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Ex-convicts find voice to counter terrorism
Arif Budi Setyawan (Courtesy of Rosyid Nurul Hakiim)The office of Ruang Obrol looks more like a home than a workplace
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Arif Budi Setyawan (Courtesy of Rosyid Nurul Hakiim)
The office of Ruang Obrol looks more like a home than a workplace. A passerby would never guess that this one-story bungalow in a peaceful Jakarta cul-de-sac is home to an innovative new social enterprise working to prevent terrorism and radicalization in Indonesia by enlisting the help of an unexpected ally: former terrorists.
“We are trying to create credible voices; that means people who are former convicted terrorists or people who went to Syria and came back alive,” said Rosyid Nurul Hakiim, editor-in-chief and cofounder of Ruang Obrol. “If you want someone to stop smoking, send a [former] smoker who had to pay the price for it — who got cancer — to convince the smoker to stop. Borrowing that idea, we use these voices to talk to targeted peoples about what actually happened.”
In the living room, 10 full-time staff members work quietly at their desks in an open-plan office. Hakiim deliberately chose a home rather than a corporate space to create a family-like atmosphere.
On the Ruang Obrol website, 14 contributors across Indonesia write stories and articles to promote a message of peace, particularly targeting individuals at risk of radicalization. Hakiim and his brother manage a chat room to counsel individuals against extremism. The pen is their weapon of choice. The internet is their battleground.
In a series of articles on countering extremism, a man who was released from prison in 2017 after serving a sentence of three years and four months explained how radicalization arises when individuals alienate themselves from society.
This “soft” approach to countering violent extremism is consistent with the government’s counterterrorism strategy, led by the National Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT). Unlike a traditional “hard” approach that focuses on intelligence gathering and law enforcement, a soft approach tries to dismantle terrorist networks by dealing with the root causes of radicalization.
Since 2010, the BNPT has devoted more resources to deradicalization initiatives, including a program that involves cooperating with former terrorists to counsel current terrorist inmates, according to a 2018 report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Former journalist Hakiim has not always been in this field, but his brother, Noor Huda Ismail, has years of experience facilitating the rehabilitation and reintegration of former terrorists in Southeast Asia.
In 2016, Hakiim shared a car with two former combatants who were eager to meet his brother. Over the course of their journey around Central Java, he learned that one of the men was struggling to assimilate into his new community. He was trying to raise enough money to send his children to school, but no one would help him because of the “terrorist” label. “It was not logical anymore; it was more my human sense working,” said Hakiim. “[That meeting] was a ‘crossroads moment’ that I wanted to change my career. I wanted to take on this kind of problem.”
A firm belief in second chances motivates much of the work at Ruang Obrol. One of their regular contributors is a former convict who served a prison sentence for participating in terrorist networks but was never involved in the planning of attacks. “After I was put in prison, I started thinking about the impact of my actions — there were no positive outcomes,” said Arif Budi Setyawan, a writer for Ruang Obrol, from the company’s office in South Jakarta. “I previously thought that we were fighting for the Muslims, but we were only making a negative impact on the community, including our families who had to live a hard life because of us.”
He began writing novels in prison, and sought out Huda after he was released. Huda recognized his talent for writing and urged him to write about his experiences. Arif took his advice and wrote a book entitled Internetistan. Hakiim and Arif hope to publish it later this year.
Hakiim said the most rewarding thing about his work was hearing stories of former convicts successfully reintegrating into their communities, but the resentment directed toward former convicts remains strong.
The memories of terrorist attacks in Indonesia are still recent. The 2018 bombings in the East Javan capital of Surabaya in were the most deadly attacks to occur on Indonesian soil since the 2002 Bali bombings.
Hakiim emphasized that convicted terrorists and returning Islamic State sympathizers must face legal consequences for breaking Indonesian law, but the people he and his brother work with have served their time in prison and undergone government-mandated deradicalization programs.
Aditya, a university student who is Ruang Obrol’s current intern, is one person who believes in the possibility of reintegration. “Maybe they are not as villainous or vile as mainstream media portrays or as society thinks,” he said.
