I should also add that the Islamists are bitterly opposed (in both Indonesia and Bangladesh) to more "folk" or syncretist varieties of Islam (witness the gradual delegitimization of Sufism in Pakistan, bomb blasts at Sufi shrines in Bangladesh), which groups like the Indonesian Gammah Islamiya see as "un-Islamic." Take the case of Java: predominantly Muslim, yet continues to be keyed to pre-Islamic mythologies

Indonesian Islam is not a monolith-- one would do better to speak of Indonesian Islams-- but in many ways Muslims themselves are responsible for the view that Islam is "the same everywhere," and I think it has something to do with the fact that the Muslims represented best in the media are from the "orthodox" demographic groups (even if they are "lapsed" they are "lapsed orthodox"), and this is particularly striking when one considers that if African, Indian, Indonesian, and Central Asian Muslims are considered, a majority of Muslims would be adherents of forms of Islam that the orthodox consider highly problematic...

PS-- Bong Breaker's point about "Arabization" (i.e. the invention of a manifestly false tradition and genealogy) is well taken, and is something that is relevant to the sub-continent as well, in Bangladesh and Pakistan and even to varying degrees in India.

Umair,

The "Arabization" aspect is relevant to the British Muslim population too, the greater proportion of whom are actually originally from the Indian subcontinent (or at least their parents are).

I think the aritcle has some fundamental flaws. Read my brief comments at pickled politics.

Umair, though redacted, your callipygian slip was noted with much amusement. ;)

Yeesh, why d'you gotta use words I have to go google the meaning of... :-)

Though now that I have googled it, must say it provides for some fond musings in the middle of the workday...

Christopher Hitchens has his take on Bali here:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2127343/

Two bits which caught my eye:

"Random bombings are not a protest against poverty and unemployment. They are a cause of poverty and unemployment and of wider economic dislocation."

"Hinduism is considered by Bin Ladenists to be a worse heresy even than Christianity or Judaism or Shiism, and its adherents, whether in Bali or Kashmir, are fit only for the edge of the sword. So, it is absurd to think of jihadism—which murders the poor and the brown without compunction—as a movement against the rich and the "white."

Bali, a Hindu island in an Islamic ocean, and that seems to be its crime. Hindu pacifism is what got Bali into this mess in the first place.

Israel - another non-muslim island in an Islamic ocean. And Singapore is yet another.

Bali is beautiful place. I've been there a few times (a short hop from where I lived in Tokyo). Saronged women drop flowers on the doorsteps each morning.

It's a crying shame.

i wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this comment:

Hindu pacifism is what got Bali into this mess in the first place.

prompts me to weight in. i've read a fair amount on the history of indonesia and its various peoples. it's complex. for example, the dutch in the 19th conquered bali on the pretense that they were protecting the muslims of java from the expansionist conquests of the balinese rajah. so the balinese are not supine pacifists.

in the broadest estimation the muslims clearly do target bali for its idolatrous hinduism. but it behooves us to keep in mind the general religio-demography of indonesia (a nation that spans as many degrees of longitude as the united states!):

1) of the 90% of indonesia's muslims probably around 1/4 to 2/5 are santri, that is, "orthodox" muslims who follow the 5 pillars and established sharia traditions (usually shafi in indonesia). the remainder are loosely classified as abangan, roughly rustic "syncretist" muslims. a celebratory feast called slametan is central to abangan culture.

2) there is a lot of variation among the santri. some are pretty clearly arabicizers who want indonesian islam to be reduced and reformulated as a geographical variant on islamic culture as it is practiced in the middle east (this includes the shafi branch of sharia). but others are more flexible, and many personally santri religious leaders have wide followings amoung rural peasants who are abangan. this results is a breakdown among santri between modernist/reformists and traditionalists. for example, in java the modernists/reformists are more powerful in west java and the traditionalists in east java. if you hear liberal sentiments and acceptance of religious pluralism from indonesian clerics, like the former president gus dur, they have their origins amongst the traditionalist clerisy. the modernist/reformists tend to be more confrontational and dismissive toward javanese mysticism and folk islam. a lot of them have roots in pilgrims who went to mecca in the 19th century and returned to indonesia and promoted middle eastern norms among a petite bourgeoise following.

3) so the war is being waged by a violent sect of modernist/reformist muslims who wish to deracinate indonesians, whether they be javanese, dayak, balinese, ambonese, etc. down to the basic core of islamic beliefs and practices and everyone else, though the idolatrous hindus are quite clearly the easiest targets. also note that the founding president of indonesia, sukarno, had a balinese hindu mother, and the most recent president before the current one, his daughter, was criticized for praying in hindu temples.

4) as urbanization and literacy spreads the "syncretic" islam is not going to last. the number of modernist/reformists is clearly increasing in direct proportion to the uprooting of geographically rooted and bounded traditions and norms. abangan islam is not being carried into jakarta, santri, especially its modernist/reformists form, is what is rising in its place. of course, there is also the secular elite, in part made up of chinese and christians, which tends to act as a counterpoint to the modernist/reformists....

Razib -- I'd also add regionalism to that list. Java has a Santri/Abangan divide, Aceh does not. and the conflicts in South Sulawesi and Christian majority Ambon are also quite different.

I guess the other thing this post brings to mind is that it makes it seem that Al Qaeda has attacked Bali BECAUSE it is Hindu. Now, while I have no doubts if Al Qaeda had the resources to fight all their battles at once they would attack all the "infidels" they could, I should note that Al Qaeda has not attacked temples in Bali, etc. Al Qaeda's modus operandi appears to be to "hit" places where Western and/or Israeli tourists congregate (Sharm al-Sheikh, Bali), I suspect to: (i) drive Westerners away, thereby removing possible points of contact between Westerners and locals; (ii) kill tourism cash cows for "apostate" governments.

Just so I'm not misunderstood, NO DOUBT Al Qaeda hates Hindus; in fact there is no doubt that if one had Al Qaeda's worldview, as a theological matter Hindus would be "at the bottom of the heap" relative to Jews, Christians, Shiites. Despite that, however, the latter three are targeted with far greater regularity than Balinese Hindus (my understanding is the blasts are at tourist resorts), which brings me back to a point I had made on a different thread, that theology appears to interest these radicals less than political rage does (hence I am actually a fan of the neo-con innovation that refers to these ideologues as "Islamist" rather than "fundamentalist"; for them "Islam" truly is an -ism, evoking the fascisms, Leninisms, and Communisms of yore).

Interestingly, where "heretical" Muslims and Jews are concerned, Al Qaeda and like-minded groups do appear to target places of worship as well: in Bangladesh there have been dozens of bomb attacks on Sufi dargahs in the last few years, in Iraq suicide attacks everywhere, including at Shiite festivals/processions, have become the norm, and synagogues were bombed in Istanbul and in Morocco I believe.

Somebody already quoted Christopher Hitchens but missed the sentence that is most appropriate.

Never make the mistake of asking for rationality here

So, all the noise on this blog is nothing but noise. Guys, we get it you are brilliant! But sometimes the answer is on the surface. You don't have to dig deep.

...and as a counterpoint to my claim that Al Qaeda is not as theological as it is political, The Weekly Standard had a chilling piece some time ago...

Never make the mistake of asking for rationality here

So, all the noise on this blog is nothing but noise. Guys, we get it you are brilliant! But sometimes the answer is on the surface. You don't have to dig deep.

simple answers spawn simple solutions to complex problems. what victories you achieve in rhetorical fights you cede in a getting at a better model of the situation at hand.

i am glab btw that there is an openness on this weblog to those who dissent from the unthinking mantras promoted by sloganeers of all stripes. ironic, in light of the origin of the term mantra :)

I just cant stand when these things happen, did Bin Laden make any statement about India ever?

did Bin Laden make any statement about India ever

i believe he has mooted the idea of jihad against india because like spain it is part of the dar-al-islam which is ruled by kufirs (a conventional way to define if something is in the dar-al-islam is if muslims rule a region, not if it is majority muslim, and a muslim ruled region must never be ceded). i believe the afghanistan invasion turned his attention to survival, but he has been linked to kashmiri militants and what not.

I doubt bin Laden hates Hindus. I doubt he hates Christians or Jews either. He just likes to kill people.

When you think about, it is very hard to kill lots of people and get away with it unless you are pretending to be fighting for some cause. But since his cause makes absolutely no sense, I would assume it is mere pretext.

"I doubt bin Laden hates Hindus. I doubt he hates Christians or Jews either. He just likes to kill people."

I must confess I don't find this plausible: because even if he just likes to kill people, why THESE people (Hindus, Christians, Jews, Shiites) and not others (e.g. his driver, wife)? That answer is provided by considering the man's ideology...

But since his cause makes absolutely no sense, I would assume it is mere pretext.

it makes plenty of sense assuming particular axioms. the previous commenter who repeated hitchens' contention that these terrorists are not rational is debasing the conception of what "rationality" is. first, i want to get it on the record that i don't believe humans are utility-maximizing rational actors, at least the typical human. but honestly i think part of the problem is that the stereotypical higher up al qaeda leader is excessively rational, in drawing the logical conclusions from nutty axioms (ie islam*). as i've noted before the foremost actors within these transnational terrorist networks are often very highly educated in technical fields. bin laden has a background in civil engineering (for example). a common profile of fundamentalists in many countries is that they are from technical backgrounds.

rationality is the process of working out inferences based on a particular set of axioms. there seems to be a common tendency for people to discount that others can be rational actors when their axioms are strange or peculiar, but ultimately the criterion that determines rationality is the chain of logical inferences between the axioms and the final conclusions, not the axioms and conclusions themselves.

* one argument that pro-slavery christians made during the 19th century was that black africans who were enslaved and christianized benefited their eternal soul. ergo, evaluated over the long haul a short term stint in slavery in the corporeal realm was a minimal price to pay for exposure to the good news and everlasting life. if you take most religions seriously you can draw all sorts of bizarre conclusions. no offense to catholics here, but most non-catholics view the the real presence/transubstantion doctrine bizarre and irrational, but, if you read aquinas his logic and rationale is pretty clear.

also, let me add one last thing in case people read me wrong: i don't believe that the tenets of any given religion rationally imply any given conclusion. that is, i don't believe religious interpretation is like mathematics where the chain of inferences is relatively clear and crisp. to use the term of some cognitive scientists i think the sort of rationality that bin laden and other textual fundamentalists use to justify their ideology is "quasi-propositional," it mimics the general style of propositional logic, but the inferences are usually (in my opinion) attained via individual intuition molded by group consensus. both muslims and jews have a doctrine where the majority of scholars can not be wrong because god wouldn't allow them to be wrong. a plain reading of the missionary monotheistic religions and their texts can result in a variety of inferences, conditioned by social milieu and individual predisposition. ergo, you have christian soldiers and christian pacifists, both justifying their interpretations from the same source text.

the point i'm trying to get across is that terrorist networks and acts are not inscrutable forces of nature emerging from one-dimensional atavistic impulses. i think they are modelable and understandeable.

to bring my ramble to a pragmatic implication: i think over the past few years the US gov. has been engaging in a course of action predicated on very simple models premised on unjustified axioms. these beliefs have resulted in actions that, in hindsight, seem to have been counterproductive. talking and thinking until the cows come home isn't a good thing, but neither is acting before you have a good picture of the situation at hand.

did Bin Laden make any statement about India ever

Here's the bit where he talks about Kashmir in his 2001 message to the world.

Our brothers in Kashmir have been subjected to the worst forms of torture for over 50 years. They have been massacred, killed, and raped. Their blood has been shed and their houses have been trespassed upon.

Bin Laden's 2001 Message

Bringing Christopher Hitchens, the Bolshevik polemicist, into the discussion muddies the issue.

An intersting book:
Great Expectations: Hindu Revival Movements in Java, Indonesia
By Thomas Reuter

Balinese Hinduism. Wiki

Razib,

I really wish you were in a situation where you were sitting across a desk from OBL and could argue the entire issue out with him rationally, enabling you to invalidate his argument....

BTW, the observations about the technical background of Al-Qaeda's key players are spot-on (his "First Officer" is a medical doctor, isn't he ?) -- they're from backgrounds which require a high level of intellectual capacity combined with pure logic unencumbered by emotional aspects.

So, unfortunately, the idea of controlling one's ego/arrogance and more emotional-orientated concepts such as compassion and empathy aren't factored into the equation of their behaviour, ie. issues of the "heart" (in the positive sense of the term) are subjugated to rationalisation, ruthless logic, and brute practicality (the latter could also be termed as "extreme cynicism").

This, of course, fits in nicely with interpretations of their religion where the emphasis is on "Submission" to the faith's tenets and commandments -- irrespective of what your own life-experience, emotions, and independent thinking may be telling you.

A semi-related article from The Times -- the New York Fire Department has just fired its imam for claiming that Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with 9/11.

The indonesian bombing, and the london bombing were not carried out by 'Al Queda'.

Merely unrelated people following Al Queda's twisted brand of islamism.

I really wish you were in a situation where you were sitting across a desk from OBL and could argue the entire issue out with him rationally, enabling you to invalidate his argument....

i'm not proposing any dialogue with OBL, i'm proposing we actually understand a problem before we proceed to implement solutions. i actually initially typed something where i cast plenty of aspersions on you, but let me take you at face value (i don't know what your tone is). if you read what i said above, you will note that it isn't a matter of OBL & co. being irrational, it is a matter of them engaging in a particular set of "rational" inferences from particular axioms. "reasoning" with someone presumes a common ground of understanding from which one starts, that isn't going to happen because that common ground doesn't exist.

the problem people seem to have is the simultaneous rhetorical acknowledge that the axioms aren't held in common, but, then people behave as if OBL & co. do hold common axioms, so their alternative world-view must be the result of faulty reasoning or mental illness. saying someone has faulty reasoning implies that you can argue with them from the same references. that isn't going to work. assuming someone is mentally ill simply repackages them into an inscrutable force of nature, and people on your "own side" can start fabricating all sorts of weird "solutions" that don't get to the heart of the problem.

Razib buddy,

My comment wasn't actually sarcastic in tone -- it was a compliment to you and your ability to argue things out rationally. Since OBL & Co seem to be basing their thought-processes on a ruthlessly rational (to them) chain of deductions, I was suggesting that perhaps what is required is someone with your own intellectual arguing ability to take them on. This was just a semi-flippant comment, and again, something intended as a positive reflection on you -- I wasn't actually suggesting you walk into the UN building in NY and ask where you can sign up ;)

(Hopefully you've also read enough of my posts here on SM to have got a basic understanding of my personality, in the sense that I'm not facetious or unnecessarily sarcastic towards other people. I don't make aggressive attacks on others unless they're being malicious or deliberately & grossly neglegent).

With regards to the problem of lack of common ground with OBL: Well, I know what you mean (how can you reason with someone if they're going to dismiss your views out of hand as being from an "accursed infidel" ?!), although as I mentioned in the "War as a Mental Illness" thread, there is a notable precedent for this, vis-a-vis Guru Gobind Singh and the Emperor Aurangzeb. (Do a search for "Zafarnama" if you're not aware of what I'm referring to). Of course, the problem is that it may require someone of the calibre of Guru Gobind Singh to be able to successfully take on OBL if one wishes to secure a positive outcome via this approach. However, as Aurangzeb did end up repenting on his death-bed and accepting responsibility for his grossly misguided actions based on his religious fanaticism (he was actually terrified about what was subsequently going to happen to him in the Afterlife because of all this, as recorded in his letters to his sons) -- and consider how long he ruled for and the wealth and power he had at his disposal during his lifetime (certainly greater than OBL on both counts) -- my point was that perhaps there is still hope for OBL too if the same approach is applied to him. Some of the present dynamics are obviously different, but the present "jihad" is not the first time this has happened.

*shrug* I don't know, although it would be good to hear your own views on the above. I listed some other potential solutions to the problem of radical Islam in the other thread too.

Hey guys, been working 16 hours a day (nice) - haven't had time to check in. Thanks Anna for the shout, very kind of you. Glad it stimulated a bit of discussion.

I have put a response to your points OYBBB.

See you guys next week.

An eye opening interview with Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, (JI), al-Qa'eda's main ally in the Jakarta region.

His final comments:

As long as there is no intention to fight us and Islam continues to grow there can be peace. This is the doctrine of Islam. Islam can't be ruled by others. Allah's law must stand above human law. There is no [example] of Islam and infidels, the right and the wrong, living together in peace.

A chilling message for the infidels