The Foreign Service Journal, April 2008

Muslim city-states along its northern coast destroyed local Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms and extended their power to the interior. Flush with victory, militant adherents of the new religion — many of Arab or Chinese descent — sought to eradicate the island’s ancient cultural heritage, using religion to justify their quest for economic and polit- ical power. Opposing them were indigenous Javanese — led by Islamic saints and political figures such as Sunan Kalijogo — who sought continuity and a common ground between religions, based on the precepts of tolerance and mysticism. For nearly a hundred years, the opposing forces con- tended for the soul of Java — and, ultimately, for that of Islam — in a war whose decisive engagements occurred not only on the field of battle, but in the hearts and minds of countless individuals scattered across the lush, tropical landscape. It was a conflict between extremists and Sufi (mystically inclined) Muslims. In the end, the Sufis’ pro- found spiritual ideology — popularized among the mass- es by storytellers and musicians — played a role even more vital than that of economics or pure military force in defeating religious extremism in Java. As a result, a new dynasty arose, founded on the prin- ciple of “the throne for the people,” which established religious tolerance as the rule of law and guaranteed free- dom of conscience to all Javanese — long before similar ideas took root in the West. Its founder was a Javanese Sufi Muslim and disciple of Sunan Kalijogo named Senopati ing Alogo. The basis of his victory was the pop- ular appeal of Senopati’s message of freedom, justice and profound inner spirituality, in contrast to the fanaticism and tyranny of his opponents. This rich historical and cultural tradition became the inspiration for the LibForAll Foundation, which the authors established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the 2002 Bali bombing to help foster international peace and security. Its mission is to encourage the growth of peace- ful, tolerant and free societies — built upon a foundation of civil and economic liberty and the rule of law — in order to reduce religious extremism and discredit the use of terror worldwide. Our goal is to help ensure the glob- al triumph of a pluralistic and tolerant understanding of Islam, at peace with itself and the modern world. LibForAll plans and executes its programs in coopera- tion with like-minded Muslim leaders in the fields of reli- gion, education, popular culture, government, business and the media, and is systematically building a global counter-extremism network that unites top Muslim opin- ion leaders in each of these fields. The name we gave this network, Rahmatan lil Alamin, is inspired by the Quran’s vision of Islam as a blessing (rahmat) for all creation (alamin). The Battle for Hearts and Minds Since General I Mangku Pastika led an elite team of police who cracked the first Bali bombing case and brought the perpetrators to justice, the Indonesian police have aggressively pursued terrorist members of Jemaah Islamiyah, while maintaining respect for human rights and the rule of law. Often described as the “Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaida,” JI’s ability to launch terrorist attacks appears to have been severely degraded. However, the ideology of religious hatred that inspired Imam Samudra, Amrozi and other Bali bombers to commit, and actually revel in, their crimes continues to spread unabated. The era of reform ushered in by Suharto’s fall in 1998 has not only inspired a strong democratic movement, a free press and calls for an end to corruption, but also pro- vided an opportunity for extremist Muslim groups to openly pursue their agenda in a decentralized public sphere that is no longer subject to repressive control by an authoritarian government. Violent and nonviolent groups alike, ranging from the Front for the Defense of Islam, Majelis Mujahaddin Indonesia, Laskar Jihad and Komite Persiapan Penegakan Syariat Islam, to Hizb ut-Tahrir and Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (the Justice and Prosperity Party), have mobilized to transform Indonesia into an Islamic state ruled by their interpretation of Shariah. They have even sought to enter the political arena, cloaked in the mantle of Islam and accusing their oppo- nents of being heretical Muslims, infidels or worse. Two of the most active radical movements in Indonesia today are Hizb ut-Tahrir — which seeks to establish a global caliphate — and the Justice and Prosperity Party (known as PKS), an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. In August 2007, Hizb ut-Tahrir demonstrated its rising strength by organizing an “International Caliphate Conference,” at which nearly 100,000 Indonesians packed Jakarta’s Bung Karno Stadium to cheer calls for the estab- lishment of Shariah and a global caliphate. The PKS started from ground zero in 1998, but in August 2007 it won 40 percent of the vote for Jakarta’s governorship, while Indonesia’s other major political par- ties combined were scarcely able to assemble the majori- F O C U S 36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 8