Using phrases like “American Taliban” or invoking the term “sharia law” to attack the ruling of Christians on the court is all the rage after the recent Roe v. Wade decision. Once again, we have people—primarily liberal white people—engaging in racist, Islamophobic tropes. Muslim activists, scholars, and researchers have repeatedly pointed out this racism and Islamophobia for years, apparently to no avail. This needs to stop.
Islam isn’t the problem. It’s Christianity. The six judges who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade aren’t Muslim. They’re Christian. All are Catholic, although Neil Gorsuch is a Catholic turned Episcopalian. The oppression in America is home-grown Christianity. It’s as American as apple pie.
Christian conservatives and fundamentalists champion the anti-abortion movement in the United States. Stop demonizing Muslims and making them the boogeyman. They are not props to be used as scapegoats for American problems. The United States has shown itself quite often throughout history it can be an extraordinarily regressive country all on its own.
Associate professor Nazia Kazi at Stockton University points out it “reflects this assumption that Muslim women are uniquely oppressed and that American or western women are remarkably liberated.” She continued, “From both the American common sense public imagination, right on up to the seats of power, there’s this impulse to externalize that which actually is endemic to the US itself.”
Drop the ignorant, racist dog whistle and confront the real culprit: American Christianity. Stop denigrating Muslims by outsourcing American problems.
Michelle Bachelet, strongly criticised over Xinjiang visit, cites personal reasons for decision
The United Nations’ human rights chief has announced her decision to step down, citing “personal reasons”, amid weeks of speculation following her recent China trip that drew fierce criticism from activists and western politicians.
Writing on Twitter, Michelle Bachelet, who assumed the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights in 2018, said: “It is time to go back to Chile and be with family.”
The UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, failed to adequately address terrible abuses in the region
“Not only vindicated, but justified,” a Chinese diplomat crowed on Twitter. His remark came only days after an international media consortium revealed new details of the terrible abuses taking place in Xinjiang. Internal Chinese documents – reportedly obtained by a hacker and passed on to the BBC and others – put a human face on some of the perhaps 1 million mostly Uyghur Muslim detainees who have been held in re-education camps without charge or trial, with police photographs of inmates as young as 15.
The Xinjiang police files also revealed the existence of a shoot-to-kill policy for anyone attempting to flee these centres, and people being jailed for up to 10 years because their phone has run out of credit – apparently regarded as an attempt to avoid digital surveillance. In one county, around one in eight adults were detained in 2017-18. Previously documented abuses include forced sterilisations, children being sent to state boarding schools because their parents are detained, and people being held because they have relatives overseas.
Dispute due to go before Conseil d’Etat in municipal bid to allow people to wear any kind of swimwear
The legal row over whether burkinis, or full-body swimsuits, should be allowed in French municipal swimming pools is to go before France’s highest administrative court as the city of Grenoble battles the state.
The city, at the foot of the French Alps, has been a the centre of a bitter political row since its Green mayor, Éric Piolle, who leads a broad left-wing coalition, proposed loosening rules on swimwear in outdoor municipal pools.
Documents detailing shoot-to-kill policy for people who try to escape published as UN human rights chief visits region
A new trove of hacked Chinese police photographs and documents shedding light on the human toll of Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur minority in Xinjiang has been published as the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, visits cities in the region.
The data trove – referred to as the Xinjiang police files and published by a consortium of media including the BBC – dates back to 2018 and was passed on by hackers to Dr Adrian Zenz, a US-based scholar and activist, who shared it with international media earlier this year. It includes thousands of photographs of detained people and details a shoot-to-kill policy for people who try to escape.
One in 25 people sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges in Konasheher, Xinjiang province, where Communist party represses Muslim minority
Nearly one in 25 people in a county of the Uyghur heartland of China has been sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges, in what is the highest known imprisonment rate in the world, an Associated Press review of leaked data shows.
A list obtained and partially verified by the Associated Press cites the names of more than 10,000 Uyghurs sent to prison in just Konasheher county, one of dozens in southern Xinjiang. In recent years, China has waged a brutal crackdown on the Uyghurs, a largely Muslim minority, which it has described as a “war on terror”.
The potential overturn of Roe v. Wade is an attack on bodily autonomy, and opposing it is entirely necessary, especially given most Americans want to keep Roe intact. The public in the United States has less than two months to rally against the Supreme Court’s final decision, and protesting, striking and otherwise opposing a majority right-wing decision to overturn Roe remains dire at this time.
With that being said, we can very effectively show our public disdain for this potential court ruling without comparing the U.S. to Afghanistan’s Taliban government or to Islamic Sharia law, which has been a comparison made to show anger toward this likely judicial outcome. Protesting and showing our support for women and marginalized people’s rights should occur — but not at the cost of stigmatizing Middle Eastern or Muslim people.
Unfortunately, the comparison of losing essential abortion rights in the states to Islamic extremism is not uncommon. After Texas passed its six-week abortion ban in the form of Senate Bill 8 in September 2021, different hashtags like #ShariaLawInTexas and #TexasTaliban went viral on Twitter, gaining thousands of tweets and engagements. Today, the hashtag #AmericanTaliban is also making the rounds, which is another way to associate Islam and the Middle East with a judicial decision made by a minority group of Americans and U.S. voters.
The comparison of Roe’s potential overturn to Taliban rule is exceptionally ironic, given that the Taliban is now in control of Afghanistan due to the U.S.’s 20-year, manufactured war. The Bush administration consistently expressed the idea of Middle Eastern governments suppressing the rights of women as a justification for the U.S. invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. As sociologist Kim Berry points out, the Bush administration used “Afghan women as symbols and pawns in a geopolitical conflict, thereby muting their diverse needs and interests and foreclosing the possibility of contributing to the realization of their self-defined priorities and aspirations.”
First Lady Laura Bush went so far as to make the liberation of Afghan women her purpose during Bush’s presidency, stating that, “Civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror — not only because our hearts break for the women and children in Afghanistan, but also because in Afghanistan, we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us.”
She implied two ideas: that the Afghan people are uncivilized, and the Taliban would eventually take over the U.S. government and impose their laws on our sovereignty. The propaganda linked to the origin of this false comparison came from the Bush administration, and First Lady Bush further promoted this to legitimize the invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of State even released the multipage report titled “Taliban’s War Against Women,” which dives deeper into using the Taliban’s extremist subjugation of women’s rights to justify the Afghanistan invasion.
Furthermore, comparisons to an “American Taliban” remain harmful toward Middle East and North African (MENA) populations, both at home and abroad, and lifts the blame from evangelical, white nationalists who are the ones making these decisions in our own country, not the Taliban or other foreign entities.
Conservative and evangelical-leaning groups like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation alone advised the Trump administration with a list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominee suggestions. Elected conservative politicians in this country are to blame for this impending reversal of Roe. These are the groups toward which we must direct our criticism.
Comparing the likely reversal of Roe to Muslim extremism is a cop-out for white Christian nationalism, which is historically embedded in U.S. history. From the earliest days of the Puritans, to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the regression of women’s rights in the U.S. is no one’s fault but domestic religious extremists and the U.S. politicians they elect to office.
Comparing foreign governments in the Middle East not only removes any onus of blame on Christian nationalists and those advocating for this reversal; it elevates stereotypes against people from the MENA region that have historically perpetuated hate crimes and xenophobia.
We must redirect our attention to those actually responsible for this outcome. The U.S. public needs to hold organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society responsible for their ongoing real-life influence in national conservative political pushes. In addition, we must apply that standard to administrations like former President Donald Trump’s, which appointed more conservative judges to federal courts in his first term than in either Barack Obama or Bush’s first presidential terms.
Although it goes without saying that the Taliban is an extremist Muslim group; they aren’t the cause of Roe’s overturn. We need to hold our own elected officials accountable, not an extremist group across the world that has virtually no impact on these political decisions.
We have less than two months to strike, organize, donate and rally before the overturn of Roe could become official. The least we can do is hold the people responsible for the current state we’re in accountable, instead of redirecting blame on the Taliban or Sharia law.
Call it what it is: a minority group of evangelical, conservative, male-dominated, politically appointed people driving policy. Do the necessary work to speak out against their political choices instead of using Bush-era rhetoric to push a narrative rooted in Islamophobia and xenophobia.
Across Indonesia, Pemuda (youths) with their university jackets are mourning the death of democracy. Their vigil was a colourful assembly of yellow, green, and red that on April 11th turned into a violent disharmony. Their eulogy condemned the agenda of election-delay and President Joko Widodo’s flirtation with the concept of a third term to satisfy his political impulse.
Indonesia might still have its 2024 general election on February 14, but as Lady Macbeth put it “Th’ attempt, and not the deed, confounds us.” The recurrence of nationwide demonstrations by Pemuda during Jokowi’s administration illustrates a tragedy of a Macbethian proportion:
Indonesian democracy corrupted a decent person, turning him into a despot; the Pemuda check and balance this despotic tendency, yet the people keep electing a despot to lead the nation. But who is responsible for the death of Indonesian democracy? Was this an unintended consequence of Jokowi’s ambition to better Indonesia and cement his legacy? A product of power-seeking oligarchs surrounding Jokowi that led him astray? Or a product of Indonesia’s flawed democracy that possesses conflicting aspirations for freedom and a desire to be led?
William Shakespeare’s Tragedie of Macbeth ask similar questions, interrogating the concept of individual agency. Reflecting on Macbeth allows us to unpack the dilemma of agency when evaluating the culpability of a despotic behaviour––exposing the tension between individual volition, groupthink, and systemic pressure. While Macbeth clearly put a dagger into King Duncan, Shakespeare’s whodunit play never answers who was responsible for killing Duncan: Was he coerced by Lady Macbeth and her ends-justify-the-means outlook, or was he entrapped by the three-witches’ foreshadowing of his destiny? The latter allows Macbeth to raise a defence of diminished responsibility: he was not guilty of a crime because he did not act on his own volition, manipulated by forces beyond his control.
The story of Jokowi’s ascent resembles that of Macbeth: it was a parable of a person who refused to stay in his allotted place, overturning the natural order of a system. Jokowi’s predecessors were privileged to assume their position: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was an accomplished military general and former minister; Abdurahman Wahid was a leader of the Nahdatul Ulama, the largest Islamic organisation in the world; Megawati was a revolutionary figure who carried the Sukarno’s name; Suharto came from the Indonesian military, and Sukarno was an intellectual revolutionary. Jokowi did not possess worldly intellect nor the privileges of his predecessors; his election disrupted the usual path to power. Before him, being a successful furniture salesman and Mayor of Solo would have been insufficient to be elected as the president of the third largest democracy in the world. His exception led some to invoke the metaphor of Petruk Dadi Ratu, a Javanese lore about a king who rose from an ordinary people with no support from political elites, which raised the question of agency: was he a king or a puppet?
Pemuda protesting the agenda for a delayed election in West Sumatra on April 11, 2022. (Image by Rhmtdns on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Thirty years of Suharto (1968–98) habituated thinking of a leader like a king, which instilled the notion of control as understood by the Javanese conception of kingship: A king is a candle within which the divine lights radiate and must be obeyed. Under a similar logic, establishing control became Jokowi’s preoccupation between 2014 and 2017. To consolidate power, he made a deal with established forces––the Indonesian military and other elites. By 2017, Jokowi demonstrated that he could preserve a significant degree of agency by giving concessions to elites, humiliating his dissenters via reshuffling cabinets, and balancing Megawati, the leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), in a limited way.
We could be upset with him, but the Indonesian political system makes a fully accountable figure an impossibility. Jokowi’s down-to-earth and social media savvy profile was insufficient for him to lead. The system prohibited him from campaigning as an independent, requiring him to be nominated by a political party, leading him to form an alliance with the PDI-P. PDI-P then worked to restrain his manoeuvre: he was required to cater to the interests of political patrons, which led to the polarisation of loyalty of his elites. The Indonesian democracy forced Jokowi to make a Faustian bargain.
But to argue that Indonesia’s democracy was faulty by design obscures the complicity and culpability of the oligarchic forces and Jokowi in killing the democracy.
Realising that challenging the oligarchic forces was futile, he instead harnessed them. A figure closely resembling Lady Macbeth is probably Megawati who, despite her emergence out of revolutionary events in 1998, geared PDI-P to propose laws that took power from the people: the abolishment of direct election and a defamation law for criticising the president. The three witches––nationalism (represented by the military elites), Islamism (represented by the savvy political ulama), and clientelism (represented by rent-seeking business oligarchs)–––also tempted Jokowi to tolerate undemocratic acts as a means to secure power. Throughout his presidency, he performed acts of loyalty to these forces. He put on a military uniform and vowed not to apologise to the victims of military abuse during the period of pro-nationalist, anti-communist pogrom to demonstrate his nationalism. He put on his cap and embraced the Islamists to win an election. He engrossed himself with Lady Macbeth and the three witches, which made him not just complicit but culpable.
Jokowi is no puppet, but as a king does he possess agency?
Joko Widodo was given a green turban by K.H. Maimun Zubair before attending the “Rapat Umum Rakyat” at Gelora Bung Karno, Jakarta. (Public domain. Government of RI on Wikimedia Commons)
Between 2017 and 2019, Jokowi’s preoccupation shifted from consolidation to anointment as a performance of political power. This was not just performative, it was an assertion of kingship. One of the most interesting cases was the replacement of Gatot Nurmantyo, then Chief of TNI (Panglima). Like Banquo in Macbeth, Gatot was Jokowi’s first ally who helped consolidate his power but soon deserted him by showing ambition to contest him in the 2019 general election. Jokowi hastened his replacement, and anointed Hadi Tjahjanto, as Panglima. By rights, no one would have predicted Hadi would get the spot. What Hadi lacks in experience he made up in loyalty, which was seen within TNI as a flagrant case of civilian interference into military politics. This sent a clear message: anointing was a kingly move.
The melancholy of the Suharto’s authoritarian era soon took over. In his second term, he purged critics and worked to eliminate balancing forces altogether by bringing Prabowo into his administration. Getting closer to the ideal of achieving harmonious political order as understood by the Javanese, in the process he put a dagger into a sickly Indonesian democracy.
Although his goal for development was well-meaning, the means was not. Jokowi is an ambitious president, reminiscent of Sukarno’s worldly goals but with Suharto’s restrained rhetoric. Jokowi has embarked on concretising many ambitious infrastructure projects, far beyond the complacent Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono chose to be a sitting duck. After much cajoling, he allowed reform-minded ministers such as Chatib Basri and Sri Mulyani to embark on various economic projects that got Indonesia out of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, but as soon as Indonesia’s economy stabilised he put a stop to the reform process. Jokowi is the opposite of Yudhoyono. He was ambitious in his first term, and got even more ambitious in his second. He is now moving the capital, an act that not even Suharto could realise. To fulfil his many ambitions of equal development, he justifies the means.
But was he entirely to blame?
While observers might be surprised that he harboured despotic tendencies, never had he hid his stripes. This was what made me voted for him in 2014. In his short tenure as a governor of Jakarta (2012–14), he was famous for admonishing sluggish bureaucrats. As a president, Jokowi also has been transparent with his tolerance of undemocratic means to protect democracy, such as disbanding the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia in 2017 to protect Indonesia from radical Islam. As he was re-elected in spite of his transparency, his undemocratic tactics were validated: he has a democratic mandate to achieve his goals via undemocratic means. This does not acquit him, but it does point to the flaw in the Indonesian society that desires decentralisation but continues to reward a popular leader who centralises. Perhaps this also indicates the weakness of the very concept of democracy, which is unable to prevent the repetition of history, a relapse of the majority to continuously put a despot in office.
Are Indonesians to blame?
Putting the burden on the people assumes that they have choices, and they deliberately choose badly. But the choices are an illusion: they are being asked to choose between people cut from the same cloth: Jokowi or Prabowo, both Islamists, both Nationalist, and both would have had to embrace the system that is flawed.
The interrogation of agency in Indonesia’s politics demonstrates that answering who killed Indonesian democracy is less important than understanding the tragedy itself. This tragedy involves a deterministic trap created by a system that is inherently hostile to accountability; what makes it even sadder is that the elite and the people perpetuate that hostility by their own free will. The essence of the tragedy is thus the circularity of a flawed system and bad actors. The system fosters the worst in people, but everyone’s choice remains: they could plant seeds for reform; instead, they continue to choose expediency at the expense of democracy.
Like McDuff, who eventually kills Macbeth in the final act, if Jokowi chooses not to step down, he will face stern resistance from the Pemuda. But escaping the trap is not a simple matter of balancing or overthrowing a despot. The harder task is to unlearn the mentality of the masses that have been desensitised to the employment of undemocratic means, making them susceptible to electing another despot. This, in the long run, undermines Indonesia’s democracy.
Ramadan is the most blessed month of the Islamic calendar. It began on the April 1 and will end sometime in the next day or two when the crescent moon is spotted in the night sky.
The month is observed by Muslims worldwide as a time of fasting, prayer, reflection and community.
To explain how she will be celebrating the end of Ramadan is Zainab Baba.
In addition to fasting through Ramadan, Baba and her family have also been caught up in the omicron wave.
“It’s been a bit eventful — my family has actually caught covid in the last week or so.”
Baba is “feeling OK” despite a little bit of a cough, she says.
The end of Ramadan is marked by the crescent moon appearing in the night sky signifying the end of the lunar cycle and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast.
Don’t always know the exact day
“So we don’t always know the exact day of Eid, which is the kind of celebratory day in which the month is over, so it all depends on the moon sighting.”
What makes Ramadan so important for the world’s Muslims?
“Ramadan is basically one of the most holy months of the Islamic calendar. It’s obviously signified by the fasting that we do from sunrise to sunset every single day,” she says.
“You fast to show your self restraint, I guess. You’re showing that you can kind of overcome these low-level desires that you might have.
“So not only are you abstaining from food and drink, which obviously has many health benefits as most people who do intermittent fasting know, but also you’re committing to kind of staying away from things that maybe you know aren’t good for you.
“In a social way, you’re trying to be kinder, more compassionate in all kind of aspects of your life through the choice to commit to being the best version of yourself as possible.”
Commitment to higher values
It’s a commitment to higher values, she says.
“So you’re not only fasting from the physical kind of food and drink but also just from anything that is not good for you or for those around you.”
In their fasting, from sunrise to sunset those taking part in Ramadan won’t drink or eat anything at all.
“It’s a full fast. But after sunset obviously and before you start your fast at sunrise you can eat whatever you need to.”
Foods like oats in the morning or dates in the evening are often eaten, Baba says.
“This month’s all about community so even when you break your fast at the mosque or with community members usually you’ll see there’s very nice dishes prepared.”
Those who cannot fast for health reasons are encouraged to take part in other ways.
Replacing the fast
“That’s perfectly normal, so basically in Islam anyone who can’t fast for health reasons … instead of that, you can donate money or meals to the poor. You’re kind of replacing it with that.
“Things like charity and stuff are really encouraged. It’s meant to heighten your understanding of what people might be going through when they don’t have access to food and drink.”
Ramadan might end on Sunday or Monday, depending on the moon.
Baba is already looking forward to the meals.
“I’m from Kashmir, so my Kashmiri food is definitely at the top of my list.”
While New Zealand is still in orange alert levels and omicron is on the scene, this year’s Eid celebrations will be somewhat more open than the past few.
“Those of us who have had covid or are fully vaccinated are excited to be celebrating in Eid with the community especially after a couple of years of not being able to.
“I think this is going to be really fun for everyone to finally be celebrating together.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Mubarak Bala’s case seen as part of a clampdown on critics of religious orthodoxy in a deeply conservative region
A prominent Nigerian humanist has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to blasphemy charges, in a landmark case that has put a new focus on the threats to freedom of expression in the west African country.
Mubarak Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was sentenced on Tuesday afternoon, two years after his arrest at his home in the northern Kaduna state on 28 April 2020. He was then taken to neighbouring Kano, where calls for action against him had been made by members of the religious establishment in the majority Muslim and conservative state.
Since the attacks, arson, and demolition of several churches in Aceh Singkil Regency, Aceh Province, Indonesia (2015), religious freedoms in churches in Aceh Singkil Regency has been disrupted. The settlement’s direction has remained unclear for the past six years, as evidenced by the ambiguous responses of central and regional governments to reconciliation and religious freedom. According to information from field interviews, this problem is further complicated as the role of civil society and ecumenical institutions in advocacy in Aceh Singkil Regency has weakened, including the growing cracks and suspicions among struggling churches at local level. The local government has exploited these problems to weaken the struggle for the right to worship in Aceh Singkil Regency.
According to the records of the Aceh Singkil Peace Forum (Forcidas), there are currently 20 churches whose permits have been denied by the local government, with no resolution in sight. Furthermore, 7 churches continue to worship under tents in unsuitable conditions, particularly for coaching activities for children, who are exposed to hot weather, mosquitoes, and a lack of supporting facilities. This is evident in the field data related to the struggles of churches in Aceh Singkil in advocating for freedom of religion or belief (FORB) in the public sphere. Data is gathered through in-depth interviews with several churches in Aceh Singkil that have been affected by disturbances such as fire-raising, demolition, and obstruction of church buildings, and includes information from the Forcidas and some officials from synods whose congregations are disrupted.
Issues arose after 13 October 2015, when an intolerant crowd set fire to the Church of Huria Kristen Indonesia (HKI) in Gunung Meriah District and attacked the Church of Pak-Pak Dairi (GKPPD) in Simpang Kanan District. This was followed by the demolition of 9 churches by the local government, through the Civil Service Police Unit (Satpol PP), from 19-24 October 2024. Police also supervised the demolition process. The approval for the demolition of the 9 churches was given under pressure, as happened at the Church of GKPPD Sanggaberu (located in the Gunung Meriah sub-district) where the Satpol PP and security forces sought out church administrators to compel them to sign a demolishment agreement. As a result, according to in-depth interview in GKPPD Sanggaberu, some church officials were forced to seek refuge in the forest to escape the pressure.
Looking further back, the events of 13 October 2015 were preceded by the Aceh Singkil Regional Government’s sealing of 20 churches in 2012. Unfortunately, the central and local governments lack the political will to address the various socio-political, cultural, and legal issues surrounding the sealing.
This issue is further complicated by the Aceh Regional Government’s step to issue local regulations (Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016) concerning Guidelines for Maintaining Religious Harmony and Establishment of Places of Worship. This regulation further narrows the space for reconciliation and human rights-based pluralism in Aceh Province, particularly in Aceh Singkil. This is because the Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 is, according to the 2020 position paper made by joint working team of 3 human right-related organizations (Kontras Aceh, Philosufi institute and LBH Aceh), in violation of the Indonesian government’s ratification of human rights principles, namely the Universal Declaration of Human Rights document, which has been ratified in Law no. 39 of 1999 on Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified in Law no. 12 of 2005, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which was ratified in Law Number 11 of 2005.
Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 also violates the Helsinki agreement (2005) which emphasises that human rights principles must be the basis for the formulation of the written law (legal code) in Aceh. In addition, the Helsinki agreement also places matters of freedom of religion (justice and freedom of religion) within the authority of the central government, not local governments. These two points are also reflected in Law No. 11 of 2006 concerning the Government of Aceh (Law No. 11/2006).
Furthermore, Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 includes inseparable link between territorial claims and political system in Aceh. This is then followed by a process of exclusion of those categorised as outsiders, carried out by both state actors (local governments) and non-state actors (Islamic organizations). This direction can be seen from the pressure applied through Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 which places the management of religious life within the framework of Islamic law (aqidah or religious creed), stressing ethnic identity and Aceh region as an area claimed exclusively by Acehnese Muslims. Consequently, in practice Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 does not allow space for the establishment of non-Islamic houses of worship.
Complicating matters further, this implicit prohibition is framed by Islamic law. As a result, questioning the regulation may be interpreted as a violation of Islamic doctrine. In some cases, according to in-depth interview with the Forcidas and officials from the Church of HKI in Gunung Meriah District and the Church of GKPPD Sanggaberu, local community support for church construction was eventually withdrawn due to doctrinal pressure from local Islamic elites, who deemed such support contrary to Islamic law.
Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 raises the requirement for the number worshippers from 90 people (according to PBM 2006) to 140 people, and as the number of community supporters from 60 people (according to PBM 2006) to 110 people.
The term “house of worship” was replaced with “places of worship”. This is consistent with the argument used by the Aceh Singkil local government and intolerant groups to obstruct church construction, particularly by referring to the 2001 agreement that only permitted one church building (house of worship) and four undung-undung (small place of worship) in Aceh Singkil. In other words, churches do not have permission at all to construct new church buildings to accommodate the growing number of Christians in Aceh Singkil. The agreement, according to in-depth interviews with the Forcidas and the 2016 legal opinion document on Aceh Singkil, is problematic because it was carried out in an opaque and coercive manner for Christian groups.
Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 also specifies five recommendations that must be met to construct a house of worship, three more than the earlier PBM 2006. One complication in this regard is the requirement to obtain a recommendation from the Imeum Mukim, a traditional and religious leader (imeum) who leads a mukim (residential area). An imeum is in charge of ensuring the implementation of Islamic law and traditional life in the area and may use their social and religious power to complicate, if not obstruct, the legally enshrined right of other religions to worship, particularly the right to own a house of worship.
The actions of local community members who support the establishment of houses of worship for other religions are read by local elites as contrary to Islamic law. Strong social regulation resulting from the overlapping of territorial claims (the entire Aceh region) with ethnoreligious identities in Aceh further disincentives supporters.
Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 also substitutes the term “local community support” in the PBM 2006 with the term “non-users of places of worship support”, implicitly specifying Muslim support. As a result, even in villages where the majority, or the entire, population is Christian, the construction of churches continues to be difficult, considering support for church construction is considered contrary to Islamic Shari’a (aqidah). Thus, exclusion of church construction also gains doctrinal justification.
Finally, Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 alters the conditions that require local governments to provide places of worship. In PBM 2006, if 90 people or more require a place of worship, the local government must provide places of worship even without sufficient local community support. Aceh Qanun No. 4/2016 eliminates local governments’ responsibility to provide houses of worship for Christians, raising the level and specificity of support required and exploiting doctrinal justifications which discourage non-user support. Aside from all these issues, the local political landscape in Aceh has harmed Christians’ right to worship. According to the Forcidas, as regional and national elections take place, pressure on Christians in Aceh will increase as local political contestants exploit ethnoreligious sentiments that align with territorial claims. This is one of the concerns of Christians in Aceh as they prepare for the 2024 national election, where the “warming up” has begun.
Another barrier to worship in Aceh Singkil is the poor performance of civil society and the ecumenical network in freedom of religion advocacy at the local level. Forcidas has coordinated various civil society groups to bring the Aceh Singkil issue to the national level, including hearings with representatives from several European countries. Various advocacy documents have also been submitted by the Forcidas to churches via the Indonesian Communion of Churches (CCI/PGI). However, advocacy remains poor and has no clear direction at the local and national levels.
The CCI/PGI has asked the government of Indonesia to carry out its responsibility to protect the community and guarantee religious freedom in Aceh Singkil, including publishing a legal opinion regarding the sealing of houses of worship in Aceh Singkil. Meetings have been held, between the leaders of GKPPD Church with the government and Islamic religious leaders in Aceh Singkil, with the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemenko Polhukam RI), and in December 2020, the National Human Rights Commission facilitated a meeting between church representatives and local government officials in Aceh.
Unfortunately, the fate of churches in Aceh Singkil is still uncertain, and local government and religious elites continue to exert pressure. Central and local governments are unwilling to build reconciliation and ensure religious freedom in Aceh. Civil society organizations and the CCI/PGI-related ecumenical networks have failed to effectively advocate on behalf of churches. Consequently, there is no mitigation of regulatory, social, cultural, and economic barriers to religious freedom, and the pillars necessary to support pluralism and reduce bottlenecks at the local level are almost non-existent. In conflict areas like Aceh Singkil, we can see how interfaith and the CCI/PGI-related ecumenical networks fail to generate effective ongoing interfaith action or discussion at the grassroots level.
When we examine the CCI/PGI advocacy work over the last five years as detailed in the 2014-2019 PGI report, it appears that there has been no effective advocacy. CCI/PGI advocacy activities only included a PGI letter protesting the caning of non-Muslims and a request to review related regulations that infringe on religious freedom, media training conducted by The Yakoma-PGI and the Union of Journalists for Diversity in Indonesia. What emerges is the PGI perspective that challenges to religious freedom in Aceh Singkil are solely the government’s responsibility, because the CCI/PGI sees itself as an institution without power. This perspective is fallacious because advocacy work is by definition not an exercise of government power. Moreover, even though the Aceh Singkil problem has numerous variables the CCI/PGI does not take a dynamical view and thus fails to empower itself to act, particularly at local level.
As a result, the people of Aceh Singkil appear fragmented and suspicious, and thus become embers with the potential to explode.
Mobility, circulation, and cosmopolitan connection are increasingly important themes in Southeast Asian history and historiography.
Fuelled by strategic investments in studying inter-Asian connections and flows, these themes are now decentring colonial territories and postcolonial geo-bodies as the primary units of historical analysis and turning historians’ focus to routes, networks, and diasporas.
Not all Southeast Asian mobilities—or cosmopolitanisms, for that matter—were the product of voluntary actions, however, as other work on exiles, convicts, and indentured labourers has shown. Indeed, many were produced via coercion, including projects of state territorialisation which forced or encouraged displacement, as this special issue of Itinerario puts into focus.
Featuring work by five historians of Southeast Asia—Joshua Gedacht, Amrita Malhi, David Kloos, Francis R. Bradley, and Chiara Formichi—the special issue looks at relationships between forms of “coerced mobility” and the trajectories of political movements led by Muslims in Southeast Asia.
Spanning a time period from the late 1700s to the 1950s, it analyses how states have actively displaced select, targeted actors whose ongoing presence in the polity they deemed problematic as they sought to consolidate their power.
As the contributions collectively argue, echoes of these actors’ displacement can be traced in the politics of the movements these actors led or created, which were often cast as “fanatical,” “violent,” or “militant” by states seeking to displace them. As a result, the experience of, and responses to, displacement should be understood as key contributors to the trajectories of “Muslim” politics around the region, and, by extension, around the “Muslim world.” This displacement created new connections as much as it severed old ones, with effects that were sometimes direct and sometimes more diffuse.
Together, the articles cohere around questions such as how states have deployed coercive techniques of displacement, disconnection, and deterritorialization against populations to harness mobility for their own purposes, including to fashion new affective ties within new spatial orders. They also ask how coercive state activities conversely provided unintended opportunities for subjects to reconnect by forging counter-networks, beliefs, and selves across space.
The first of these articles, by Bradley, looks at Siam’s deliberate destruction of Patani, and the emergence of a geographically extensive diaspora in its aftermath. Piecing together scattered fragments of the historical record, Bradley examines how a series of Siamese invasions left Patani’s capital city devastated, with thousands of captives destined for slavery in Bangkok, and an additional wave of refugees forced to resettle in neighbouring Malay states or Mecca.
The second and third, by Gedacht and Kloos, examine the aftermath of the four-decade-long Aceh war, a protracted conflict that contributed to pervasive dislocation and the death of nearly fifteen percent of the local population. In particular, these two authors examine how colonizers sought to integrate the war-torn region into the Netherlands East Indies, paradoxically, through acts of disconnection. Gedacht shows that Dutch authorities physically expelled prominent Acehnese elites and rebels to Java not only as a means of punishment, but also as a means of redirecting Acehnese networks away from historical connections with Penang or Singapore toward the emergent, Java-centred geography of the Netherlands East Indies colonial polity. Kloos complements this emphasis on material dislocation with an examination of their epistemic counterparts. Noting that soldiers, scholars, and administrators persistently designated western stretches of Aceh as “the isolated coast,” Kloos argues, Dutch authorities could disconnect this area from its long history of Indian Ocean interactions. Through this production of a “geography of knowledge/isolation,” Dutch authorities thus sought to erase memory of mobile history and transform Aceh into a subordinate periphery.
The fourth, by Formichi, discusses widespread clashes between Dutch colonial troops and Indonesian revolutionary forces, which engendered successive remappings of Indies and Indonesian territory. Formichi examines how a notable Muslim leader from Java, S. M. Kartosuwiryo, fled Yogyakarta, the capital of the nascent Indonesian Republic, for West Java, an area still under the control of Dutch armed forces. By retreating to an area under colonial authority, paradoxically, Kartosuwiryo could escape from political rivals who espoused the importance of “freedom of religion.” Instead, he could promote a “divergent political path to independence,” this time focused on his “Islamist aspirations” for Indonesia.
The fifth article, by Malhi, looks at how Malayans, too, were not all on board with the path to independence laid out for them by British colonialists and Malay Muslim elites. Malhi discusses the displacement of the Tenth Regiment of the Malayan National Liberation Army—a group founded by Malay Muslim cadres in the Malayan Communist Party after the Emergency Declaration of 1948. In the early 1950s, the Regiment was driven northwards from its bases in safe areas around the Malayan hinterland across the border into Southern Thailand. With their physical displacement, their vision for a new, anti-colonial, and communist Islamism ended up permanently displaced from the arena of legitimate national politics, into the realm of nostalgia.
These articles and the focus on state efforts to coerce movement, alongside the resilience of Muslim agency, all speak to a wider question: did colonial undertakings really succeed at harnessing mobility and creating a totalising geographic framework of control? Taken together, this issue shows that colonial policies did not constitute the end of the story.
Muslim rebels and exiles galvanised countervailing networks and alternative centres that undermined imperial and post-colonial spatialities. Patani refugees forged a “spatial geography” of community, in Bradley’s words, that extended from Malaysia and Bangkok to Egypt to Mecca, while the Acehnese retained memories of connections through their poetic texts and efforts to revive the sultanate, as Kloos and Gedacht demonstrate.
Further, displaced Islamic rebels like Kartouswiryo and Abdullah CD did not merely reflect a Muslim “separatist” impulse, Formichi and Malhi show, but sought to establish alternative visions of postcolonial nationhood in Indonesia and Malaysia. Despite their expulsion from mainstream political life, their visions have pushed the Indonesian and Malayan/Malaysian states to burnish capitalist developmentalism as the “modern” path for postcolonial Muslims.
In sum, the articles in this special issue challenge the notion that world history can proceed simply by tracing the accelerating movement of peoples, commodities, and ideas across borders. By instead reframing ‘connection’ as a constant contest over disconnection and re-connection, it becomes possible to recapture a sense of how coercion, state-making, and space-making all factor into a world of simultaneously accelerating and decelerating mobility.
The cases here, drawn from a subset of colonial experiences involving Southeast Asian Muslims, cannot provide a comprehensive answer to the relationship between mobility and territoriality in the violent colonial and postcolonial ages. However, they do provide a flexible framework for moving beyond “connected histories” for their own sake, and for understanding how contestation over coerced mobility shaped ever-shifting geographic imaginaries, with important political consequences.
For asylum seekers, Norway is a sanctuary but even in remote towns, Muslim refugees say they face surveillance and threats
In a remote corner north of the Arctic Circle, Memettursun Omer gazes out the window at the swirling snowstorm outside as the tinny voice of a Chinese official blares from the mobile phone in his hand.
An Uyghur Muslim from China’s remote north-west Xinjiang region, Omer has travelled about as far as he can go to escape the Chinese authorities – to the small Norwegian town of Kirkenes.
One of the most damning accusations against China is the claim the Chinese government is responsible for genocide against the Uyghur population in the province
As a 14-year-old Australian, I urge you to stand in solidarity with me against policymakers in France and India, where they are oppressing Muslim women
This morning as I was intricately pinning my school hijab around my head, I was thinking of how privileged I am to be able to wear my hijab to school. But it shouldn’t be a privilege, it is my right. It shouldn’t be something that Muslim women everywhere have to continue to fight for day after day. I feel for my hijabi sisters all around the world. What would I do if I had to choose between getting an education and wearing my hijab?
Recently, a young Muslim student wearing a hijab in the Indian state of Karnataka was taunted by a mob of male anti-Muslim protesters. Watching the footage, I felt disgusted and scared, seeing a young hijabi woman like myself being assaulted, while doing absolutely nothing wrong. Simply trying to get an education. Just last week, shockingly close to home, a hijabi high school student in New Zealand was filmed as other school students forcibly removed her hijab and proceeded to share the video of the taunting on social media. The hijab these women wear is demonised by many in their communities, countries, and unfortunately all around the world. This Islamophobia is devastating, but unfortunately, Muslim women being the subject of hatred and abuse is nothing new.
In December 2021 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) was central to social and political discourse in Indonesia due to the debate surrounding its muktamar (congress). The debate ranged from whether to accelerate or postpone the muktamar following government restrictions on activities as part of tackling COVID-19, through to the government’s backing of President Joko Widodo’s favoured candidate. Jokowi’s intimacy with candidate Yahya Cholil Staquf (Gus Yahya), and Yahya’s sibling’s position as minister of religious affairs were seen as partisan. The differences in addressing the issues created sharp divides among political factions and reflected the dynamics of political contestation.
As the muktamar attracted public attention and has wider implications on Indonesian politics, three main questions capture the dynamics of NU’s political contestation: How does history shapes NU’s organizational character and dynamic of its internal political contestation? What were the major factions in the contestation and how were they formed? How did each faction draw, conserve, and exercise their strength over others?
NU’s leadership is deeply rooted in the cultural network of pesantren and kyais, mostly across Java. These social bases formed long before the establishment of its formal organisation. The structure of the NU’s organization was simply a formalisation of that cultural network and hierarchy. However, as NU’s ulama, or charismatic leaders, are rooted in the pesantren and spend almost all their time there, the NU’s founding fathers established a body to extend the ulama’s reach and manage the NU’s organisational routine in Jakarta. Therefore, there are two main chambers in NU’s organisational structures: syuriyah (supreme council) and tanfidziah (executive council). The former consists of hierarchical charismatic kyais or leaders who make strategic and principle decisions while the later those assigned to execute the decisions made by syuriyah.
The original structure changed significantly after the NU became an independent party, following its disassociation from Masyumi Party in 1952. Since then, as a political party the organisation required much greater role for the tanfidziah as executive body. Although the respective roles of these two chambers were restored as a result of NU’s return to their original mission (Kembali ke Khittah 1926) and its disassociation from PPP in 1984, the greater role for tandfiziyah has lasted for more than three decades. Since the role of syuriyah has been partially restored, both tandfiziyah and, to a lesser extent, syuriyah have become equally important and top positions in both chambers are highly contested in every muktamar. Therefore, it is important to consider how the contestation for the top position in syuriyah, Rais Aam (President General), became part of the political game, and how it affects the broader political dynamics of the muktamar.
The 34thMuktamar of NU in Lampung reflected that pattern. A hard-fought contestation took place in the Syuriyah chamber as well. Miftachul Akhyar (Kyai Miftach) as acting Rais ‘Aam seemed to seek a permanent position, was deeply involved in the dispute over the date of the muktamar. In his close alliance with Gus Yahya, who sought the position of chair of the tanfidziyah, he made a tactical manoeuvre to control the political game. When the dispute between the political factions over whether to accelerate or postpone the schedule of the muktamar became heated, acting Rais ‘Aam Kyai Miftach tried to use his exclusive privilege to veto determining the schedule. With Gus Yahya, he had an interest in bringing forward the schedule, while Said Aqil Siraj (Kyai Said) sought postponement until the end of January 2022, due to his ill-prepared situation for the contestation.
In chamber of tanfidziah, before narrowing down to Kyai Said and Gus Yahya, several names were predicted to compete for the position of chair, including Marzuqi Mustamar (Kyai Mustamar), and As’ad Ali (Kyai As’ad).
Kyai Said was the incumbent who had served two terms and sought a third term. In a fierce battle against Gus Yahya, Kyai Said only secured 210 votes while the remaining 337 favoured Gus Yahya in the final round. There were several possible factors for his defeat. One was that his decade-long leadership was not considered to align with the spirit of Khittah 1926. Kyai Said was considered to have made blatant political manoeuvres and returned the NU closer to practical politics. Another factor was a lack of breakthroughs during his leadership.
Gus Yahya was the strongest challenger to the incumbent. His last position in NU’s central board was as Khatib Aam (General Secretary of Syuriyah), and he was formerly a politician in the National Awakening Party (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, PKB). He reached the peak of his political career as spokesperson for President Gus Dur. He decided to quit politics after his father died in 2004 and assumed a position as a deputy general secretary (Khatib of Syuriyah) of NU’s central board after the NU’s 32ndMuktamar in Makassar in 2010. He was then promoted to Khatib Aam. He follows Gus Dur’s path in promoting and strengthening the NU’s role in the international arena, particularly in Western World, including with a controversial visit to Israel in 2018.
Gus Yahya’s victory was grounded in his symbiotic mutualism with Kyai Miftach. This alliance succeeded in securing their common interests. Gus Yahya’s position as Katib Aam and his alliance with Kyai Miftach provided an opportunity to seize the chamber of Syuriyah and use it for political bargaining on every decision made about the muktamar. Moreover, they come from Central Java and East Java respectively, two larges bases for Nahdlatul Ulama. This alliance succeeded in securing the support of these two bases for their respective candidacies.
This alliance also had implications for the diminishment of Kyai Mustamar’s candidacy. Like Kyai Miftach, Kyai Mustamar comes from East Java. On East Java’s NU Provincial board, Kyai Miftach was mustasyar and Rais Aam while Kyai Mustamar is currently chair of the Administrative Council (Tandfiziyah). As a former local Rais Aam Kyai Miftach has greater support from East Java’s NU base, ruling out Kyai Mustamar’s strong candidacy. He is widely known as an outspoken advocate of NU’s traditional practices such as tahlilan and pilgrimage to graves, which is regarded as heresy by Salafists and Islamic modernists. His counters to these criticisms are strengthened by his education in a Wahhabist institution sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the Islamic and Arabic College (Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Islam dan Bahasa Arab, LIPIA) Jakarta
After such a dramatic political battle, the face of NU, at least in next five years, will mostly rest on Gus Yahya’s leadership. He is committed to strengthening and expanding the role of the NU on a global scale to perpetuate a world order based on peace and freedom, as has he done before. Moreover, antithetical to his political rival Kyai Said, Gus Yahya’s leadership will reinstate the Khittah 1926, which will keep NU away from practical politics. The main challenge for Gus Yahya in meeting these commitments is NU’s lack of independent financial resources. NU’s dependence on political influence will make it difficult for the organisation to maintain its neutrality and critique social and political problems, particularly with respect to government policies and short-term political interests.
Remembering the reality of death, fearing it, welcoming it and trying to understand its uncanny nature is what I do as a human being. Being a philosopher adds to the existential gravity of the reality of death. The truth is that someday all of us will become food for worms.
In the last days of 2021, we have had to face the reality and tragedy of death in the news. The trial involving three white men who chased 25-year-old unarmed Black male Ahmaud Arbery, a chase which led to him being shot and killed by one of the white men, brought back memories of his tragic death.
The trial of 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse who killed two men and wounded one brought back memories of the suffering of the families of those two men, their hearts broken beyond repair. There is no victory gained because of their deaths.
And just stop and think about the man who, on November 21, 2021, drove his SUV into a gathering of people at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, which led to the deaths of six innocent people, including an 8-year-old boy. Over 60 others were injured. Each death took away an irreplaceable individual, as all deaths do.
Indeed, it is partly our individual, existential distinctiveness that makes death even more weighty, tragic and a deep conundrum. When I hear about the death of others, I frequently feel it in my bones: Damn! There is no other like that person. Where did they go?
Imagine the exponential questioning, suffering and pain when we calculate that as of this writing, in the U.S. alone, more than 800,000 irreplaceable persons have died from COVID-19, and worldwide, the number is over 5,000,000. When we hear about those global numbers, it is important that we become attuned to actual deaths, the cessation of millions of consciousnesses, stopped, just like that. This process of cessation is never just about how people have died, but that they have died. We’re back to the uncanniness of death.
Just a few days before the death of my father in 2014, I asked him a question about death, his imminent death, perhaps the sort of question some might find insensitive or inappropriate. I posed the question to my father as my partner and I slowly began walking toward the exit of the hospice room: “So, what are your thoughts now about dying?”
My father’s response, although he had not spoken much at all that day, partly because he was under the influence of heavy painkillers, and had begun the active stage of dying, was short: “It’s too complex.”
He mustered all his energy to say that. Perhaps I had anticipated something more pensive, something more drawn-out. After all, while unknown to both of us, this was the final question I would ask him, and the final spoken words that he would say to me before he died. His last words to me were consistent with our mutual grappling with the meaning of death. Until the very end, he spoke with honesty, courage and wisdom.
While not a professional philosopher, my father loved wisdom, and had the gift of gab. Our many conversations touched on the existence of God, the meaning of love, and, yes, the fact of death. I have known many who have taken the mystery out of death through a kind of sociological matter-of-factness: “We all will die at some point. Tell me something I don’t know.” I suspect that many of these same people have also taken the mystery out of being alive, out of the fact that we exist: “But of course I exist; I’m right here, aren’t I?”
In retrospect, my father and I refused to allow death to have the final word without first, metaphorically, staring it in the face. We were both rebelling against the ways in which so many hide from facing the fact that consciousness, as we know it, will stop — poof!
Even when we close our eyes, there is still the experience of phosphenes — the visual phenomena, like floating stars and squiggles — that we see behind our lids. So, closed eyelids don’t come close to mimicking death. Even being asleep radically falls short, because most of us dream, and for those of us who have dreamless nights, we still wake up.
Death, however, is not a thing, it’s not an object. Death is nothing, it is no thing. Ludwig Wittgenstein expresses it this way: “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.” So it would seem that death involves the demise of the perceiver, and, as such, one can’t possibly say, “I’m dead.”
My father and I were more like Søren Kierkegaard than like Leo Tolstoy’s fictional character Ivan Ilyich, who desperately avoided the inevitability of his death. For us, death was, in the language of Kierkegaard, “by no means something in general.” We understood that death is about me, him and you, meaning that death is impersonal in its universal grip, and yet profoundly personal. We tarried with its unapologetic finality. We took to heart the words of Michel de Montaigne: “Amidst feasts and pleasures we should always keep in mind the remembrance of our condition, never let ourselves be so carried away with pleasures that our memory fails to remind us how many are the ways that our happiness can fall prey to death, how many are the ways she threatens us….”
As I have thought deeper about the meaning of death, it now occurs to me that my father and I both knew about dying, but not about death. Dying is a process; we sometimes get to count the days, hours, minutes or seconds — but for me to die, there is no conscious self who recognizes that I’m gone or that I was even here. So yes, death, as my father put it, is too complex. Perhaps there was a deeper wisdom being communicated by my father. Possibly, he was saying to me that death is a problem for the living; it is from “this side” of death (the side of life) that the meaning of death eludes us.
And yet, life itself is also filled with mystery. The fact that we exist at all is pregnant with layers of inscrutability. After all, this is the only time that I’ve ever been on this planet, within this solar system, this galaxy. It is the only time for each of us, though we seem to forget this as we are often preoccupied with texting, career planning, rushing here and there. It’s not like we’ve done planets and existence before or death before, as one might have one’s first drink and then others thereafter. Then again, as explored below through the lens of Jainism, for example, perhaps we have been here before through a process of reincarnation.
There is something powerfully humbling and breathtakingly ecstatic about these deeper, existential “one-time” events. My students recently reminded me that while I was teaching, I said in the form of a eureka moment: “Hey! We’re on a planet!” It is moments like this that the quotidian recedes while the strangeness of our existential predicament is uncovered.
That we are on a planet is, for me, at such times, uncannily unfamiliar. Like death, it is not “something in general.” Add to this the fact that each person is irreplaceable, that there is no other like you in a universe whose diameter is 93 billion light-years, well, I tremble at the thought.
The English author Douglas Adams captures what I mean where he writes, “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
It was in February 2020 that I wrote the introduction to a series of interviews that I would subsequently conduct on the theme of death and religion. Our first reports of COVID-19 were in December 2019. My initial aim in conducting the interviews was not influenced by the deaths caused by COVID-19. However, as the interviews progressed, it became clear to me that the overlap was hard to ignore. In fact, I personally heard from readers who communicated that the interviews helped them because so many people were dying of COVID-19. The overall personal sense of precarity no doubt also encouraged those readers to write to me. I would like to think that it was partially the courage of probing the meaning of death, the refusal to look away, that was helpful. What had begun as a philosophical inquiry became a balm for some.
The interviews themselves — from the perspectives of Buddhism, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Jainism, Taoism, Atheism, Islam and Ìṣẹ̀ṣe (the Yoruba religion) — expressed fascinating worldviews that offered a plurality of different ways of narrating the meaning of death.
As symbolic systems/discursive frames of reference they attested to our human capacity to be touched by the fact of death, to make sense of it, and to respond to its mystery in deep symbolic and discursively differential ways.
I embarked upon these interviews because I’m a philosopher who, at his core, is passionate about “Big Philosophical Questions.” I want to know about the fundamental structure of ultimate reality, whether God exists or not, the nature of the “good life,” the limits of human knowledge, the essence of beauty, and why there is something rather than nothing. Regarding such complex questions, I find myself bracketing “Truth” (with a capital T). While the aspiration is there, the actual attainment of “Truth” is deeply uncertain. Very often, this state of not knowing leaves me profoundly melancholic. It is not just our seeming incapability to answer these questions with any certainty that generates this emotion, but the possibility that there are no absolute answers and that life, as William Shakespeare’s protagonist Macbeth says, is “a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
We don’t seem to be able to glimpse what is behind or beyond death’s veil. Nevertheless, the interviews provided a panoply of complex stories and conceptual paradigms in terms of which to think about death. Even after the interviews, the unknowability of death is where I continue to tarry. There is so much to learn, paradoxically, about what is unknowable.
Buddhist scholar Dadul Namgyal explained that we cannot have life without death, and that death is often a problem because we cling to material objects. Death is also a problem because we possess habits of self-obsession and attitudes of self-importance. Death and life are impermanent, and it is understanding and accepting this continual change and renewal that speaks not only to life, but to its flipside.
Moulie Vidas, scholar of Judaism, while emphasizing the importance of the separation of the soul from the body, placed more emphasis upon the intellectual and spiritual energy within Judaism that aims at shaping a particular kind of life.
As a Roman Catholic, Karen Teel framed death as a conviction that we derive from love and that we will return to love. Like Vidas, though, Teel also emphasized the importance of this life. She doesn’t feel terribly interested in persuading others to believe what she does about life after death. In fact, she even grants the possibility of being wrong. In a matter-of-fact fashion, she says, “Whatever is going to happen will happen whether or not anyone believes in it.” Teel is far more interested in working toward creating a more just world.
For Jainism scholar Pankaj Jain, the body perishes, but the soul continues a journey through the process of transmigration. The soul reincarnates in any of the many species on the planet. Such an infinite process is contingent upon just how nonviolent the journey of the soul has been through its different lives. This side of the veil of death consists of trying to completely purify the soul through absolute nonviolence.
Brook Ziporyn, scholar of Taoism (or Daoism), also stresses the importance of non-fixity. For example, a human being is only one modality of being. What is important is malleability. As in Buddhism, there is emphasis placed upon detachment, where we free ourselves of various prejudices and our prior values and goals.
This process of constant change allows every new situation to “deliver to us its own new form as a new good.” Also, in this view, there is no need to fear death as we are constantly in the process of “letting go” so that we are, in essence, the same as the “Transforming Openness.” In other words, despite the changes that we undergo (for example, life and death), there is no final closure. Within this narrative, forgetting is exalted as the highest stage of Taoist/Daoist cultivation. Being alive, at this moment, is, as it were, being in the middle of the nothingness or formlessness that is before and after our lives. All of this is part of the same indivisible whole.
Like Judaism and Christianity, according to Leor Halevi, Islam is also concerned with divine justice, soteriology (human salvation) and eschatology (the end of time). And while Islam, through the Quran, conceives of Jesus and Abraham differently than do Judaism and Christianity, there is a shared understanding of the separation of the soul from the body. However, in Islam, that separation is temporary as the body and the soul are necessary to fully constitute the person, whether dead or alive. Before the resurrection, the soul will be confined to the grave or dwell in heaven or hell. What kind of life we must live to be with Allah depends, according to Halevi, on who we ask: a theologian, a mystic, a local imam or a jihadist. Yet, there is a final judgment where Allah assembles the jinn (“supernatural beings”), animals and humankind in a gathering place. According to Halevi, “There, every creature has to stand, naked … before God. In the trial, prophets and body parts such as eyes and tongues bear witness against individuals, and God decides where to send them.”
Jacob Kehinde Olupona, scholar of the Yoruba religion, pointed out that among the Owo Yoruba people, death (Iku) is compared to the hippopotamus, whose extraordinary weight no one can carry and whose presence one can’t escape or run from. This rich description of death captures my sense of the gravity of facing our ineluctable finitude; it is something that bears upon the living and which, we cannot in the end, avoid.
Within the context of the Yoruba tradition, death is not the end, but marks a continuation to another realm, one where the living dead exist within the context of the sacred cosmos. One who dies in very old age is seen as “a fulfillment of one of the cardinal life quests.” Such individuals transition to the ancestral world. To die young isn’t celebrated as it is seen as a rupture in the process of accomplishing one’s mission on Earth.
I knew that there would be some shared assumptions, narrative differences and incompatible perspectives about the meaning of death as I conducted the interviews. The interviews have confirmed for me that my father was right when it comes to death: It’s too complex.
Knowing my father, though, he didn’t mean that one should relinquish the search because of its complexity or throw up one’s hands in utter despair because there is no absolute evidence that there is something of transcendent significance beyond death. The interviews reinforced, for me, just how confounding death is. Even atheist philosopher Todd May was willing to imagine a form of atheism that could involve “a spiritual bond uniting all people or all living beings.” He sees this as a view that would not require a transcendent deity, though he is very clear that it would still not be his form of atheism. So, the complexity persists.
I offer no solid epistemological grounds here — just hope, which is not simply a reaction to gloom, but a form of courage that tarries in the face of the abyss that is death. Because death is not an event in life, we are restricted, condemned to play out these deep narratives from this side of the grave. After all, as human beings, we are Homo narrans, storytellers, as Calvin O. Schrag says, who find ourselves within stories already told and who strive “for a self-constitution by emplotting [ourselves] in stories in the making.”
The multiple interviews that I conducted underscored how human perspectives regarding death are limited, marked by context, culture, explicit and implicit metaphysical sensibilities, communities of discourse, aesthetic frames of reference, diverse ontologies and “final vocabularies,” as Richard Rorty would say. Perhaps they are all limited and imperfect attempts to approach something that evades full description from different angles and using different strategies. Is there really something there, beyond just the fact that we die, and the narrative frameworks that we treasure to make sense of that fact?
I would like to think that there is “something” that stirs the souls of human beings, that quickens our narrative and symbolic capacities/strivings to make sense of that which we may not be able to capture in full. In this case, perhaps each religious worldview “touches” something or is touched by something beyond the grave, something which is beyond our descriptive limits, which exceeds our attempts at mimesis vis-à-vis death. I realize that this view has its limits. Indeed, one might say that it leads to an absurdity. After all, what can possibly touch us from beyond death, if death is in fact no thing? Is it unreasonable to ask about what exists after death when, as some would say, by definition, death is nothing?
Again, my father’s wisdom comforts: The answer is too complex. At no point, though, did my father mean that there is or is not something on the other side of death.
That which is “too complex,” for me, has embedded within it a sense of hope. For me, therein lies a significant feature of the meaning of death. What it ultimately means is an open question. That fact alone is both frightening to me and yet filled with a mysterious hopefulness. In the end, the meaning of death remains a mystery. For me, this fact wisely counsels us in the way of profound humility.
At their 48th session, the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 recognised a standalone human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, representing a major development in international human rights law. Yet, for many countries in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, environmental human rights have long been enshrined in their Constitutions and laws. But these nations’ extractive industries have had significant impacts on how the norm is upheld. The differing human rights regimes in these countries highlight the importance of protecting the procedural elements of the right to a healthy environment, such as access to courts, to ensure the substantive right is achieved in practice not just on paper.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, in all three countries over 50% of people generate income from the agricultural sector. Communities are strongly connected to their local environments, they live and earn by the integrity of the ecosystems around them, and are strongly incentivised to fight for environmental conservation. Indigenous peoples in all three nations maintain deep connections to their lands, and manage vast swathes of biodiversity rich forests.
Religion, culture and history also elevate ecological concerns. In Thai Buddhism, trees are sacred – some belong to local ancestral spirits (puta) whilst others are believed to contain divine entities like Mae Tani. Similarly in Indonesian Islam, some local Islamic institutions reject Western capitalism because it corrodes man’s fundamental responsibility to protect nature, as entrusted by God. Democratisation has also had an influence, with the Philippines protecting a suite of human rights (including the right to a balanced and healthful ecology) in their 1986 Freedom Constitution. This Constitution was drafted as a result of the People Power revolution in 1986, and—like many transitional democracies at the time—was incredibly ambitious in restructuring systems of political power to address economic inequalities and environmental degradation.
The right to a healthy environment in law
History, culture and religion have informed the constitutional and legislative reforms in all three countries, with each nation explicitly protecting the right to a healthy environment. Express and comprehensive recognition is critical because the human right to a healthy environment is multi-faceted, with both procedural and substantive dimensions. The procedural dimensions of the right, such as ensuring public access to environmental information and the courts, allows people to enforce their human rights. The substantive dimension of the right is what communities are seeking to protect, including freedom from toxic environments and a safe climate. Both components are essential. The substantive element serves as a vision for the healthy environment that we all need to flourish, whilst the procedural elements create a pathway for us to move towards that vision.
In the Indonesian Constitution, article 28h(1) states that every person shall “have the right to life…and to enjoy a good and healthy environment”. This high-level statement is affirmed by Indonesian laws like the Law on Environmental Protection and Management (2009), which grants procedural rights for the public to make submissions about the activities that have the potential to harm the environment.
Thailand’s 2017 Constitution recognises the right to a healthy environment in two sections. First, section 43(2) enshrines people’s rights to “manage, maintain and utilise natural resources, [the] environment and biodiversity”. Second, section 57(2) imposes obligations on the Thai state to “conserve…and use or arrange for utilisation of natural resources, [the] environment and biodiversity”. Thailand has implemented an environmental impact assessment framework for the achievement of these aspirations under its Enhancement and Conservation of the National Environmental Quality Act (2018).
Black gold, fool’s gold and the fight for the treasures of a healthy environment
The extractivist industry is closely tied to political leaders and business oligarchs, and they have certainly asserted influence over reforms to development processes in all three countries. For example, Thailand passed laws in 2014 to enable mining companies to access land without adequate environmental mitigation and Indonesia has revoked the protected environmental status of biodiverse-rich areas for the benefit of major developers.
So, for many Indigenous peoples and environmental activists, the procedural components of the right to a healthy environment have become essential for the protection of substantive environmental rights. Of most importance is adequate access to the courts.
In both Thailand and the Philippines, courts have been willing to interpret the right to a healthy environment expansively. Thai courts have repeatedly held mining companies to account for environmental degradation, for example awarding compensation to 22 villagers who experienced environmental harm from lead contamination. Similarly, the Supreme Court of the Philippines has developed world-leading jurisprudence on the right to a healthy environment, outlining that the Philippines government is obligated to conserve a healthy environment for Filipinos in the state’s capacity as parens patriae (Latin for “parent of the nation”).
Unfortunately, Indonesia is an outlier in this regard. Despite sharing many of the legal dimensions of the right to a healthy environment, Indonesian courts have not followed the Thai or Filipino approach and have largely underutilised the right in jurisprudence. Indeed, Indonesia’s court system is not designed to facilitate environmental human rights cases, as the country’s Human Rights Court does not have jurisdiction to hear alleged environmental human rights abuses. The reluctance of Indonesian courts to engage with the right to a healthy environment is a product of a lack of judicial specialist knowledge and the black-letter approach to Constitutional law employed by Indonesian courts. But such barriers are not absolute, and can be addressed. For example, Thailand has established a specialist environmental division in the court system to facilitate environmental public interest cases.
The differing experiences of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines offer valuable lessons in the era of globalised extractivism, accelerating climate change and the struggle for human rights. While all three countries aspire to protect the right to a healthy environment, experience on the ground highlights that it falls to local communities and activists to assert the right in practice. In jurisdictions where court access is encouraged, the right to a healthy environment flourishes in practice not just on paper. We are all striving for a vision of environmental justice, but the procedural elements of our rights are what allow us to chart a pathway to progress.
A far right candidate for mayor in Oklahoma City has been spewing hateful and dangerous rhetoric regarding Islam, stating in a debate last week that she wants to “get rid” of the religion entirely.
Carol Hefner, a conservative businesswoman seeking to unseat current Republican Mayor David Holt, claimed during a debate in January that Islam is inherently “oppressive” and “just like slavery.”
“It’s insipid,” Hefner said of Islam. “It should be eradicated from our culture, from our world, [and] unfortunately it has been here since the beginning of time.”
(Besides being blatantly Islamophobic, Hefner’s words are also factually inaccurate, as Islam was established in the 7th century CE.)
Hefner added that she doesn’t know how she would “get rid” of Islam, but that she “would like to have those conversations.”
OKC mayoral candidate Carol Hefner compares my religion to being similar to slavery, says it should be eradicated.
There are around 30,000 Muslims in the state of Oklahoma — and many of them live in Oklahoma City, the largest municipality in the state and the city that Hefner hopes to lead.
Local Muslim leaders spoke out against her hateful rhetoric.
“She is talking about 1.9 billion Muslims. When she used the word ‘eradicated’ she is talking about eradicating 1.9 billion Muslims,” said Dr. Imad Enchassi, the Senior Imam for the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, adding that Hefner’s comments are “more than problematic” but also “plain dangerous and Islamophobic, to say the least.”
Adam Soltani, the executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma (CAIR-OK), agreed.
“Hate has a ripple effect,” Soltani pointed out, “and anytime anyone in a position of power or influence says something negative against the Muslim community we always brace ourselves and get concerned about hate and violence that has historically targeted our community.”
After being criticized by community members, Hefner tried to walk back her statements, saying that Soltani and Enchassi “took it personally” and were “looking for a reason not to like my comment.” In spite of video evidence showing the contrary, Hefner claimed that she wasn’t talking about ending Islam in general.
“I was talking about the opportunities here and how it differs here because we don’t have that hate and oppression and people can rise and I want to offer that opportunity to everybody,” she said.
In 2015, when then-President Barack Obama was greeted by protesters in Oklahoma waving the Confederate battle flag, Hefner expressed delight in seeing the racist symbol. “This happened — love it,” she wrote. Hefner also shared a post of Obama that compared the former president to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
On the campaign trail this year, Hefner claimed — without evidence — that the homeless population in Oklahoma City is increasing because people are being bussed in from California. Part of her plan to address homelessness in the city is to send people back to California — this, in spite of statistics on homelessness showing that three-fourths of people in her state without permanent residence are from Oklahoma.
The mayoral election in Oklahoma City will take place on Tuesday, February 8.
The stain of Islamophobia goes right to the core of the British establishment. Curtis Daly explains how widespread this is.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Britain has an Islamophobia problem. After former cabinet minister Nusrat Ghani accused the Tories of sacking her over her faith, it’s clear that the stain of Islamophobia goes right to the core of the British establishment.
In a Cabinet reshuffle in February 2020, Nusrat Ghani lost her job as transport minister.
According to Ghani, she was dismissed because ministers felt uncomfortable about her “Muslimess”.
Unfortunately, none of this feels particularly surprising; after all this scandal is just one example among many of Tory Islamophobia.
56% percent of Conservatives voters say that Islam is a threat to the British way of life, a report by former equalities and human rights commissioner Swaran Singh found that anti-Muslim sentiment ‘remains a problem.’
It’s actually not hard to understand why voters and grassroots members of the Conservative Party hold such views, when Islamophobia comes directly from the top.
Remember when Boris Johnson wrote a deeply offensive article in the Telegraph back in 2018, describing Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank robbers’?
Those comments fanned the flames which contributed to a 375% spike in hate crimes against Muslim women.
Just two years prior to that we witnessed one of the most heinous dog-whistle campaigns in British politics in recent years.
Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign included offensive material against opponent Sadiq Khan.
Goldsmith tried to sow doubt and fear by linking Khan to extremists, claiming that he gave cover to them.
It was a desperate attempt to recover a dud campaign in which Khan was leading the race, and despite Goldsmith losing, the damage was done.
Boris Johnson has called for an investigation into Tory Islamophobia, although it doesn’t necessarily mean that he supports Ghani, but rather he had no choice. The integrity of this report will be questionable if it doesn’t acknowledge his personal comments against Muslims, and the fact that Johnson was a big supporter of Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign.
Islamophobia is rife at all levels of the Conservative Party. A dossier containing vulgar social media posts from 25 former and current councilors has been uncovered. These posts include texts in which followers of the faith are referred to as “barbarians”.
One councillor, Paul Marks, called Sadiq Khan a “vile creature” and liked a post claiming Khan “will always lobby against anybody or anything which finds itself in direct conflict with Islam”.
Under the surface of Muslim bigotry lies the true, ugly face of Islamophobia. It runs much deeper than comments made in articles or social media posts. It is a fundamental policy of neo-conservatism and imperialism. After 9/11 the West embarked on a reactionary yet vague fight against terrorism. How do you fight against terror?
The answer is to use Muslims as scapegoats for justifications of war and repression. It was easy to use religion as the West’s enemy. It allowed complex geopolitical narratives to be pushed aside in favor of weaponizing a faith in order to attack Muslim communites of colour around the world. Little has changed, even though the debate around foreign policy and its effects have moved into the mainstream. Islamophobic policies have become commonplace in many countries, and here in the UK the policies of the two big political parties continue to enable an Islamophobic status quo.
From the hostile environment, to Prevent – neither political party has seriously tackled the structures which make life difficult for British Muslims.
The increased surveillance, illegal rendition and the treatment of refugees, is at odds with what ministers say about Muslims.
Despite the promises to investigate Islamophobia and take it seriously, all we hear is rhetoric. Behind the veneer, the structure of racist policies that have led to millions of Muslims bombed, displaced, and targeted by dodgy surveillance practises, are very much still in tact.
With Islamophobia present across the whole political establishment, Labour is in no way innocent, with one in four Muslims experiencing Islamophobia in the party. The Labour Muslim network has briefed MPs over the last two years with concern about anti-Muslim rhetoric, but its warnings seem to have been ignored.
Kay Burley: Survey done by the Labour Muslim Network back in 2020, 60 percent there abouts of Muslim members and supporters didnt feel well represented by the party and 25 percent felt that they had directly experienced Islamophobia in the party.
Chris Bryant: The Labour party has been investigated over anti-Semitism, I know more about that Kay, I’m afraid I wasn’t uh um, expecting to be asked questions about this so I’m not very well briefed on what you’re asking about this at the moment.
It looks like Islamophobia hasn’t been taken very seriously by Labour at all. The silence from Keir Starmer was noted when Zarah Sultana expressed that she received a barrage of abuse because of her faith. For the leader of the Labour Party to not say a single thing in support of one of his own MPs is disgraceful.
Instead of sending solidarity to his MPs, Starmer thought it was appropriate to quietly reinstate Trevor Phillips – a man who was suspended for…. You guessed it, Islamophobia.
The biggest spotlight shone on Labour Islamophobia came during the Batley & Spen by-election. Despite the seat having a high Muslim population, many in the party thought it was wise to blame Muslims for Labour’s poor performance.
Rather than acknowledge that Muslim support has been deteriorating due to the party’s complete abandonment of the Muslim community, instead it seemed campaigners decided to double down.
Labour strategists were claiming that the pro LGBTQ stance of the Labour Party, put off the Muslim vote, essentially tarnishing them as homophobic. They’ve also pitted ethnic minority groups against each other, claiming that fewer Muslims are likely to vote Labour because of Keir Starmer’s perceived strength on antisemitism.
It’s not just Keir Starmer causing the problems, although they do seem to have been exacerbated under his watch. Labour has had a long history with Islamophobia. The Henry Jackson society is a deeply problematic think tank that historically have been associated with some Labour MPs.
The Muslim Council of Britain decided to publish it’s findings into Islamophobia in the media. Over 10,000 articles were assessed, and it was revealed that a review found that “59% of articles covering Muslims published by mainstream British outlets were negative in nature”.
‘A study from 2016 found that just 0.4 percent of British journalists are Muslim showing that representation is a huge issue’
It’s not surprising then that the most established journos at the top hold some vile views towards Muslims. Melanie Phillips claimed that Islamophobia is a bogus label. Rod Liddle famously wrote that his choice of an election date would be a day “when universities are closed and Muslims are forbidden to do anything… that there must be at least one day like that in the Muslim calendar, surely would deliver at least 40 seats to the Tories.’’
What an extremely normal man.
Islamophobia is everywhere, from the two major parties, to our media. This is not a partisan issue. Labour may use the recent scandal to attack the Tories, but they have plenty of skeletons in their closet.
The media may call out the Tories on Islamophobia, but they’ve played a major role in peoples negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims.
These are not isolated cases, and the story of Nusrat Ghani is no different. These are institutional problems, and if they are not addressed, then the stain of Islamophobia and all forms of racism will remain in our society.
Exclusive: sponsorship unacceptable given concern about human rights in China, says Robert Hayward
A Tory peer has vowed to lead a boycott of Coca-Cola products over the company’s sponsorship of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, saying its bid to profit from an event organised by the Chinese government was shameless.
Robert Hayward, who was a founding chairman of the world’s first gay rugby club and a former personnel manager for Coca-Cola Bottlers, said it was unacceptable for firms to help to boost the use of the Winter Games as a propaganda exercise given concerns over the treatment of 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang province.
Clause permitting authorities to discriminate on national security grounds is troubling for Islamic community, its leaders tell parliamentary committee
The government’s religious discrimination law could place “a heavy burden” on already marginalised Muslim communities because it allows discrimination on national security grounds, Islamic organisations have said.
Scott Morrison has said the proposed legislation should “give Australians of faith confidence – confidence to be themselves and confidence in the country they belong to”.
Mental illness has historically dwelt in the shadows of the global health and development agenda and only recently has moved from the margins to become a central priority in research and policy. Mental disorders account for 30% of the worldwide non-fatal disease burden and 10% of the overall disease burden, including death and disability, and the cost to the global economy is estimated to reach as high as USD 6 trillion by 2030. Large middle- and low-income countries like Indonesia struggle with a plethora of challenges in delivering adequate mental health care to its 270.2 million citizens. Centralised funding for Indonesian mental health is only 1% of the national health budget; health expenditure is around 3% of GDP. National health programming such as Indonesia Sehat, the incorporation of mental health into primary care basic standards and voluntary contributions from provincial budgets does provide some additional resources. However, there is a severe shortage of mental health personnel, treatment and care facilities, especially outside the island of Java.
Estimations based on the 2018 Basic Health Survey (RISKESDAS) indicate there are 450 000 families in Indonesia with at least one member diagnosed with schizophrenia; given the high level of stigma against mental illness and psychosocial disabilities, we suggest this number is much larger. Many of these people are subject to human rights abuses, being left to languish in cages, stocks or chains referred to as Pasung. Human Rights Watch estimated that 12,800 people were experiencing Pasung at the end of 2018. Over 26.23 million people, more than the entire population of Australia, suffer from clinically relevant symptoms of anxiety and depression and 16.33 million likely meet the diagnostic criteria for a depressive disorder.
Although there is a shift to community-based outpatient models of care, Indonesia’s 48 mental hospitals and 269 psychiatric wards in general hospitals are still the primary sources of care. There are just over 1000 registered psychiatrists, 2000 clinical psychologists, 7000 community mental health nurses, 1500 mental health trained GPs and 7000 lay mental health workers unevenly distributed across the archipelago, (Ministry of Health Regulation on Pasung Management, 2017; Pols, 2020). Need outstrips supply, with eight provinces without a mental hospital: three of these hospitals without a single psychiatrist. Less than half of all primary care centres and only 56% of government district hospitals are equipped to handle mental health cases. Fortunately, there are many passionate and committed mental health personnel, government officials, academics, consumer group founders and mental health advocates who are working tirelessly to implement the vision embodied by the 2014 Indonesian Mental Health Law. Our webinar for World Mental Health Day is a small sample of these extraordinary individuals, who will share their experiences in Indonesian mental health.
Dr Nova Riyanti Yusuf, a psychiatrist, legislator (member of the DPR from 2009-14 and 2018-19), novelist, scholar, television personality and activist, was one of the driving forces behind the 2014 mental health law. She will talk about the ongoing journey of the mental health law, what its vision is for Indonesian mental health and the current state of implementation at the grass roots level. Professor Hans Pols, a renown psychiatric historian based at University of Sydney and expert on Indonesian mental health will then take us through a brief history of Indonesian Psychiatry and will talk about some of the emerging trends for the future of the profession across the archipelago. Anto Sg,Pasung survivor and current recipient of an Australia Award currently studying a Master of Health Promotion at Deakin University, will share his person experience of Pasung and introduce the survivor or consumer group movement in Indonesia. Dr Erminia Colucci currently based at Department of Psychology, Middlesex University, UK will is working with the Center for Public Mental Health (CPMH), Psychology at the University of Gadjah Mada and Ade Prastyani, GP and scholar on traditional healing approaches to mental health. We will show a short exert of their upcoming film produced by their collaborative Together4MentalHealth. After which, CPMH director, distinguished academic and clinical psychologist Dr Diana Setiyawati will provide us with a current update on community mental health initiatives in the age of Covid19. Aliza Hunt, Centre for Mental Health Research PhD Candidate and Endeavour Scholar at the ANU is chairing the session.
To mark International Human Rights Day, the ANU Indonesia Institute is hosting a discussion on women’s rights and gender equality in Indonesia. Speakers will examine the extent to which Indonesian women have achieved equality in a broad array of political, economic and social fields, and what Indonesian women are doing today to overcome the obstacles that lie in the path of gender equality. Join us for what is sure to be an important, challenging and inspiring discussion.
Please note: Simultaneous translation from English into Bahasa Indonesia will be available on a separate channel in the zoom meeting.
Chair
Dr Eva Nisa
Senior Lecturer, School of Culture, History and Languages, and ANU Indonesia Institute
The Australian National University.
Topics and speakers
Pursuing equal political representation.
Sri Budi Eko Wardani
Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Political Studies, Universitas Indonesia.
Achieving women’s sexual and reproductive rights and health.
Dr Marcia Soumokil
Country Director IPAS Indonesia (Yayasan Inisiatif Perubahan Akses menuju Sehat Indonesia)
Countering gender-based violence and harassment.
Anindya Restuviani
Director of Jakarta Feminist and Co-Director of Hollaback! Jakarta.
The gender pay gap and female labour force participation.
Dr Diana Contreras Suarez
Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.
Women in the media and building a feminist voice.
Devi Asmarani
Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of women-focused webmagazine Magdalene (www.magdalene.co)
Speaker Biographies
Dr Eva Nisa is a cultural anthropologist and expert in Islamic studies. Her research and publications focus on the intersections between religious, cultural, political, economic, legal, social, and philosophical aspects of peoples’ lives. She is interested in global currents of Islam reshaping the lives of Muslims in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. Her research has involved international collaborative projects with scholars from the USA, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Austria, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand and Singapore. Currently, she serves on the editorial board of The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.
Dr Marcia Soumokil is the director of Ipas Indonesia. Prior to joining Ipas, Dr. Soumokil worked for several international organizations within Indonesia in the areas of HIV, adolescent reproductive health, maternal and newborn health, and health governance. Dr. Soumokil is a trained medical doctor and began her career as a general practice physician in a community health clinic. She also holds a Masters of Public Health degree from University of Melbourne, Australia. She currently serves on the boards of the Indonesia AIDS Coalition.
Sri Budi Eko Wardani is a lecturer in Department of Political Science Universitas Indonesia. She is also the Director of Center for Political Studies Universitas Indonesia. She is taking her doctoral degree in politics at Department of Political Science Universitas Indonesia. Some of her previous notable research were Indonesian Voting Behavior on 1999 Election (1999-2000, collaboration with Ohio State University, USA), Strengthen and Monitoring of 2004 General Election (2003-2004, collaboration with CETRO), Women Political Participation and Advocacy for Adoption Affirmative Policy in Political Party Law and Election Law (2007-2009, collaboration with The Asia Foundation), and Representation of Women in National and Local Legislature after 2009 Election (July – December 2010, collaboration with The Asia Foundation & AusAID).
Dr Diana Contreras Suarez is a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Her research is driven by questions on how to improve the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged populations, and focuses on understanding human capital formation throughout the life cycle as well as how public policy or programs work on achieving improved lives. She uses econometrics techniques to look into those questions, with most of her expertise in developing countries, including Indonesia.
Devi Asmarani is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of women-focused webmagazine Magdalene (www.magdalene.co). Her 25 years’ experience in journalism began at The Jakarta Post, followed by The Straits Times of Singapore, where she wrote news reports, in-depth articles and analyses on various issues from politics, conflicts, terrorism to natural disasters. She has also written columns, articles, essays as well as works of fiction for various local and international publications. She is also a writing and journalism instructor, and gender and media facilitator, and has worked as a consultant with international organizations. Devi is the recipient of S.K. Trimurti Awards for her work in promoting gender equality in journalism.
Anindya Restuviani is Program Director of Jakarta Feminist and Co-Director of Hollaback! Jakarta. She is a feminist activist with expertise in gender equality and a history of working in the development sector on issues of gender, children, and vulnerable youth with strong experience in feminist advocacy and organizing within grassroots communities and at the local, national and global level.
What happened to news about Afghanistan? After their spectacular sweep of the entire country and overnight victory, there is no news now. And Taliban websites remain closed. Just human interest stuff about traitors/ cowards/ whatevers fleeing to the US or wherever. A convening of Afghan women parliamentarians, holding a mock Afghan parliament in exile (a Greek refugee camp). The hysteria about girls schooling ignores the well-documented but little known fact that almost all the schools (80%) that were supposedly educating girls throughout the country were non-functioning or even non-existent. And those teachers who were actually being paid were just pocketing the money (much of it first taken by local officials, who in turn funneled a portion to warlords).
In fact, all schooling was mostly nonexistent, even for boys, so Afghanistan is actually less literate now, thanks to the US invasion, than it was 20 years ago, and even less literate than in 1978, the last year of peace, when women were going to university and those in Kabul were hijab-less, let alone birqa-less.
Of course, the fault lies entirely with the nasty Taliban, though they didn’t even exist before 1978. War is nasty business and it’s always the other guy’s fault. And when you lose, you just move on, try to forget. So what if you left the scene-of-the-crime a basket case? Where is Afghanistan anyway?
The US has a standard operating procedure: bomb the enemy to smithereens. If that doesn’t work, bomb some more. Then find some civilians who have been riddled with your bullets, fly them to Bagram air base for (the best) emergency treatment, try and fit the body pieces together, and presto! a human interest story highlighting how noble you are, how scientific. If that still doesn’t work and you’re getting flak at home, then cut your losses, pull out, and move on to the next enemy (all the time, boycotting the old enemy so it can’t threaten you). Eventually, as you are the world’s sole superpower now, the enemy will come begging and you can relent a bit.
That was how Vietnam panned out, though it took 20 years to get around to recognizing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It’s a bizarre kind of win-win: even if you lose, the target is reduced to a failed state which is a model for no one, rather a warning for anyone contemplating trying to get out of US clutches. If you win, you can decide just how prosperous the new client state will be. Japan, Korea, and of course Germany got the VIP treatment. (WWI lesson learned: don’t ‘fail’ a big, powerful state). Vietnam managed to recover, and since it is happy to join the US-controlled world economy, it has been allowed to prosper. Reparations are never an option.
That these horrendous wars never seem to bring any peace, let along goodwill, doesn’t faze US ‘planners’. Bombing is easy, and cheap (given that you have a military-industrial complex that is the very engine of your prosperity). It’s the new US norm. ‘It’s what we do.’
The complementary policy to these senseless, horrible wars is the fanatical anti-ideology, which since the days of McCarthyism, seems to run in American veins. There is only one way to live, the American way, and any other option is by definition wrong, mistaken, evil. In the 1950s anti-communism poisoned US culture, and led the US down the proverbial rabbit-hole, destroying any socialist revolution on the globe before it could catch hold, cutting off the one path that can save our civilization from its current road to oblivion. Afghanistan provided the perfect battlefront for the latest US obsession (far away, mostly desert and mountains, good for target practice).
Oh, almost forgot. Lie to enemy, even when they want to surrender. Most Taliban wanted to give up after the US invaded. They weren’t idiots. After a blanket offer by top Taliban leaders to resign was rejected, individuals tried to broker a deal for themselves. After a dozen agreed and were promptly arrested and sent to Bagram, Guantanamo or just tortured and killed, others realized their only future lay in resistance, so they regrouped, some in Pakistan, most just locally where they lived. Sleeper cells were activated and by 2003, as the corruption and murder/ torture by Afghan yes-men blossomed, the rural population started to support the Taliban. Soon half of Afghanistan was being administered by them, providing justice, collecting taxes.
So why no interest in what’s happening now that the US is gone? And was the US project doomed from the start? Were all those trillions of dollars, 100,000s of lives for naught? Is there a Rosebud?
Taliban ‘won’ in 2002
The best way to answer that and what’s happening now is to see what happened under US occupation, but from the Afghan point of view. The Taliban have been governing most of Afghanistan for 15 years now. Anand Gopal’s No Good Men among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War through Afghan Eyes (2014) does this. He follows the lives of a few local heroes from 2001 to 2010, and presents events through their eyes.
The answer starts in the dying days of the communist government, which had started out much like the US occupation, brokering peace with local warlords, having scaled back its development projects as things deteriorated. It held on, annoying the US, but then the peace was signed in 1988, ending arming of both sides–which US promptly ignored. For 3 years after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the CIA kept weapons and money flowing to the mujahedeen, working to block any peace deal between them and the Soviet-funded government. When President Najibullah ran out of arms, the mujahideen took over. That was Bush I’s thank you to Gorbachev for dismantling the Soviet Union. (Lying is ok if you’re lying to the enemy.)
When 9/11 came, Akbar Gul was already a star Taliban fighter, battling the Northern Alliance to the end. When the US invaded, he quit and tried exile, but after being robbed several times in Karachi, he returned to his native Wardak, learned how to fix mobile phones by trial and error, becoming well known as ‘mobile-phone Akbar’. But the US offered no amnesty for those who wanted to leave the movement, and the thieving and violence of the police and Karzai’s stooges, who now were in power and seeking revenge or just riches, became intolerable. A phone call from an old comrade to ‘get to work again’ was heeded.
Between 2003 and 2010, he was the commander in Wardak, just southwest of Kabul, responsible for assassinating government officials, kidnapping policemen, deploying suicide bombs, killing US soldiers. He even hijacked two tanker trailers full of gas, paid off the drivers, bought arms on the black market, and divided the booty among his team. When interviewed the last time in 2010, he was disillusioned with the stressful life and the increasing intra-Taliban squabbles and one-up-manship. But it was also clear that the US had lost almost from the start with its mania to wipe out the enemy, just as it failed in Iraq to wipe out the Baathists, merely turning them into insurgents.
Gopal describes the background to this. The lure of the Taliban in the 1990s held much the same allure by 2003, as ‘a home for unsettled youths,’ repulsed by the chaos their country was descending into. It provided ‘a sense of purpose, a communion with something greater.’ Akbar recalled receiving some instruction once on bomb-making from an Arab, presumably al-Qaeda, but otherwise had no interest in international politics, was barely able to read and write. He resented Mullah Omar’s support for bin Laden and his call to martyrdom following 9/11. Instead, he disbanded his men: ‘Go home. Don’t contact each other.’
How close the US was to victory! If only they had left with their al-Qaeda spoils in 2002, amnestied the Taliban, with a solemn promise not to promote terrorism.
Heela Achakzai graduated from university in the 1990, married her suitor Musqinyar, an idealist but a secular one, a communist. Though not interested in politics, Heela liked the communists for providing services and freedom for women, but as the Soviet troops retreated, the writing was on the wall, and they fled Kabul to Musqinyar’s family home in Khas Uruzgan. Although she was now effectively under house-arrest, complete with burqa and meshr (male guardian), she liked the Taliban for putting an end to tribal practices, including using females to settle feuds. And they didn’t kill her communist husband either. They lived in safety.
When 9/11 brought US soldiers and a return of anti-Taliban warlords, her village descended into violence. Her husband was assassinated by a Karzai crony, local warlord Jan Muhammad Khan. She would have had to marry her brother-in-law as second wife, give him her home and possessions. No way. Her story is rivetting. She fled to the US base in Tirin kot, eventually worked promoting elections and and as a midwife. One villager elder told her that while this type of work wasn’t good for ‘our women, the the villages’ it was fitting for ‘educated women like you.’
Heela also provided medicines to Taliban when they asked, thinking ‘Given Jan Muhammad and Commander Zahir and the others on the government’s side, why wouldn’t they fight?’ Then she was nominated and became a senator, having quietly worked with the Americans. (I presume she was evacuated in August, though she could well return. She is no traitor-coward.)
Jan Muhammad Khan, Khas Uruzban warlord, plotted with Karzai after the Taliban came to power in 1996, and was about to be executed when 9/11 happened. He was appointed governor of Khas Uruzgan and moved quickly to amass wealth, feeding the US intelligence about Taliban, all of it fabricated (there were no Taliban), used to target his rivals. The US was blind to this but the people of Khas Uruzgan weren’t, and the US attempt to rebuild Afghanistan ended up only enriching the new US-backed elite, and turning most people against the Americans.
As the Taliban were the only other choice, they gained support. US backers like Jan created nonexistent Taliban to keep the dollars and arms coming. For a country that prides itself as a model to be emulated around the world, it is hard to understand how the US could be so easily hoodwinked for 20 years at a cost of trillions, almost all of it wasted, enriching a handful of corrupt cronies, creating Potemkin villages and spiriting ill-gotten gains abroad. And, in a final irony, warlords like Jan spirited out at the last minute (Jan was assassinated in 2011) along with girls football teams and other Afghans who trusted the US.
Gopal concludes: the Americans were not fighting a war on terror at all, they were simply targeting those who were not part of the Sherzi clan [another warlord, also later killed by a bomb] and Karzi networks.
US troops fueled insurgency, ISIS
Interestingly, Karzai did not flee in August, as did his successor, Ghani, who fled to Dubai with several suitcases full of cash. Karzai was never an easy ally for the US. During an interview with Voice of America in 2017, he claimed that ISIS in Afghanistan is a tool for the US, that he does not differentiate at all between ISIS and the US. In May 2021, he told Der Spiegel he sympathized with the Taliban, and saw them as “victims of foreign forces” and said that Afghans were being used to be ‘each against the other.’ Clearly hedging his bets.
There were more than a few mass killings by crazed US soldiers, recalling My Lai. Gopal documents the case of Master Sergeant Anthony Pryor, awarded a Silver Star for his cold blooded murder of innocents in Khas Uruzgan. A Google search only turns up glowing reports of Pryor’s heroism, but the truth is he murdered 21 pro-American leaders and workers (which the US admitted), with 26 taken prisoner. Which is not much better than a bullet in the head.
That US troops meant more terrorism, killing, was explained by Eckart Schiewek, political advisor with the UN mission. The same jockeying for power by warlords Dostum and Atta in the north never boiled over. ‘There were no American troops. You couldn’t call on soldiers to settle your feuds.’ By allying with various warlords outside the puppet government, the US undermined the puppet, syphoning funds to pay endless bribes to warlords, and created the petri dish for feuds over who’s closest to the US. A truly vile scenario, especially for a people as fiercely proud and independent as Afghans. By 2005 US fatalities doubled from previous year, and kidnappings and assassinations came in record numbers. Already it was too late. As for poppy elimination, that too became a program to wipe out other tribes’ competition and keep prices high.
Gopal concludes that there were almost no Taliban or ISIS among Guantanamo prisoners, that most prisoners there and in Afghanistan were casualties of warlord-governors’ phony intelligence whose sole purpose was power and money.
Real news
Considering the general news blackout or deliberately anti-Taliban stories, we must look to events during the occupation through the eyes of such as Gopal, Jere Van Dyk, and memoirs of Taliban leaders, and the role of Islam itself in shaping Afghanistan’s future, as this is the bedrock of Taliban thinking and action. To not only respect Islam, but welcome it. “The Taliban was now a part of our family,” said Bowe Bergdahl’s mother Jani, as she waited stoically for news of her hostage son (eventually released). She was just stating a fact and dealing with it, not rejecting or despising it.
First, ‘jurisprudence is part of the Taliban’s DNA, even to a fault,’ as that is their training (12 years for judges). Governing means providing justice. In a village under Taliban control for two years, the malek (mayor) told Gopal that ‘in that time crime had vanished.’ Taliban ‘police’ had captured a known child molester and turned him over to Islamic justice, with ‘judges tarring his face, parading him around Chak, and forcing him to apologize publicly. If caught again, he would be executed.’ People preferred Taliban austerity to government and foreign impunity.
Real world political and economic troubles are pushed aside, or dealt with cavalierly, especially anything smacking of western decadence, as the road to hell is paved with seductive music, images, foods, drugs, etc. So that is what’s happening now. Cleaning the slate, exorcizing society of the demons who latched on to the rich heathen invaders. The Taliban are busy dismantling the US puppet infrastructure, finding warlords and bringing some justice to villages and cities.
Times have changed. Whereas in 1999, it was still possible to smash TVs and radios, keep women off the air, it no longer is. And whereas Afghanistan’s fabulous musical traditions and non-Islamic culture were repressed, destroyed, they are not pushing this any longer. Gopal listened to the Taliban insurgents’ music, watched tapes of Taliban fights with the invader.
All Taliban websites were banned in August, but Deputy Minister for information and broadcasting of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-IEA Zabihullah Mujahid now has a twitter account. The most recent messages (with lots of insulting comments):
West should not impose its civilization on us, we have an Islamic civilization, and the system of Islamic society that already exists.
Islamic Emirate announces complete ban on the use of foreign currency in the country.
ISIS attack on 400-bed hospital fails, 4 ISIS killed.
There is another twitter account the Emirate, even charging westerners with a Trumpian ‘fake news’ for suggesting ISIS will grow again if sanctions continue. Voice of Jihad was the Taliban’s main English language site till it was closed. Googling Voice of Jihad Islamic Emiirate of Afghanistan, I found https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Islamic-Emirate-of-Afghanistan which includes more unfiltered news of Taliban. Otherwise Al-Jazeera is the best source.
So what about girls’ education? With no jobs waiting for high school graduates, villagers could only see potential ruin in allowing their daughters outside. Which is the cart and which the horse?
It is wrong to think the Taliban are anti-education. They are ‘students,’ and the highest calling is teaching and administering justice. But they don’t want the US determining what is taught and to whom. They follow sharia, not tribal law, which is much better for women.
The moral of this story?
Justice is the main thing a government can provide, but for Muslims, it means a strict, god-fearing government. Iran, though Shia, had an Islamic revolution too, and as such is in US crosshairs, much like Afghanistan. It has survived 40 years of US-Israel bullying and worse, so its experience will be important for the Taliban. It is big on the death penalty, and the Emirate of Afghanistan most likely will be too. Women must wear scarves but study freely. Music and the arts are low key. This is most likely how Afghanistan will develop.
The US can’t accept that Islamic justice is a worthwhile alternative to our very flawed systems of justice. Just as it couldn’t accept the truth that it’s better to be poor in a socialist society than in a capitalist one. Just ask 70% of Russians and the other orphaned ex-Soviets. The 1% needs to be brought under control, tamed to meet society’s pressing needs. And to take away the unease, resentment that eats away at society where the super rich flaunt their wealth and despise the common folk. This is not an easy task. The Taliban have stated recently there should be limits on wealth. They understand the truth behind the Lorenz curve.
Gopal recounts meeting a one-eyed malek of a village, Garloch, that no longer existed. ‘Nothing you see here in this country belongs to us. You see that road out there? That’s not ours. Everything is borrowed and everything can be taken back.’ Gopal was intrigued by this Sufi wisdom. Garloch’s malek explained the vagaries of existence: First came the Taliban, then US soldiers, then planes killing the wrong suspect, then Taliban, then … until the villagers gave up and left, leaving the old mayor living under a plastic sheet in a gully. His message to Obama: ‘I don’t give a shit about your roads and schools! I want safety for my family.’
Now comes the hard part. While Talib mullahs are busy righting wrongs and bringing a harsh but just communal peace, factions within the Taliban are also marshalling their forces, vying for power, not to mention the many collaborators, dreaming of another invasion. The revolutionary honeymoon is soon over, and the US continues to sit on Afghanistan’s meagre reserves, thinking about giving them away to 9/11 and other victims.
Which of course would leave the Taliban nothing to feed Afghans, who will turn again to poppies to survive, which will lead to more US-led boycotting, etc.
What’s happening now in Afghanistan demands our attention. And not the CNN version of events. It is heartening that such hardy, devoted souls like Gopal really care what happens to Afghans, and truly want the best for them. I want to know what has happened to the villains and heroes of his tale of life behind the lines. Sadly, our age of internet is letting us down on. I can only wish the Taliban well.
*****
Warlord Zaman: This whole land is filled with thieves and liars. This is what you Americans have made. I know this game. I went to the Americans and said, ‘I can find bin Laden. Give me $5m and I’ll bring you his head. Then I went to al-Qaeda and told them, ‘Give me $1m or I’ll turn you over the the Americans.’ So they gave me $1m, and I convinced the Americans to stop the bombing for a little while. I told them we could use the time to find Osama, but really it was so those Arab dogs could escape to Pakistan. Then I went to the ISI and said, ‘Give me $500,000 and I’ll give you al-Qaeda.’ They pulled a gun and told me to get out of their face. You see, they don’t play this game. You can’t buy them. Gopal, p148.
Recent events in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have retaken political control, have also triggered political concern in Indonesia. This holds true not only in terms of current support and sympathies for the Taliban but also, as Kathryn Robinson explains well, when it comes to the memories of Indonesia’s own past and traumas of radical Islamic rule under the banner of the Darul Islam movement, which started in 1949 and occupied large areas especially in West Java and southern Sulawesi in the late 1950s until the mid-1960s. Kathryn Robinson stresses the cruelty of the Darul Islam forces, which not only introduced polygamy and the infamous hudut-punishments such as stoning for adulterers and amputation of arms for thieves, but which also evicted non-Muslim populations as they feared that they would support the Indonesian Army, Darul Islam’s enemy. This evoking of memories is important if one wants to understand how non-Muslim minorities at a local level perceive globally mediated events, as events in far-away Afghanistan may have concrete meanings in the local contexts elsewhere.
In my research on indigeneity among the Duri in the highlands of South Sulawesi I frequently came across narratives and memories of the Darul Islam movement, which had one of its strongholds in the area between the Christian Toraja in the north and the Bugis-dominated lowlands in the south. The rugged landscape, ideal for their guerilla warfare, and the fact that the Duri were already Muslims were the most important preconditions allowing Darul Islam rule there for more than a decade. However, their rule would probably less stable there if they would not have enjoyed support of the local population.
While indigenous organisations often stress traditions such as animist beliefs and traditional political organisation, I expected to find many stories critical of the Darul Islam movement among indigenous activists and in villages now applying for recognition as indigenous communities. After all, the Darul Islam movement not only banned the pre-Islamic features of the Duri’s worldview (known as Aluk Tojolo in Duri and similar to Torajan traditions of, for instance, ancestor worship) but also aimed to destroy all traditional political hierarchies and political institutions that they saw as being at odds with proper Islam. I was, however, surprised to find that local activists belonging to Indonesia’s largest indigenous organisation, AMAN (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusanatara, The Indigenous Alliance of the Archipelago), never criticised Darul Islam. Many even defended Darul Islam and its charismatic leader Kahar Muzakar. A critical stance toward Darul Islam would be in line with official state narratives that describe Darul Islam as gerombolan (gangs) and as anti-nationalist troublemakers, although that did change somewhat in post-authoritarian Indonesia.
The traumas of the period in which Darul Islam ruled the area are still present. Not only is that time remembered as an era of shortages of essential items such as salt or clothes, but also as an era of violence. “The life of a human being,” a local AMAN activist told me “was worth no more than the life of a chicken.” But in contrast to the narratives collected by Kathryn Robinson in Sorowako, many Duri rather blame the Indonesian Army for destroying their houses every time the army found a village that supported Darul Islam troops. During these years of violence and uncertainty, the Duri adapted to a provisional way of life, only building simple houses that could more easily be rebuilt after a raid.
Despite these difficulties, many local peasants supported Darul Islam troops with their agricultural products, both food and cash crops. Coffee was given to Darul Islam fighters and brought to the port of Palopo in order to sell them. People told me they did this voluntarily as they believed in the Darul Islam movement. In order to understand their support and their still sympathetic views, it is important to consider local history and the rapid social changes experienced in the area in only 50 years, a change which transformed society from a feudal society with slaves and debt bondage to a kind of Islamic socialism.
Duri History and Social Change
In 1906, the Dutch gained direct control over what is now the province of South Sulawesi and introduced profound social change. While they cooperated closely with the high ranks of the traditional elite, they not only outlawed slavery but treated all people outside the upper elite equally. The petty nobility were suddenly equal with former slaves. In the years of the brutal Japanese occupation, even this clear-cut distinction between the ruling nobility and all others was erased; all became equally oppressed by the Japanese military regime and were forced into compulsory labour.
These changes made it possible for local people to imagine equality in terms of social class. A “positive” equality in which local people were not merely equally oppressed, but in which they could actively build a new society was now, against their traditions, something imaginable. In some parts of the Torajan highlands and in the Bugis lowland, the Communist Party expressed such aspirations. Darul Islam and the communists became competitors for peasant support as they both agitated under the banner of social equality. Among the Duri, the idea of social equality was best articulated in terms of Islam. The Darul Islam movement introduced land reform and banned all traditional noble titles and privileges. This ensured the support of many local peasants and made Duri society much more equal—with the important exception of gender relations. This change had some long-lasting effects. Compared to Torajan societies, for instance, traditional elites are nowadays less important in local politics. Post-Darul Islam Duri societies fit much better into indigenous activists’ images of relatively equal social units. However, it is also striking that indigenous activism is much more often led by women in Toraja than in the Duri highlands.
Another factor important for local support of Darul Islam was that for the Duri, outside forces had often been a threat. The Dutch and Japanese forces may have set some preconditions for making a more egalitarian society imaginable, but they were also forces of heteronomy. As the Indonesian nationalist movement was quite weak in rural Sulawesi in the 1940s, the Indonesian army in the 1950s and 1960s was often perceived as a Javanese army and therefore as another means of alien domination. By contrast, Darul Islam recruited their troops from the local population.
The anti-traditional rule of the Darul Islam movement had a tremendous impact on indigeneity and the way that it is constructed today among the Duri. In order to get recognition as an indigenous community, AMAN activists have to collect ethnographic data to prove that the community in question is still indigenous. In such a document prepared by local AMAN activists, for instance, the death penalty for adulteresses was mentioned as a customary law and it is very likely that this was an impact of the Darul Islam movement. This is, however, just portrayed as customary law with no further references by the AMAN activists. Also, there are no references to traditional worldviews of Aluk Tojolo in the ethnographic data collected and represented by AMAN. Rather, indigeneity is always portrayed as Islamic among the Duri. Where rituals are mentioned, it is always made clear that they are conducted in order to worship Allah. When local AMAN activists told me that Darul Islam troops cut down large trees in order to prevent worship of spirits, the activists did not feel that this affected their indigeneity which retrospectively emerges as a pious Islamic indigeneity.
In 2016, the regency of Enrekang, of which the Duri highlands is a part, adopted one of the first local regulations (peraturan daerah) for the recognition of indigenous communities—a necessary step for all communities who want to apply for customary forest custodianship. Initially, this peraturan dearah was rejected by some Islamic groups in Enrekang, including the Islamic PKS party. But local indigenous activists managed to convince these groups that indigeneity is not at odds with Islam. Eventually, all fractions within the local parliament approved the local regulation on the recognition of indigenous communities.
Nowadays, some women engaged in the indigenous movement in the Duri area use indigeneity as a tool for achieving gender equality, for instance by organising indigenous women in order to ensure that they participate in economic and social activities. But the very idea that society can be organised in an egalitarian way is without doubt also a legacy of the Darul Islam movement. Thus indigeneity, when it emphasises social equality, is a very modern phenomenon: its progressive qualities are rooted in radical social change which emphasises social equality and therefore in a certain way even in the harsh rule of Islamic fundamentalists.
On the surface, people often said during the research that they supported the Darul Islam movement because it helped them to become better Muslims. But maybe there is more to it than that: being a good Muslim does not only mean not eating pork or performing regular prayers. In the context of Duri societies it also meant that (male) commoners and nobles had equal rights when they abandoned tradition and embraced what Darul Islam perceived as proper Islam. Stoning is without doubt a cruel practice, but the very idea of applying it equally to former nobles and people in debt bondage was revolutionary.
Sometimes, when I argue with Indonesian friends about the Taliban, it occurs to me that they have something else in mind than I do. The same holds true for Darul Islam and other radical Islamic movements. Where I see the cruel punishment, discrimination against women and violence, they see a political and legal system that provides at least some egalitarian justice in an otherwise corrupt environment. In my universalist view (to which I still subscribe) I believe that I have a crucial point in denouncing the Darul Islam movement. However, in some dark moments I cannot help but admire their political struggle against traditional hierarchies and for social equality. The ongoing mystique of an Islamic state in Indonesia is perhaps rooted, among others, in these powerful political programs of social equality. If that is true, fighting against radicalisation also means providing alternative ways of articulating social demands.
Although religious radicalism potentially could cause many problems in society, the issue has been contentious in Indonesia. Some people believe that radicalism is a myth created by “the West”. For them, the term radicalism has a negative implication to discredit Muslims and to conquer Islam. According to this view, Western governments often apply a double standard when they deal with Muslims (Sihbudi, 2002)
However, suicide bombings that have occurred in Indonesia in recent decades, such as in Bali (2002 and 2004), the Australian Embassy (2004), the JW Marriot Hotel Jakarta (2009), Cirebon (2010), Surabaya (2018), Mako Brimob Depok (2018) and other places prove that radicalism is not a myth. Testimony from one of the Bali bombers, in which he described the group’s scenario for a suicide bombing, proved this fact.
Ali Imron explained in detail how his group persuaded and recruited bombers to conduct the suicide bombing using a car, a motorbike and a explosives vest. He surveyed locations to find where foreigners most often gathered. He asserted that the Bali bomb was a counterattack in response to the USA and its allies invading Afghanistan. Imron added that his group is responsible for serial acts of terror in Indonesia. As Sidney Jones asserts, the threat of terrorism and radicalism in Indonesia is a real fact, even if there are few who are radical and committed to using violence.
Ideology has contributed to the rise of religious radicalism. Some view it as the responsibility of Indonesian Muslims to join the struggle to Islamise the secular government and system. Radical groups such as Front Pembela Islam (FPI-Islamic Defenders Front), Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI-Indonesia Islamic Warrior’s Council), and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI-The Party of Liberation) are active and influential in promoting their ideology to society, under the protection of the right to freedom of expression. Alvara Research Consulting’s survey in 2017 found that one in five students supports the formation of a caliphate to change the system of Indonesian government. This survey of 4,200 Muslims students showed that nearly one in four students was ready to join the struggle to establish such a caliphate.
There are also social factors in the rise of religious radicalism in Indonesia. People can be radicalised when living as a minority group and frequently received discriminatory treatment from the majority. Muslims living in regions where they are a minority religion were radicalised into violence with their Christian neighbours, which then escalated to the point where some groups called for other Muslims to travel to the Moluccas and Poso to wage jihad on Christians.
Political factors have also been a source of rising religious radicalism in Indonesia. Even though the founding fathers agreed that Indonesia is a neutrally religious state and must protect all citizens, some politicians deny this and play on their religious identity. Some parties and religious organisations in Indonesia actively campaign against candidates based solely on their religion, demanding voters not elect non-Muslim leaders. The has been a serious problem in Indonesia since the reformation era. In several regions, governors and mayors have agreed to formally implement sharia bylaws in regional law to boost their Islamic credentials ahead of elections. This political strategy can exacerbate religious radicalism because the laws position Muslims as a majority group with special rights. Utilising these laws as justification, fanatical religious groups often discriminate against minority groups. These groups will be increasingly radicalised because they have more room and legitimacy for their violent actions. The experience of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which rigidly implement shariah bylaws resulting in increasing prominence, should be taken into account. In both countries, women and minority groups became second class citizens and were discriminated against by state and radical groups.
Social media is also often used to broadcast hoax information that contributes to the rise of religious radicalism. For example, during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, radical groups which supported Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno published a statement that Muslims who supported Basuki Tjahaya Purnama (Ahok)-Djarot Saiful Hidayat could be categorised as the enemy of Islam.
Although radicalism and terrorism cannot be equated, they are closely related. Maarif (2002) and Ghufron (2017) have argued (separately) that radicalism is related to how people understand and express their religion, and terrorism is committed to using violence for political purposes. However, radicalism can turn into terrorism, and people who are followers of radical groups are targeted by terrorist recruiters. As a consequence, if government and society do not pay serious attention to radical groups, they may find they cooperate with terrorist groups instead.
Furthermore, terrorist groups target recruitment at younger generations. Radical groups often disseminate their ideology in senior high schools and universities. Recently, authorities detained several students in the State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta for allegedly being involved in bombing and other violent actions. Moreover, the phenomena of suicide bombers, in Serpong (2011), the exposure of NII’s network (Negara Islam Indonesia-the Islamic State of Indonesia), and bombers of JW Marriot hotel (2009) and the perpetrators of the Klaten bomb (2011) shows they are often young people from schools and universities.
In several cases, radical groups have infiltrated universities and schools. Radical groups also recruited young generations from several places such as mosques. The young generation is becoming the main target of radical groups because they are in a transitional period, forming their identity and being easily influenced by others. They are susceptible to the ideologies of radical groups which use the internet as the tool of propaganda.
Lembaga Kajian Islam dan Perdamaian’s (Research Institute on Islam and Peace, LAKIP) study in 2010 showed this in its survey of 10 areas in Jakarta at the end of 2010. This survey found that more than 50% of high school students agree that the use of violence is justified in Islamic teaching. They believe that Muslims are permitted to use violence to defend Islam. They agree that the use of violence against people who insult Islam is a legitimate action. The survey also showed that 21 % of teachers stated that the state ideology of Pancasila is no longer relevant. MAARIF Institute’s 2011 research mapping the problems of radicalism in the State Senior High Schools in 4 areas (Pandeglang, Cianjur, Yogyakarta, and Solo) also confirmed these findings. The research, conducted in 50 schools, revealed that schools have become the arena in which to disseminate ideology. Because the schools are so open, radical groups have exploited this opportunity to spread their ideas and widen their networks. As a result, many students’ understanding of Islam has become more monolithic, and they easily blame others for social, economic, and political problems that they perceive to jeopardise Muslims.
The rise of religious radicalism can trigger conflict in society. For radical groups, society is divided into “us” and “them”. Groups that reject radical ideas will be classified as “them”. Because of their demarcation from other groups in society conflicts occurs. The application of the doctrine “us vs. them” also contributes to increasing intolerance of religious minority groups. Ahmadiya and Shi’ah groups often became the target of violent actions by radical groups. A series of attacks against Ahmadiya and Shi’ah followers have occurred in many areas in Indonesia. Christians have also been prevented from building houses of worship in some areas. Maarif argues that the “us and them” paradigm is contradictory to Islamic values, and based on an archaic historical contexts.
It is time for the Indonesian government to pay serious attention to the slippage between radicalism and terrorism, and the mechanism that terrorists use to recruit others to their ideologies. Otherwise it risks to the consequences of a rise in religious violence.
Shortly after his re-election in May 2019, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) delivered his Vision of Indonesia speech, in which he pledged “zero tolerance against those who undermine Pancasila”, the pluralist state ideology. The President then instructed the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security, Mahfud MD, to initiate more “serious efforts” at curbing the spread of radical ideologies. A range of polices has been systematically implemented since, from weeding out radicalism in public service—including through online surveillance mechanism—to the proscription and prosecution of certain Islamist organisations.
One Islamist group that has borne the brunt of the growing state repression is the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), an infamous organisation that has graduated from morality racketeering to becoming the country’s most formidable opposition movement. The Jokowi government officially banned FPI on 31 December 2020, citing as reasons its past involvement in vigilantism and hate campaigns against minorities, but also its purported link to terrorism and the more procedural reason of lapsed registration. The banning was immediately followed by more arrests of FPI’s prominent leaders and the freezing of its assets. This is qualitatively different from the disbandment of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) in 2017: thus far no HTI leaders have been prosecuted and most of its assets and activities have remained intact, sans the flag and symbol.
What are the consequences of the hard clampdown on Islamist groups? Has it achieved its stated goal of defending pluralism? I argue that the costs of repression far outweigh its benefits. While the crackdown seems effective in undercutting the capacity of Islamists to mobilise, it can lead to damaging outcomes. First, the policy is buttressed by excessive use of force against Islamist and other opposition activists. Second, the cost of repression directly impacts public health as disillusioned Islamist groups contribute to conspiracy theories rejecting COVID-19 vaccines. Third, dissolving one or two hardline groups does not necessarily address—and may in fact divert attention from—the complex causes of discrimination against minority groups.
FPI: from the fringe to centre stage and back again?
Born on the fringes of Islamic activism in 1998, FPI later gained prominence among Indonesian Muslims, especially after playing a leading role in the unprecedented 2016 mobilisation which toppled the Chinese-Cristian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok), who was accused of blasphemy. After the anti-Ahok rallies (also known as “212” movement after the date of the mammoth protest), FPI and its partners used their newfound clout to assist Jokowi’s rival, Prabowo Subianto, in the highly polarised 2019 presidential campaign.
The alarming rise of Islamist influence in national politics prompted the government to contain their power, for instance by investigating and arresting leaders of the 212 Movement. FPI supreme leader Habib Rizieq Shihab, who was under investigation for his alleged involvement in a porn scandal and also facing defamation charges, decided to flee the country in April 2017 and remained in for Saudi Arabia for three years.
His homecoming celebration perfectly captured his new status as a beloved spiritual leader of the opposition. Upon his return on 10 November 2020, he received a hero’s welcome with tens of thousands of supporters coming to greet him at the airport. Prominent politicians like the Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan also went to visit him; other politicians seeking to curry favour with Islamist constituencies attended his daughter’s wedding shortly after his return. On 1 December, the police summoned Rizieq for breaching public health protocols, but he refused to comply. On 7 December, a police intelligence team tasked with tailing Rizieq shot dead six of his body guards in a dramatic car chase. Four of those have been classified as extrajudicial killing by a National Human Rights Commission investigation.
The incident was swiftly followed by the prosecution of Rizieq and at least seven other FPI figures. In April 2021, FPI secretary general Munarman was arrested on dubious accusations that link FPI to the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Munarman retorted that the “terrorisation” of FPI is a ploy to legitimise the killing of FPI guards. His statement harks back to pent-up grievances related to police abuse of Muslim terror suspects. In June 2021, Rizieq was sentenced to 4 years and 8 months jail for violating public health restrictions and spreading false news by lying about his positive Covid test.
The sweeping crackdown on FPI indicated the government’s concerns over Rizieq’s skyrocketing political stature. Many pluralist and liberal groups are similarly worried about Islamist encroachment into the mainstream political arena, which explains their muted response even as the crackdown turned violent.
Public opinion polls indicate high approval for Jokowi’s anti-FPI policy. Fealy and White argue that the limited criticism of FPI’s banning means the government has “effectively removed its most potent Islamist opponent and won public plaudits for doing so”, suggesting that FPI might have slid back to the fringes of Muslim society. The authors also note that such an outcome has made other Islamist groups “wary of crossing the government”. While the clampdown seems effective in the short term, I question its broader implications not only in terms of democracy and pluralism promotion but also its adverse consequences for public health.
Effective but at what cost?
On the one hand, the repression is largely effective in weakening FPI’s mobilising capacity. With Rizieq locked up, FPI’s re-incarnation, called the Islamic Brotherhood Front (also FPI), is struggling to revive its organisational structures. FPI has also failed to draw large crowds to rallies, to the extent that it publicly rebuked its own supporters for failing to show up en masse during Rizieq’s trials. FPI-affiliated channels on Telegram circulated online memes reprimanding his supporters. One poster entitled Fake Love asked his supporters: “how could you just sit and watch all the abuse being inflicted by the regime upon the Prophet’s grandson” (i.e. Habib Rizieq). Another meme labels those who abandoned the struggle as “losers”.
When FPI called on its supporters to swarm in front of Jakarta’s High Court for Rizieq’s verdict announcement on 24 June, some followers responded on FPI’s social media platform by frivolously apologising for their absence as they lived outside Jakarta—something that hadn’t prevented them from attending anti-Ahok rallies in 2016. Others said that they had to lay low after being chased by the police cyber-patrol squad for posting anti-government contents. Still others feared imprisonment—over 400 protesters at Rizieq’s first trial on 18 December 2020 were arrested for infringing health quarantine. Hence, the crackdown seems effective in deterring many Islamist sympathisers from going to the streets.
At the same time, the anti-radicalism campaign’s reliance on excessive force is concerning . The police are increasingly willing to use violent methods in response to demonstrations. We have seen this inclination since 2019, during the post-election riots in which hundreds of police officers were injured and a police dormitory building was burned (while several civilians were killed). Since then, the police have used force more frequently as a pre-emptive strategy to handle anti-government demonstrations. And, particularly in recent mobilisations that accompanied Rizieq’s trials, the police have consistently deployed large forces and brazenly shot teargas at protestors who were unarmed and in relatively small numbers.
The excessive use of force in turn makes Islamist opposition more combative, claiming self-defence. Online propaganda by FPI supporters increasingly displays violent imagery. For example, one poster reads: “when the call for jihad comes and the mujahidin are being blocked, the solution is attack and war! Come from all directions, don’t be afraid of getting imprisoned or killed. Let’s storm the Jakarta High Court and free our Grand Imam! Write a will for your family [i.e. prepare to die]”. Such posters are certainly a far cry from the imagery of ‘super peaceful rallies’ that Islamists propagated—and indeed observed—in 2016 and 2017.
Islamists and Anti-Vaccine Narratives
The repression also has public health costs as some Islamist groups agitate against the government’s COVID vaccination program. It is important to note that Islamist groups are not unanimous on the vaccine issue. On the one hand, many conservative clerics, including Salafis and HTI recommended vaccination. Felix Siauw, a celebrity preacher affiliated with HTI, says that Islam does not prohibit vaccination and in fact, he claims, the Ottoman Caliphate invented and applied smallpox immunisation long before the Europeans. On the other hand, FPI-affiliated media and 212 alumni groups have spearheaded anti-vax campaigns.
FPI’s attitude is particularly interesting. At the beginning of the pandemic, FPI was relatively supportive of the public health campaign especially the Jakarta governor’s initiative. In April 2020, Rizieq called on his supporters to stop speculating about the origins of COVID-19 because the virus is real and that everyone must set aside their political differences to fight it together. FPI also ridiculed as irrational the government’s initial denial of COVID and supported Anies Baswedan’s lockdown policy in Jakarta. But now that the central government has become more serious in implementing social restriction and vaccination, FPI has shifted positions.
It is worth noting that Rizieq has not issued an official statement regarding the vaccine. However, FPI-affiliated media and various 212 alumni groups have recently contributed to spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. They are quite inclusive in their conspiracy repertoires, borrowing and modifying western right-wing narratives. For instance they told online followers that Bill Gates is using vaccines to mass-implant microchips and take control of the human race, especially resource-rich Muslim countries, and that Jokowi is helping him to create a New World Order.
What explains Islamist reversion to dissent? If we look at pro-FPI Telegram channels, most narratives on COVID vaccine are not about whether it is halal or haram. This is in part because the government has, from the outset, engaged the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) and major Islamic organisations to verify the halal status of the state’s preferred vaccines, Sinovac and Astrazeneca. MUI’s seal of approval makes it hard for Islamists to attack the vaccine on religious ground. So, in addition to the political conspiracy behind the vaccine, Islamist anti-vaxers focused on its supposedly dangerous side effects, such as disgusting skin diseases, heart inflammation and death. The vaccine rejection is not as closely connected to anti-China sentiment as assumed by some observers. Many of the pro-Rizieq Islamists and 212 Alumni groups do not just reject Sinovac and Sinofarm, but also all other brands including Pfizer and Moderna.
If religion and anti-China sentiment are not the primary reasons, why did some Islamists suddenly go from being health conscious to vaccine sceptical? There is no particularly coherent reason other than pure spite and animosity towards Jokowi. Some Islamist supporters with whom I spoke confirmed that they were aware of MUI’s religious endorsement of the vaccine and of similar fatwa issued by Middle Eastern ulama. However, they chose not to be vaccinated because Jokowi is “forcing” people by making vaccine mandatory. Some also said that they do not trust the government’s reassurances about vaccine side effects. The fact that the government exploited public health regulations to punish Islamist activists does little to gain trust. That said, my interviewees were quick to add that they still contribute to pandemic eradication in “their own ways” such as praying, wearing masks and taking herbal supplements. This anecdotal evidence suggests that at least one segment of the Islamist community opposes public health regulations due to deepening disillusionment with the government.
In defence of pluralism?
Illiberal suppression has been framed in terms of defending pluralism and religious freedom. However, there are compelling reasons to believe that it has not been worthwhile for the protection of minorities. Wahid Foundation’s 2020 data comparing violations of religious freedom during President Yudhono and Jokowi presidencies shows that the overall trends have barely changed (from 1,110 incidents under Yudhoyono to 1,101 cases in Jokowi era). Surprisingly, state-perpetrated violations have increased under Jokowi (from 419 to 524 cases). The Setara Institute recorded 422 violations of religious freedom in 2020 alone, 56 percent of which were conducted by state actors. In addition, rights advocacy groups have reported growing persecution of LGBT citizens, including through police raids on so-called gay massage parlors and private parties.
The attack on an Ahmadiyah mosque in Sintang, West Kalimantan on 3 September is but one indication that the existing anti-radicalism campaign has merely served as a political weapon to target government enemies, rather than defending minorities. The crackdown simply masks the complex problems underlying religious and sexual discriminations in Indonesia, in particular the frequent involvement of state actors and the impunity afforded to them. In November 2020, the East Java government reportedly facilitated the conversion of a long-persecuted Shi’a minority as a prerequisite for returning to their predominantly-Sunni hometown of Sampang. Even after the conversion, the internally displaced Shi’a families have not been able to go home due to objections from the Sampang ulama and community elders. Last June, the mayor of Bogor, West Java unilaterally relocated the GKI Yasmin Church following a 15 year-long sectarian agitation to deny it building permit. The mayor stated that his government gifted the land to the church as compensation, and that it was a win-win solution to create religious harmony without upsetting the majority.
The above examples remind us that the perpetrators of anti-minority violence are not limited to organised groups like FPI. It often involves state apparatuses, community leaders and ordinary citizens. For instance in the latest case of anti-Ahmadi violence in West Kalimantan, the district head with the support of the local police chief and military commander closed off the mosque, citing the 2008 Joint Ministerial Decree on Ahmadiyah which effectively restricts the rights of Ahmadis to practice their beliefs. Such official endorsement in turn emboldened a local mob—backed by community leaders—who had been agitating against the Ahmadis. Video footage online shows attending police officers standing in silence as the attackers burned the mosque to the ground.
The banning of FPI or any other “anti-Pancasila” group is not a shortcut to ending deep-seated discrimination against minorities. For this, the government will need to address problematic regulations which formalise discrimination against certain minorities and end the impunity afforded to perpetrators under the guise of respecting the majority will or preserving religious harmony.
Letter from 137 lawmakers urges fund to drop stakes in firms accused of human rights violations or linked to Chinese state
A cross-party group of more than 137 parliamentarians, including 117 MPs, have called on parliament’s pension fund to disinvest from Chinese companies accused of complicity in gross human rights violations or institutions linked to the Chinese state.
The signatories include Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, and former Conservative cabinet ministers Liam Fox, Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Tebbit. Others include the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, and shadow foreign affairs minister Stephen Kinnock. The Conservative MP David Amess was also a signatory, one of his last political acts before his death on Friday.
Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents
Flicking through the news one day in early 2015, Alexey Kharis, a California-based businessman and father of two, came across a startling announcement: Russia would request a global call for his arrest through the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol.
“Oh, wow,” Kharis thought, shocked. All the 46-year-old knew about Interpol and its pursuit of the world’s most-wanted criminals was from novels and films. He tried to reassure himself that things would be OK and it was just an intimidatory tactic of the Russian authorities. Surely, he reasoned, the world’s largest police organisation had no reason to launch a hunt for him.
