TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A botched suicide bombing attempt at the St. Joseph Catholic church in Medan has stirred up concern, particularly because the young bomber was not affiliated with any terrorist group. To the police, the 17-year-old confessed he became an ISIS sympathizer after he learned about the notorious group while browsing the Internet at the Internet kiosk owned by his brother.
He also learned online how to build the bomb because he was enthralled by ISIS leader Abu Bakar Al-Baghdadi after reading briefly about his ideology. ISIS first appeared as a splinter group of Al-Qaida, as a more radical group that did not hesitate to kill anyone of different beliefs.
The Medan church terror sheds light on the scary reality that one does not have to be a terrorist to be a radical, unlike a common belief that terrorist groups are the source of the spread of radicalism. According to the National Counterterrorism Agency, the youth was the first 'lone wolf' bomber without links to any terror network.
The telltale sign of this new trend was recorded by the Wahid Foundation, which conducted a survey in April and May of this year interviewing 1,520 respondents throughout Indonesia. It concluded that 7.7 percent of respondents supported radicalism, while an astounding 49 percent of Muslims exhibited intolerant attitudes towards those who held different beliefs and only a meager 0.6 percent expressed tolerance.
They found lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBT) most loathsome. Intolerance born out of contempt towards those who are different are seeds of radicalism. Nowadays, one can easily spot hate speech on the social media. Ethnic, religious and racial slurs have become commonplace. The survey also measured radical attitudes through the indicator of a willingness to donate to groups that advocate for Islamic law, to convince others to follow their path and to approve attacks on worship places of other faiths.
Being a teenager, the Medan church bomber could still be emotionally unstable thus susceptible to influence, but how about groups such as the Aliansi Cinta Keluarga (Family Love Alliance), a group of professors and other learned people who proposed a judicial review to the Constitutional Court so that LGBTs can be punished? From the Wahid Foundation's survey, someone's level of education and income have little to do with intolerant attitudes.
Intolerant respondents claimed their views were influenced by religious lectures on TV, in mosques and the words of clerics. Freedom of opinion and intolerance, it seems, are two sides of the same coin called democracy.
The alarming survey result should attract serious attention from the government. The most practical way to counter this is by strengthening the foundation of individual logic. As schools and campuses are also hotbeds for radicalism, their curriculum should be designed so that these breeding grounds do not become more fertile.
Education on moral and ethics should be intensified to foster logical reasoning. Strong ethics will give birth to an open attitude towards differences amid freedom and the extremely rapid information flow of this era.
Indonesia must be innovative and ingenious in uprooting the seeds of radicalism that are scattered around us so that democracy that guarantees the rights of many people can flourish. (*)
Read the full story and The Wahidin Institute survey results in this week edition of Tempo English Magazine
