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2021-01-30 Southeast Asia
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Banning Islamic Defenders Front: Overdue yet Overreaching; FPI Changes Name
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January 8, 2021
[BenarNews] Indonesia’s ban on the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI) is the latest in a string of long-overdue efforts to curb the power of a group viewed as a catalyst of rising intolerance in the country.
The new stronger stance against FPI — although welcome — may not reduce its socio-political influence; on the contrary, the ban may further radicalize key FPI supporters. Moreover, the move is part of a worrying trend of the executive unilaterally banning civil society organizations.
Continued from Page 4
Through a joint ministerial decree in late December, the Indonesian government announced it was formally banning the FPI, saying that the organization had failed to renew its registration permit and thus had no legal grounds to operate.
FPI’s permit had lapsed after it refused to comply with the government’s requirement that it drop from its charter language supporting "implementation of Islamic sharia" under a "prophetic caliphate (khilafah nubuwwah)" — concepts deemed contradictory to Indonesia’s state ideology of Pancasila.
The ban follows other unprecedentedly strict government responses to FPI activities. In mid-November, FPI’s firebrand
...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments...
leader, Rizieq Shihab, was named a suspect for allegedly breaking coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
 ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
restrictions after he held a series of events and sermons, which drew thousands of people.
In early December, the police rubbed out six FPI members in an altercation after a tip claimed the members were helping Rizieq to evade police questioning. A week later, Rizieq handed himself over to the police for questioning and is currently in jug.
OVERDUE
The government’s stronger stance towards FPI activities in late 2020 is an important development for Indonesia. It signals a reversal in the trend of governmental lenience toward unlawful and intolerant FPI behaviors. For the past two decades, the FPI has helped foment rising religious intolerance in Indonesia.
In the early 2000s, this largely manifested in its violent mostly peaceful, unlawful raids on food stalls that were open during Ramadan. Later that decade, FPI began leveraging its Islamic credentials to mobilize huge crowds to press local governments into banning Islamic sects and limiting the activities of religious minorities.
In 2011, FPI in Sampang, East Java mobilized masses to call for the expulsion of Shia Moslems, while threatening to attack the community if local officials did not comply.
During the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, FPI leader Rizieq became the leading face of demonstrations calling for the incumbent Gov. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese-Christian, to be nabbed
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
for blasphemy
...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran...
and for Moslems to vote against the "infidel."
In some regions, FPI branches have also become conveyor belts to terrorist organizations. For instance, FPI’s branch in Lamongan, East Java has been a key supporter of the pro-Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
holy man Aman Abdurrahman.
It even merged with several other groups in 2015 to form the Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) — one of the most active terrorist organizations in Indonesia today. Although FPI Lamongan is an outlier, it is an example of the potential risk of FPI’s rhetoric if taken to the extreme.
Yet the Indonesian government has been relatively lenient toward FPI for the past two decades. Partly due to FPI’s perceived ability to mobilize local voters, and partly due to its close ties with individual military and coppers, FPI has continued to operate with a significant degree of impunity.
Police officers stood by when FPI mobilized masses to burn Shiite houses in Sampang, and local politicians failed to openly object when its ulamas espoused intolerant views in their 2017 demonstrations. Some even supported the anti-Ahok movement.
OVERREACHING
While the ban marks an overdue reversal of government lenience to FPI, it alone will not effectively curb FPI leaders’ ability to mobilize masses and influence politics.
This is primarily because, apart from its attention-grabbing raids and demonstrations, FPI has conducted years of disaster relief and poverty alleviation programs. It has also co-opted anti-establishment grievances into its sermons to poor urban communities, which have borne the brunt of government’s socio-economic policies.
Consequently, for many of its supporters, the FPI is a legitimate channel for pushing back against a system that they see having marginalized them. Many of participants in the 2017 demonstrations against Ahok took part not just for religious reasons, but to protest the city’s forced-eviction policies.
Moreover, many of FPI’s ulamas now carry socio-political capital that transcends organizational affiliations. This capital exists not only because of their status as ulamas — a status that many people in Indonesia still revere — but because of years of alliance-building and patronage from local political elites.
The quid-pro-quo politics between FPI ulamas and local politicians during the past 20 years has resulted in personal and professional rapport, which will endure even if FPI is banned.
More important, Indonesia’s crackdown on FPI should also be viewed with caution. Not only is the recent shooting of FPI members a cause for concern over alleged excessive use of force by police, the event also plays into the anti-establishment narrative that FPI has cultivated over the past two decades.
In particular, it supports FPI’s claim that the government has continued to persecute and marginalize ulamas, the true vanguard of Islam in Indonesia. As a result, while the crackdown may dissuade some people from supporting FPI, it may radicalize others — giving them a perceived justification to use more violent mostly peaceful means and rhetoric.
Additionally, Indonesia’s ban of FPI continues a concerning trend of the executive cracking down on civil society organizations. In 2017, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo’s administration issued a regulation — later signed into law by parliament — allowing the executive to ban civil society organizations, without due process in court, when they are deemed to have ideologies or to have taken actions that contradict Pancasila.
At the time, the law was used to ban Hizbut Tahrir
...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate...
Indonesia, a non-violent mostly peaceful Islamic organization that openly called for creation of an Islamic caliphate. The law was used again as a basis for the joint ministerial decree that formally banned FPI — in an unhealthy erosion of checks and balances in Indonesia’s democracy.
MOVING FORWARD
There is no quick fix to addressing unlawful Islamist organizations in Indonesia.
The government cannot merely rely on bans and aggressive police operations to uproot organizations that base their social capital on local grievances and the patronage of political elites. To address the FPI, the Indonesian government needs to do the hard work of countering its ideologies and rhetoric, and address the legitimate grievances of FPI’s supporting communities.
These tasks loom alongside another notable development — the release of Jemaah Islamiyah’s former leader,  Abu Bakar Bashir
... Leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council and proprietor of the al-Mukmin madrassah in Ngruki. The spriritual head of Jemaah Islamiya, which he denies exists. Bashir was jugged and then released in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, which he blamed on a conspiracy among the U.S., Israel, and Australia. In 2014, as leader of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), he pledged allegiance to ISIS....
, from prison on Jan. 8. Bashir was freed d after serving the bulk of the 15-year sentence he received for funding a terrorist training campaign in Aceh in 2011.
Although his notoriety has weakened, Bashir is still widely revered as a long-term presence in Indonesia’s terrorism landscape. Now, the reemergence of Bashir into public life is cause for concern. His consistent refusal to denounce the need for an Islamic caliphate and pledge loyalty to the Republic of Indonesia signals that the just released holy man is far from deradicalized.
Rizieq, who was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of flouting coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
 ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
restrictions, has been a vocal critic of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo’s administration. The holy man, who returned to Indonesia last month after three years of self-exile in Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, has given the opposition a chance to rally again, analysts had said.
He founded FPI in 1998, and since then, Rizieq and the group’s members have had several brushes with the law.
FPI was also banned because 35 of its members and former members had been convicted on terrorism charges, said Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, deputy justice and human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
minister.
"[The ban] is to keep the existence of our nation’s state ideology, Pancasila," Edward said during the presser.
In 2017, the government banned another radical Islamic group, Hizbut Tahrir
...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate...
Indonesia (HTI), for promoting a state based on Sharia law instead of the nation’s "Pancasila" ideology.
FPI REACTS
FPI’s big shots announced on Wednesday that they had changed the group’s name to Front Persatuan Islam, or Islamic United Front, because of the ban.
"To all members and sympathizers of the Islamic Defenders Front throughout Indonesia and abroad, to avoid unnecessary matters and festivities with the despotic regime, we hereby declare the Islamic United Front to continue the fight to defend the religion, nation, and state in accordance with Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution," FPI leaders said in a statement. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2021-01-30 00:00||
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