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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesian private Islamic schools under scrutiny |
| 2005-12-03 |
| The decision by the Indonesian government to run checks on some pesantren (private Muslims schools), where various convicted terrorists have studied has been cautiously welcomed by many observers. "I agree with the move but it cannot be generalized for all the pesantren and it cannot be applied to all those that study in the targeted pesantren" Ahmad Najib Burhani, who teaches at the theology faculty of the Islamic University in Jakarta. "There is certainly reason to believe that some of the material taught in certain schools contributed to the radicalizations of some people. There are certain teachings that contribute to create a mindset that says that non-Muslims are our enemy" said Ahmad Najib Burhani. The secretary general of the religious affairs ministry Faisal Ismail said this week the government would carry out inspections on private Islamic schools accused of being recruitment centres for terrorists. The inspectors will include members of the âTask Force against Terrorismâ, the group of religious leaders recently tasked by the government to clarify the meaning of jihad, or holy war, with the population. Under particular scrutiny is the Al-Mukmin boarding school, founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, near the town in Ngruki in Central Java. Bashir, convicted of having instigated the 12 October, 2002 Bali bombing, is considered the spitirual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the terrorist group fighting for an Islamic state in the south east Asian. Among these are Idris and Mubarok - two suicide bombers in the 2002 bombings - and Mukhlas, considered the head of the same group and on death row for the attack which costs 202 lives. Asmar Latin Sani and Gempur Budi Angkoro, known as Jabir, also attended the school. The pair blew themselves up respectively in the attacks, on the Hotel Marriott (5 August 2003) and the Australian embassy in Jakarta (9 September 2004) in which more than 23 people were killed. Masdar Farid Mas'udi, the director of the Indonesian Society for Pesantren Development admitted that the government's decision was just. "It is needed. I am not too sure what happen in that school. For what I am told, they promote a hard-line version of Islam. These schools have to think about their position in this issue directly and indirectly". Another school under investigation is Boyolali's Darusy Syahadah, where Mohammed Firdaus Salik - one of the three young men who blew themselves up in Bali on 1 October killing 23 people - was once a pupil. Darusy Syahadah was funded by the foundation Yasmin that experts consider close to JI. The decision of the ministry follows the invitation a month ago by the powerful deputy president, Jusuf Kalla, to monitor the curriculum of the pesantren. Various other pesantren have been financed by organisations of institutions linked to Saudi Arabia. As well as the money, Riyadh has also exported the radical Wahabi interpretation of Islam. Monitoring Islamic schools has always been a problem for the Jakarta government, struggling to find the right balance between curbing the growth of radical Islam without offending the sensibility of the Muslim population which opposes the interference of the state in religious matters. The vast majority of the 17,000 pesantren are run by perfectly legitimate religious institutions and are vital to fill a yawning gap in Indonesia's education system. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |