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| Southeast Asia |
| Jemaah Islamiyah moving from deeds to words? |
| 2009-01-02 |
| At a small, backstreet bookstore here, the young staff members, wearing matching green skull caps and sporting adolescent chin beards, stock books with titles like "Waiting for the Destruction of Israel" and "Principles of Jihad." They work quietly, listening to the voice of a firebrand Islamic preacher playing on the store's sound system, his sermon peppered with outbursts of machine-gun fire. Another young man, a customer, flips through a pile of DVDs that chronicle the conflicts in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Sudan. And in the back, slogans like "Support Your Local Mujahedeen" and "Taliban All-Stars" are scrawled across T-shirts, stickers and pins. The bookstore, called Arofah, is a short walk from Pesantren Al-Mukmin, an Islamic boarding school closely associated with Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist network linked to Al Qaeda that seeks to establish an Islamic state and has been implicated in most of the major terrorist bombings in Indonesia. Some of the most notorious extremists in Indonesia have graduated from the school, including Mukhlas, also known as Ali Ghufron, one of the three men put to death in November for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Imam Samudra and Mukhlas's younger brother Amrozi were also executed. During their five years in prison, Mukhlas and Samudra wrote more than a dozen books. These books are now being picked up by several Solo-area publishers and will soon make their way to booksellers like Arofah. This consortium of publishers, many of whom openly support the ideological goals of the now-banned Jemaah Islamiyah, has developed over the past decade - spurred on by the fall of Suharto, the late authoritarian ruler of Indonesia, and the new freedoms democracy has provided. The dissemination of jihadi thought, which includes topics as diverse as support for Islamic Shariah law and calls for violent action against non-Muslims, is troubling to counterterrorism officials. But analysts say what might be more troubling is what this small but expanding group of publishers indicates about how interconnected, and resilient, the Jemaah Islamiyah movement is in Indonesia. There are at least a dozen loosely connected publishers in the Solo area. Although they are separate businesses often in competition with each other, they share editors, designers, printers, translators, distributors and even authors. Mukhlas, the former operations chief for Jemaah Islamiyah, wrote nearly 10 books in the last five years that are waiting to be published, including an autobiography that is said to paint the Bali bombings as a justifiable act of vengeance for the ill-treatment of Muslims around the world and a book on the hidden meanings of dreams. Samudra wrote a sequel to his 2005 defense of the Bali bombings, "Me Against the Terrorists." The new book addresses questions from the hundreds of readers about the first book and will be titled "They Are the Terrorists" - referring to Western leaders. He also wrote a book about human rights, one of his lawyers said. "Most of the publishers come from Solo, but we hope to sell the books in both large, commercial bookstores as well as smaller ones across Indonesia," said the lawyer, Achmad Michdan, who has written introductions for several of the books. Although the circle of Solo publishers is expanding, radical books generally do not sell that well in Indonesia. Samudra's first book, considered a breakout success for its type, sold only about 10,000 copies. Publishers can afford to print such books by piggybacking on another, broader trend: the ballooning demand for mainstream Islamic texts. Books that explore the Islamic lifestyle - addressing issues like how to be a good Muslim woman or the Islamic take on the end of the world and life after death - are the biggest sellers here now. One popular Muslim-themed love story sold hundreds of thousands of copies and was recently made into a movie. Like their mainstream counterparts, the Solo-area publishers say they are only businessmen and are not necessarily trying to spread any particular ideology. "Although political books don't make much money, there is a growing market for them," said Tri Asmoro, the owner of Arofah bookstore, who also owns a publishing company of the same name and its imprint, Media Islamika, which is devoted to jihadi texts and carries the slogan "Join the Caravan of Martyrs." Bambang Sukirno, who owns Aqwam Group and its imprint Jazera, which got its start with Samudra's first book, said he was only addressing a topical subject, just like "journalists and others around the world are doing." "We see that this 'terrorism' phenomenon, whether you like it or not, has seized space in this world," he said. A report by the International Crisis Group earlier this year suggests that the rise of radical publishers could indicate that Jemaah Islamiyah is beginning to wage jihad through the printed page rather than violent acts. "Some publishers may be playing a more positive than negative role, directing members into above-ground activities and enabling them to promote a jihadi message without engaging in violence," the report says. But the message, once put into book form, often enters the classroom and Islamic study circles, ultimately helping to recruit young people into Jemaah Islamiyah's ranks, according to the Indonesian authorities. The government, however, faces a quandary. As a secular government piloting the largest Muslim population in the world, it must balance its campaign to stamp out terrorist activities with its simultaneous effort to nurture a developing democracy and freedom of expression. Sukirno, like the other publishers in the Solo area, is well aware of the government's concerns and is not worried that his company might be shut down because of the kinds of books he publishes. "Democracy in Indonesia is thriving, and if the government ever tried to interfere in the publishing industry, well, that would be dangerous," he said. "Interference would just give birth to waves of resistance and undermine democracy. Books are a reflection of a civilized nation." |
| Posted by:ryuge |