Preventing Religious Radicalism and ISIS in Indonesia

Religious radicalism has continuously becoming a serious threat in Indonesia. Current phenomenon shows how Indonesia has becoming a target for recruitment of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) members. The 16 Indonesian citizens who disappeared in Turkey and 16 Indonesia citizens who were caught in Turkey had been supposed to join ISIS. According BNPT, there are more than 500 Indonesian citizens who have joined ISIS. The video in You Tube even showed some Indonesian children who are trained by ISIS.  The question for us is, “Why Indonesia has becoming a fertile ground for religious radicalism as well as for ISIS recruitment?”

I think some theories on intergroup relations and intergroup conflict such as the classic theory on ethnocentrism (Sumner, 1906) and the social identity (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) can be used to answer the question. Ethnocentrism and social identity theory explained about group formation which consists of self-categorization with a consequence on in-group favoritism or in-group love and social comparison with a consequence on out-group negativity or out-group hate. Some conflict theorists argued that in-group love and out-group hate are reciprocally related like two sides of the same coin. Meanwhile, some theorists argued that there should be some additional socio-structural and motivational conditions to provide fertile ground for conflict and hate between different groups. However, there is only a fine line between the absence of trust and the presence of active distrust, or between noncooperation and overt competition. So some minimal additional conditions could be enough to cause out-group hate and intergroup conflict.

When we look at inter-religious relations in Indonesia nowadays, there has been a tendency of exclusivity in some of religious followers. The tendency could be observed from some facts, such as advertisement of room or house rents only for tenants with a particular religious identity, religious preaching or teaching to limit social interaction with others from different religious identity, some regulations at provincial and district level that favor one religious group over others, and the presence and act of some intolerant religious groups. Such system, attitude and behavior might have strengthened religious identity or in-group love of a particular group or strengthen the bonding social capital, but have caused weak social cohesion with the out-group or weaken the bridging social capital and could lead to out-group hate and intergroup conflict.  The exclusivity of some religious followers has also led to sectarianism, which according to Paulo Freire (1970) is fed by fanaticism and therefore always castrating.

Therefore, to prevent religious radicalism, it is not enough to conduct de-radicalization program for those who already become radical. In order to prevent religious radicalism, we should have a systematic efforts for de-sectarianism. We can see the efforts in USA to promote and strengthen intergroup relations in terms of different race relations after the African-American civil rights movements in 1960s. Only by breaking the tendency of religious exclusivity as well as promoting and strengthening social interaction between different religious groups, then we could prevent religious radicalism and the potential growth of ISIS in Indonesia. Government, religious leaders, community leaders, and teachers are among those who play important roles in preventing religious radicalism!