Dutch and Indonesian terrorism compared

 Beatrice de Graaf (b. 1976) is a Dutch scholar on the history of terrorism. Recently she published a book with the title: Radicale Verlossing: wat terroristen geloven (2021, Prometheus Amsterdam, 383 pages). The title can be translated as: Radical Redemption. What terrorists believe. On page 14 she identifies what she does not accept as methodological guidelines: 1) "Islam is a peaceful religion. Muslim terrorists therefore cannot be accepted as Muslims." 2) "Religion in general and more specifically Islam invites its believers to be violent." Both position are rejected by De Graaf. Instead she takes as her methodology, that the actual modern terrorists often claim that they have religious motivations and this must be taken serious. Not the basic religious texts, not theology, but the actual motivation of terrorists must be taken as a starting point.

In many life stories, she found that terrorists were seeking some kind of redemption from personal sin, from a lost life, frustrations and negative feelings. Quite many of them were as teenager small criminals, who sought a radical redemption in a turn towards 'Islam', whatever they may have understood about it.

De Graaf was born in de Dutch village of Putten, known for its orthodox Protestant population, went as a child twice to church services on Sundays and still holds a good memory of the pious environment in which she grew up. For her research De Graaf interviewed 18 young men put in jail because of terrorist acts in the Netherlands. One of these was of Dutch offspring and was member of a small group that tried to set a mosque in fire in the town of Enschede. All 17 other young men originated from Muslim families, most of them from Morocco, some from Iran or Turkey. They had been jailed for terrorist actions and De Graaf could interview them in prison. All of them had no thorough knowledge of classical Islam and most of them had a history of contact with the police for drug addicts, thefts. De Graaf's method is called by her as thick description and micro history. Narratives fill about 70% of her book and she moves then to 'grounded theory', or a general theory grounded in facts rather than theoretical models or reasoning from sacred texts.

She also included five Indonesians in her research and took interviews in Jakarta from  24-27 February 2020 (with good help from the side of the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta and BNPT or Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Terorisme: the National Counter Insurgency of Indonesia).The five ex-terrorists were Sofyan Tsauri, Kurnia Widodo, 'Ramli' (a self-chosen name of a terrorist), Syarafina Nailah (member of a large family, whose father and uncle are still in prison), Farihin.  She gives a very positive impression of the way BNPT works to de-radicalize terrorists. A difference with Dutch terrorists is also that some of the older terrorists of Indonesia have a history of parents or even a grand-father, going back to the 1950s like Darul Islam in West Java. Also the debate about the Jakarta Charter and the introduction of shari'a is typical Indonesian. Common ground is found in the positive attitude to the war in Afghanistan and the rise of IS in Syria and Iraq. And most of all in the individual quest for Radical Redemption.

Sofyan Tsauri was born in 1976 in Depok. His father was a police officer, the family seldom went to the mosque and prayed at irregular times. At secondary school Sofyan became a petty criminal and was arrested several times. At the age of 18 a friend suggested him to read books by Sayyid Qutb and Shaikh Azzam. He realized 'that I had to change my life. I should cleanse my soul from all evil acts. ... I should not only think about myself, but spend my energy and agression in favour of others.' He started dreaming of the desert of Afghanistan, 'we were hiding in caves and we had grenades and guns who always hit the target. And my ammunition never was finished.'[88] But he would never make it to Afghanistan. After secondary school he went to a pesantren, a religious school, besides studying at the police academy. In the pesantren he met some teachers who had fought in Afghanistan and the book by Shaykh Azzan, Ayaturrahman fi JihadilAfghan became his favourite. He left the circle of Muslim Brothers, because they were only talking, had no actions and became in 2007 member of Jemaah Islamiyah, more or less the Indonesian branch of Al-Qaida, With his friend Dulmatin he went to Aceh to start a training camp. He did not tell to his police department, where he had worked for several years that he left his job. Also to his father he did not say anything. He was active in the camp in Aceh, in processes of securing weapons from corrupt police fellows, until the camp was arrested on 6 March 2010, put in jail for six years (after a first verdict of ten years). Already before his arrest he concluded from readings from Usama bin Laden, that it is not allowed to kill fellow Muslims. De Graaf only gives very short and incomplete life stories: she only uses the cases as illustrations for her major thesis aboutthe Radical Redemption.

The most interesting  story resulted from the interview with Syarafina Nailah, member of a great family. Her father worked in Batam as government official in a quite good position. But she, and even more her younger sister Nur Dhania were not happy in Batam: life without meaning (151-6). Nailah was at university for her study of computer science, Dhania still at high school. The two girls  listened to stories of a brother of her mother, a devout Muslim who had heard stories about life in the Islamic State as a truly Muslim paradise. Thisuncle had problems with his business and so the three dreamt of going to Syria in order to become a citizen of the new caliphate. Moreand moremembers of the family became happy with the idea of a new life: the father sold the family house in Jakarta and in August 2015 the extended family, 18 members left for Turkey (6 more members could in the end not follow themajority). Already in the first weeks they saw that the Caliphate was not a good place: everything dirty, even the hospital, strict separation between men and women and the obligationfor men to join the fighting. The Caliphate was a disastrous utopia. Communication with people of the caliphate was very difficult and it took them two years before they could reach Turkey, where the Indonesian government facilitated the return to Indonesia. (Something the Dutch government is quite reluctant to provide!) The grandmother of the family had died in hospital and put in a anonymous grave before the members could perform the burial rituals. The father and theuncle were sentenced to four years of prison because they had become member of a terrorist organization. The female members of the party had to attend de-radicalization programmes and a re-integration course.

In general this is a quite interesting book, but it remains difficult to formulate general qualifications for the 18 Dutch and 5 Indonesian terrorists from the short andsomewhat defective life stories.

Meister Eckhart, Heidegger, and Syafaatun al-Mirzanah on detachment in/is Islam

Through a small book about the philosophy of Heidegger I came across his interest for Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) and his idea  of Gelassenheit, sometimes translated as detachment, releasement. And so I read in the book of the Ph.Thesis by Shafaatun the chapter on Detachment (pp. 121-157). Shafaatun takes another keyword of Eckhart, Abgescheidenheit, also translated as 'detachment'.

In the recent book on The Essential Caputo, a nice analysis of this concept of  Eckhart is given. There is a cool section of detachment: leaving things aside, making free from, like ascetism, which also may lead to indifference, lazyness. This is the negative side of the concept, like the Arab nafî, leading to some kind of purification, but not yet a final situation. But then isbât should of follow, as the fulfillment, realisation of union with God.

 

Caputo writes in this that after detachment a positive action must come: "As the soul transcends into the multiplicity of sensible things of the world to God himself." (61). Here Eckhart writes in a personal style about God, while Heidegger writes in an impersonal mood about Being itself. In fact, here is not only negative theology working (see Shafaatun pp 154-155) but also the positive side is coming in.

From this debate I thought again about the meaning of Islam. It is often translated as 'surrender to God's will and power', and so has the meaning of detachment, but it immediately must be given the positive meaning of sharing God's plan with the world, of a personal union. Entrustment could be a good translation of Islam too.

CMR volume 16: Indonesia in the 19th century

 

CMR, the great series on the bibliographical history of Christan-Muslim Relations has now published volume 16: 825 pages on  North America (54 entries, 430 pages! Islam is a global religion!), interesting articles on China, Japan, some on Australia and 16 on Southeast Asia. - I wrote here five articles, one on L.W./C. van den Berg, further three on colonial conflicts with religious implications (Paderi wars, Aceh, Banjar 1859- and one on Ahmed Ripangi. I write here short remarks on more authors who were important for Indonesia.

1. Ismail Hakki Göksoy from Isparta, Turkey, found in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul a rich documentation of the correspondance between the sultanate of Aceh and the Ottomans in Mecca and Istanbul between 1849 and 1873. The Acehnese sultan wanted to put Aceh as part of the Ottoman empire and asked for protection, especially warships: 'For if we do not expell them from the Muslim lands, we fear all the people of the island will apostasise and leave Islam once and for all' (583). The Ottoman government did not act positively in favour of Aceh.

2.  Thomas Stamford Raffles wrote 1807 in private letters very positive about Islam: 'Mohamed's mission does not invalidate our Saviour's. One [= Islam] has secured happiness to the Eastern and one [= Christianity] to the Western world, and both deserve our veneration.' (526). But at the end of his career in Asia, in 1823, has was very negative about the role of Islam.

3. Nico Kaptein wrote about Sayyid Uthman, the most prominent Arab scholar in the Dutch East Indies between 1850 until his death in 1914.  He defended the position that the Dutch rule gave safety and protection to the Muslims and therefore it was illegal to steal from them or take their property in any means. (550). Kaptein adds that also 'traditional fiqh might provide arguments in favour of harmonious Christian-Muslim relations. (550). Kaptein also wrote about the mufti of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan (1816-1886), who issued several fatawa in the same line, that Muslims should obey the infidel colonial rulers in everything and that also the appoinments of mosque leaders are legal (565).

4. A very interesting person is Abdullah Abdulkadir, usually called Abdullah Munshi, of mixed Arab (Hadramaut) and Tamil ancestry. He was born in Malacca and fluent in languages, teacher of missionaries and colonial officials. Although he received his salary from the British and Americans, he remained critical and independent and in translating the gospels: he defended his Muslim confession, although he also admired the dedication of the colonial administration. Finally, through this contact 'Malay Islam became more defensive due to the mossionary presence.' (535).

The project has also some missing issues: the Java War of 1825-1830 and the position and writings of Prince Dipanagara are not discussed here, but in such a work always some deficiences are left to be corrected by others later.

Martabat Tujuh and the three hares of Paderborn

 Last week, Paule and I were in Münsterland again, the German province with its many castles, churches, feudal memories and old buildings amidst quiet landscape. It was the first foreign trip after the corona crisis made life rather dull and monotonous. More on this trip in my Dutch blog.

We saw very special image in Paderborn of three hares running together with three ears seen only. It is found as a decoration in front of some houses, the oldest in the great mediaeval cathedral (Hoher Dom). It is also founrd in some twenty more churches of Europe, in Jewish synagogues and below we will also see an Indonesian Muslim equivalent.

 

 

On top we see the three hares of Paderborn in front of a common house, in the middle in the cloister of the great cathedral. Some people interprete it as a symbol of the unity within the trinity: the three animals sharing ears. But a friendly guide gave us the common poetic riddle in German: 3 Hasen und der Löffel 3,  und doch hat jeder Hase 2 ('Three hares and their three ears, and still each one has two!).

It reminded me of an image found in the dissertation of Rinkes on the doctrine of Martabat Tujuh, the seven emanations of the divinity, where the three first are still united: God's knowledge, God knowing, the object of divine knowledge: all three are still united in the divinity, because God's knowledge creates, not something outside the divine being, but still inside God. This is the way God creates the obnject of his knowledge and love. Remaining one God only!

Nobel Peace Prize for Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama?

From various contacts I received recently a suggestion/request to support the idea that the Nobel Peace Prize 2019 should be awarded to the two largest Muslim organizations of Indonesia. Muhammadiyah was founded in 1912 to reform Islam in urban areas, making it modern and pure and attractive like Christian mission through modern schools and hospitals, orphanages and social work. Nahdlatul Ulama was founded in 1926 to give more power to the traditional Muslim boarding schools of the countryside.
Both organizations grew steadily. Initially they were small in comparison to the political and social movements for Indonesian independence like Budi Utomo, the nationalist movement of Soekarno. But they continued to grow and still are a great social power in the country of Indonesia.

Above is the Muhammadiyah logo, below the emblem of Nahdlatul Ulama. Muhammadiyah is not so strongly concentrated on Arabic (most members are much more fluent in English than Arabic!), but Muslims feel happy with green and Arabic. So, Muhammadiyah's emblem looks like that of Utrecht University, both show God's light to humankind!
Both organizations now are taken as moderate and anti-Salafi organizations. Prominent leaders of the two organizations published in 2009 a book against the Ilusi Negara Islam, the false messianic Illusion of an Islamic State. That book condemned the 'infiltration of Salafi and foreign elements in mosques, organizations and Indonesian society in general'. Muhammadiyah is member of  ICG the International Contact Group which facilitates the contacts between Muslims and Christians in the south of the Philippines (different from ICG or International Crisis Group).
Dr. Din Syamsuddin general chairman of Muhammadiyah 2005-2015 is now personal advisor to President Jokowi in the field of interreligious harmony.
Quite a few of my international colleagues in Indonesian studies welcome the idea of  nominating the two organizations for the Nobel Peace Prize. It will support the moderate Muslims worldwide, it will fight he rise of Islamophobia and strengthen the stream of peace and harmony seeking people among Muslims.
There are, of course, also some problems with this nomination. In 2005 another Muslim Organization of Indonesia issued several radical conservative and intolerant, even insane fatwas. It condemned pluralism (whatever it may be) as a dangerous heresy, it banned all religious mixed marriages for Muslims (against a much more lenient vision of the tekst of the Koran itself!) and it repeated a very severe condemnation of Ahmadi Muslim, which lead to burning of villages, killing Ahmadi people.
These fatwa were issued by the national council of Muslim clercs, Majelis Ulama Indonesia, but endorsed and signed by MD leader Din Syamsuddin and NU leader Ma'ruf Amin.

In 2016 there was a heavy political debate about some religious statements of the Jakarta governor known as Ahok. Many intimidating demonstrations resulted in a court case against him, his abdication and imprisonment. Muhammadiyah leader Haedar Nashir was negative about the demonstrations and expressed his sadness about the loss of time, insight and social harmony due to this political abuse of a complicated and distorted personal opinion. But NU leader Ma'ruf Amin wanted to make profit of this case and created his own mass organization to plead against the Jakarta governor.
These are two recent weak moments in organizations that have given much good to the country of Indonesia. If we go back to the beginning of Soeharto's New Order and the killing of probably more than 500.000 people associated with leftist or Communist groups in 1965-1966, the name of Ansor, the youth organization of NU and of HMI, Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, loosely connected to Muhammadiyah, must also be mentioned. This makes the nomination of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama to the Nobel Peace Prize not an undisputed proposal.

GWK the New Besakih of Bali

The Island Bali has changed much during the last century and most of it during the last 50 years, since tourism has grown continuously. In the period 1945-1949 Resident Jan van Baal has to cooperate with the raja, the eleven traditional rulers. Their political and economic power has been abolished. All realms had their own temple, but for the Island as a whole the 'mother' temple of Besakih probably was the major sanctuary. It is located quite high in the mountains,backed in the north by Gunung Agung and looking to the south.
In mid-2018 a new major religious-cultural sanctuary has been opened, the 60 hectare vast GWK, Garuda Wishnu Kencana. It is a sculpture/image of the mythic bird of Garuda carryingthe God Wishnu. It is located on a hill in Nusa Dua, in the very dry Southern and peninsula, close to the airport of Bali. All (or at least most of the) expensive hotels are located in Nusa Dua.
During our last trip to Indonesia,7-29 October 2018, we first made a stop of 5 days in Bali and thefirst visit was to GWK as it is commonly called. GWK is in our perception a sanctuary suited to the new Bali, hotels of Nusa Dua, tourists. Many of the female visitors were wearing the Muslim veil. It has the character of entertainment that is since centuries also connected toplaces ofpilgrimage.
After the entrance (ticket office, shops, restaurants), there is a road uphill along a theatre (with performances of Barong, Kecak, other dances) and people then may enter the most sacred space of the large compound, with a place for prayer and grand statues of Garuda and Wishnu.

Above: one of the first pictures to be seen on the entrance road is of Rama and Sinta, while Rama is hunting a dear at the request of Sinta. Below is the formal entrance where the small GWK is places in the midst of a fountain. Behing, on the pillars are shown figures from the Ramayana like Wibisana and Kumbakarna, brothers of Ravana, the great opponent of Rama. Not much could be seen of the other incarnationof Vishnu, Krishna.

Transport here is mostly by walking or by small buses. Butone mayalso hire a Segway atthe price of IDR 60.000 (or some €4.00) per 15 minutes.

In ons closed section of the great compound one must the special religious attire, the yellow shawl. There is a small chaple where a priest (in white clothes) is available for leading a ceremony, as we saw from a distance. Inthis section also a quite big statue is Vishnu is places, along with a very big one for Garuda (and two eggs: I still have to search for the meaning of the two eggs). Another visitor took the picture of Paule and I in fron of the Vishnu statue.

 The Garuda is carrying Lord Vushnua, who supports and care for the whole world. On top of the Garuda a human person can beseen, apparently for some repair. Visitors can enter the basement of the statue and take an escalator to the middle platforms. There is still much construction under way and we saw no people entering for the platforms inside the statue.

Walking back from the majorand central statue we came along the theatre where at that time no performance was going on (usually not much longer than 30 minutes). We could take some pictures of  people dancing with the Barong.

Traditional Islam in Banjarmasin

From between 7-29 October we were in Indonesia again.After a few days in Bali we came to Banjarmasin. Mujiburrahman al-Banjari, who obtained his PhD in Utrecht (Feeling threatened: Muslim-Christian Relation in Suharto-Indonesia) is now the rector of UIN. He organised an 'international lecture' at his institution. For the accreditation process such international connections are needed. The usual proof of actual levctures is a picture ofa banner aboutthe lecture with the lecturer and some people. Below a picture of the lecture at the UIN, the State IslamicUniversity as well as a similare lecture at the School of Theology of the GKE. Evangelical Church of Kalimantan.

Mujiburrahman organised also several trips in the area. Of course, there were quite a few mosques and holy graves. Beautiful and impressive mosques, but due to the beginning of the rainy season it was difficult to make nice pictures. Many mosques used still giant drums besides the loudspeakers for the call to prayer. We visited among other places the grave of the first Muslim Sultan of Banjarmasin who obtained the throne in 1526 thanks to the cooperation of Javanese Muslim from Demak on the north coast of Java. It was a Saturday afternoon, but quite a few people came here for prayer, by themselves or with the help of professional juru kunci. There were offerings of flowers and people took water for bathing.

The picture below is taken from the great mosque of Martapura (a former capital, a huge mosque, but here also at the mimbar or place for the preacher at the Firday prayers, offerings of flowers. People could askfor blessed water at the small office of the muazzin.
Banjarmasin is not a centre for salafi Muslim but it has also not yet created a strong group of liberal Muslims.People here are quite traditional, middle of the road. Martapura is called a 'town of santri' with quite many and great places for Islamic learning.  The fifth generation after the great scholar Arsyad al Banjari died about 2006 and has received an even much more grandiose grave than hisfamous ancestor: the tradition in continuing.

7 November 2017: Constitutional Court on local religions

From 7-29 October I was in Indonesia again, with Paule. We visited for the first time in our life the Island Sumba. It was an exceptional happening. Everywhere in East Indonesia the old traditions, adat are still sacred and important, but in Sumba they have continued to survive as the major religious and spiritual tradition in quite many 'traditional' villages. The followers, about 30% of the population, consider themselves as Marapu, followers of the traditions of the ancestors.
An Association of village chiefs from Sumba, of similar Dayak group (= Kaharingan) and two Batak spiritual societies, Parmalim and Ugamo Bangsa Batak, have taken their case to the Mahkamah Agung or institutional court (in 2016?).  On 7 November 2018  this court published its decision that article 29of the Constitution of 1945 gives freedom of religion and belief  (agama dan kepercayaan) for all Indonesian citizens. It was specified as to the request for identity cards and passports: no longer applicants have to chose out of six official recognised religions, but they can also write that they are followers of a kepercayaan: penghayat kepercayaan. Within the ministry of culture and education they are listed as cultural and spiritual societies.

Already at our  arrival at the airport of Waingapu we shook hands with the village chief of  Prailiu, who was also the vice-president of the Marapu Society of Sumba. We were introduced by Rev. Herlina Kenya, a minister of the Protestant Sumbanese Church, who has good contacts with Marapu people. That same afternoon we visited the village of Prailiu, where we had to share a sirih-pinang with the village chief (above, left). He was very happy with the new legal overtures which gave more status and security to their old traditions. His house is, like the 15-20 great houses in this village all built with traditional materials. There is an old tree where in former times the heads of their enemies were hang, but where now still a ritual centre is found (in a quite informal way: for outsiders, the motor cycle does not disturb the sacredness of the place).

 Above the three ingredients for the ritual sirih pinang: the pinang nut, the sirih fruit and a bottle with calcium.  If you chew it for  quite long time (30 minutes up to a few hours) some calmness seems to come over you, but we had not the true habit of chewing it patiently without somehow eating it.
The other day we went to the greatest traditional village of Sumba, Rende (some 10 km east of Melolo). Here the president of theMarapu Society resides. They were very busy with the preparation of a major funeral, including a village chief and former bupati, who had died ten years ago, together with two other men and one lady. The corpses that had been kept until one month ago in foetus position, were now brought in one house, where they were accompanied by mourning people. The specialists for a night long singing traditional hymns in the complicated ritual language were called upon.There is fear that these texts  will be lost, because there are less and less specialists who know them by heart and there are no written copies.
Bali has the most spectacular funerals in Indonesia, followed by the Toraja people. But also the Sumbanese now celebrate a revival of their pride! And funerals are a major part of this.
I heard that  part of the Kaharingan want to continue as member of Hindu-Kaharingan,but other people want to be member of the Kepercayaan Kaharingan.

Shafaatun finds her way again

This is the first blog of Relindonesia2: after ten years writing regularly messages about Religion in Indonesia, I bought a new computer and can no longer send message to the former blog. I hope that this second series of Relindonesia may be continued forthe next ten years and find as many readers as its predecessor.
First about another change in the life of myself and my wife, Paule Steenbrink-Maas. We moved from the big house to a nice appartment in a big building, also in Utrecht. Its name is Rheyngaerde and it has 108 appartments.  It looks mor orless like a traditional longhouse in Minangkabau or Dayak area: many families sharing some facilities, but also living in their own appartment.
Inthe big house we could easily have up to five-six visitors, here the facilities arelimited. But still some Indonesians could find us in the first two months: Father Dr. John Prior from Maumere cane for a long weekend. Elga Sarapung followed. Finally for a short week we had Shafaatun Almirzanah as a guest.

Here you find above a selfie of Karel Steenbrink(= this author) with Shafa and my wife, Paule. Below is the pond in front of the town hall and the cemetery of the little old town of Oudewater, where my parents lived a long period of their lives. On the background there are three statues of ladies washing their hair. The trees are called in Dutch treurwilgen or weeping willows
With Shafa the talk seldom moves towards the two  great mystics and  philosophers she studied for her dissertation, Meister Eckehart and Ibnu 'Arabi, but mostly on the present state of religion in Indonesia with a strong turn towards Salafism.  But from the Christian side we could her not give a very positive account, due to the general problem of the sexual misconduct of the clergy in so many countries.
In the margin of this we also asked:  when will thisbe an open debate in Indonesia about the pesantren: homosexuality within these communities and the older classes dominating and urging the younger ones?  And what about kiai who marry very young, even extremely young girls? Their parents like these engagements, but what about the young girls?
Finally, Shafa left our country amidst a quite heavy storm, to Iran: she wisely said that interreligious dialogue is  more easily found between the various world religions than amongst denominations within one great religion. We wish her good success in hermission of dialogue, also in Iran.