more than 100 Ahmadis were resettled at Wisma Transito, a dilapidated guesthouse in the West Nusa Tenggara provincial capital of Mataram, after they were forced out of their village in 2006 by Sunni neighbors who accused them of being heretic. This week, they will mark Idul Fitri in the shelters. Now living in poverty with no aid from the government, their plight reflects the state’s incompetence in ensuring justice for the oppressed minority religious group. The Jakarta Post correspondent Panca Nugraha takes a close look how the Ahmadis survive.
