Noor Huda Ismail is a one man anti-terrorism squad. The author of Temanku, Teroris? (My Friend, the Terrorist?) is battling Indonesia's Islamist radicals on multiple fronts.
You might find Ismail leaning over a computer screen, teaching a convicted terrorist the finer points of currency trading. You might find him at a prison, trying to smooth relations between guards and inmates, leading a discussion of his book, or doing research for scholars. Asia Times Online caught up with Ismail, a former Washington Post correspondent, at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali this month.
"You can't fight terrorist with guns and bullets, you have to fight them with ideas," Ismail said. "To defeat this enemy, you have to understand them."
Ismail is well positioned to understand the people behind Indonesia's most notorious terrorist attack. He's a graduate of Pondok Pesantren Ngruki, the Islamic boarding that incubated three leading figures in the 2002 Bali bombings, which claimed 202 victims. Temanku, Teroris? examines Ismail's time at Ngruki, a school dedicated to producing pious Muslims known locally as santris, that he loves and defends.
"There are 15,000 graduates of Ngurki, and more than 14,000 have no links to terrorism," Ismail stated. "Some of the graduates are founders of IT [information technology] companies. Some of them work for the military, in politics, or even with the police." Some students, "a couple hundred at most", went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets during the 1980s.
Radical roots
While open to all Muslims, Ngruki was founded to educate the offspring of Dar ul Islam, a radical Islamist group that opposed Indonesia's authoritarian Suharto regime. "It's a very political school, not just a religious school," Ismail said.
There are two types of Ngruki alumni, according to Ismail, the ones who absorbed the knowledge and ideology the school offered, and those who just got the ideology. The ideology includes rejection of the secular Indonesian government in favor of a revival of an Islamic caliphate, extreme hatred of the West, and intolerance of non-Muslims.
The politics emanate from Ngruki co-founder, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the accused spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group behind the Bali bombings. "I knew him when I was a student," Ismail recalled. "He's nice as a person, a little bit stubborn." Ismail believes the US and Australian governments' focus on Ba'asyir as a terrorist leader has been counter-productive: "People believe he was arrested on Western orders. It makes him a hero."
But Ismail agrees that the authorities need to keep a careful eye on Ba'asyir. "His role as an ideologue in this [violent Islamist] movement is extremely important. It's like a cult, and Ba'asyir is the leader of that cult." He added, "It was crucial to put him on trial" for the Bali bombings. Ba'asyir was sentenced to two-and-a-half years on conspiracy charges related to the 2002 Bali blasts, a sentence that Indonesia's Supreme Court reduced.
However, Ba'asyir remains beset by legal troubles. The firebrand cleric has been jailed since August in connection with alleged terrorist training camps in Aceh at the northwestern edge of the archipelago. He's also suspected of raising funds for a brazen bank robbery in Medan and subsequent revenge raid on a nearby police post in North Sumatra.
Tale of two santris
The book's title is drawn from Utomo Pamungkas, Ismail's upper-class mentor when he began attending Ngurki as a 12-year-old in 1985. Temanku, Teroris? traces the two students' stories.
Ismail graduated with a scholarship to Scotland, and later became a Washington Post reporter. Pamungkas, also known as Mubarok and Fadlullah Hasan, went to Pakistan after graduating from Ngruki. He was supposed to continue his education there to become a Muslim cleric, but he was recruited for jihad in Afghanistan. "Ngruki was the womb that contained me," Pamungkas said, "while Afghanistan was the midwife who helped with my birth" as a jihadi.
Back in Indonesia, Pamungkas was involved in the 2002 Bali bombing plot and is now serving a life sentence for his supporting role. Prosecutors said he allowed his bank account to be used as a conduit for funds and helped fellow Ngruki graduate Amrozi buy the car that he and his brothers used to carry out the attack on busy nightspots in Kuta.
"Ngruki offered an introduction to [political] violence, but you need another step to advance to terrorism," Ismail said. Pamungkas' story taught Ismail lessons about how people become terrorists, lessons he uses to help convicted terrorists reintegrate in society and to prevent others from getting caught in terrorism's web. One of his key conclusions is that social ties, including school, family and community, play a key role in fostering violent extremism. "If I am a neighbor with Amrozi, if he asks a favor, it's hard to say no," Ismail said.
Atmospheric pressure
Ismail put these lessons to work to found Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian (YPP), the Institute for International Peace Building. YPP works primarily with convicted terrorists to help them find alternatives to violence. "Released inmates will either go back to their old situation, stick with their own groups and do the same things again, or you can change the atmosphere they go back to."
Ten former inmates participate in YPP programs in Semarang, Central Java, where they run a fish farm, a warung (small restaurant) and a foreign exchange trading business. The goal is "disengagement from violence by providing them with a new atmosphere and new perspective by doing worldly things". For example, currency trading requires participants to "embrace capitalist values". The warung forces interaction with a wide variety of people, promoting greater tolerance.
"My program is very ad hoc, not well planned, and it's hard to measure success," Ismail admitted. When engaging in dialogue with radicals, he explained, "We don't talk about religion. We look for things we can agree on."
"We really don't understand why radicalization occurs and how to counter it," Monash University Indonesia scholar Greg Barton, who also attended the Ubud Festival, said. "Greater success will likely come from counter-radicalizat ion [stopping it before it starts] than deradicalization. Saudi Arabia and Singapore try but haven't had great success. I think Noor and his foundation are doing some of the things that will prove correct."
YPP provides research to Barton and other academics on terrorism inmates. It also works on conflict-resolution with prisoners and guards in eight prisons around Indonesia, and Ismail does consulting on security and political risk issues. Those earnings along with proceeds from Temanku, Teroris?, which Ismail hopes will soon be published in English, finance YPP's "shoestring budget", Ismail said. "Our message to donors is commitment: we're trying to do something on the ground."
However, Ismail rejects the term deradicalization. "I don't have any intention to make them 'not radical'. For me it's okay for someone to think radical as long as he or she doesn't put into practice their thinking and harm others." He's confident that Indonesia's moderate Muslim center will hold in the long run. "Wahhabis have gazillions of dollars, but their product is ugly," he said.
"Did you see the festival opening ceremony?" Ismail asked, referring to the Balinese dance performance at the Ubud Palace. "We Indonesians love dancing. We love music and performance. What Islamists advocate is against our culture. They have the ability to grab the microphone and dominate the discussion. But the majority is a silent majority."
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America's story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. Follow Muhammad Cohen's blog for more on the media and Asia, his adopted home.
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