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Jubilant and nationalist images are likely to pour out of Indonesia on Oct. 20, but the world must pay attention to what happens the next day and after. The inauguration of Indonesia’s next president should mark a new era of optimism in Southeast Asia’s largest country, but, as the Pope noted while visiting there in early September, Indonesia still faces the threat of violence due to prejudice, intolerance, and hate.
Presidential candidates did not discuss the threat of terrorism in-depth during the campaign. Yet violent extremism still played a role as counterterrorism forces worked diligently to ensure that violent attacks did not disrupt election proceedings and formerly convicted violent extremists participated peacefully in the political process for the first time.
President-Elect Prabowo Subianto is a former Minister of Defense. He is not unfamiliar with Indonesia’s security challenges, and concerns about how he has dealt with those challenges in the past overshadow him. Prabowo’s rise to power coincides with the expiration of the country’s National Action Plan (NAP) on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Indonesia faces uncertainty in continuing to guarantee peace after two decades of relatively successfully recalibrating its security approach since terrorist attacks on the island of Bali pushed the issue to the top of the country’s political agenda.
Decades of Terrorism and Counterterrorism
In 2002, suicide bombers from the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyahh killed 202 people in Bali, igniting a string of attacks that continued into the 2010s.
Violent extremism in the country is approximately as old as the Indonesian state, which gained its independence in the late 1940s. Throughout the late 20th century, various Islamist militia groups waged attacks against the young state, believing its secularism to be anti-religion or anti-Islam.
The government and military fought back. President-elect Prabowo played a role in this history, including by allegedly committing human rights abuses while working under authoritarian President Suharto. These abuses compounded the government’s repressive policies and unequal treatment of Indonesia’s various ethnic and religious groups. The government of the late 20th century thereby sharpened feelings of resentment that can lead to radicalization.
Violent extremism in the country is approximately as old as the Indonesian state, which gained its independence in the late 1940s.
After the Bali attacks, the government reinvigorated its response to terrorism, beefing up the security, police, and military apparatuses that encompass counterterrorism. Its special police unit, Densus 88, arrested the masterminds behind terror attacks, leading to their prosecution, and surveilled suspected violent extremists. Although violent extremist attacks decreased through the early 2000s, the country discovered the resilience of terror groups and realized it needed a more comprehensive approach than security and force alone.
Non-military Responses
The Indonesian government shifted from emphasizing counterterrorism to a more inclusive approach designed to address the drivers of violent extremism and rehabilitate violent extremist offenders. It launched a new government agency in 2010 to coordinate non-military responses to terrorism.
This CVE approach involves partnering with law enforcement, civil society groups, and community leaders to address the underlying factors leading to violent radicalization. It employs non-military tools, such as education, training, and economic empowerment, but also rule of law and government accountability, to reduce individuals’ susceptibility to radical groups and the attraction of radical groups.
Indonesia has spent the last nearly quarter century conducting in-prison deradicalization, limiting student radicalization in public and religious schools, and promoting messages of tolerance. It partners with religious organizations, local nonprofits, and foreign governments to fund, coordinate, and run programs such as strengthening women’s economic access and reintegrating former foreign terrorist fighters into society.
National Action Plan
The most noteworthy advancement in advancing Indonesia’s CVE efforts came with the adoption of its National Action Plan in 2021. The plan outlines factors that often lead to violent extremism, including poor governance and human rights violations.
It lists CVE best practices, including bolstering research to better understand the drivers of extremism, clearly delegating responsibilities, engaging with educational sectors to encourage critical thinking, implementing community policing, socially and economically reintegrating former violent extremists, and accounting for the needs of particular social groups, such as children and women, in all programming.
To be clear, Indonesia’s CVE efforts are not perfect. The government has been criticized for its lack of coordination with local civil society. The NAP overemphasizes supposed “primordial” religious differences in driving extremism, enabling the national government to overlook its role in driving violent extremism, including paying more attention to urban than rural areas and disregarding land conflicts, corruption, economic inequality, and the violation of human rights by officials. The plan’s strategies to target extreme or radical viewpoints may also lead to infringements on the right to expression, belief, and religion. With the NAP set to expire at the end of 2024, the future of Indonesia’s CVE efforts is unclear.
The Road Ahead
The election of a man once banned from entering the United States for his connection to military torture and disappearances should lead to apprehension among enthusiasts of CVE in Indonesia.
Although he has tried to soften his image in recent years, Prabowo has aligned with radical conservative groups, disregarded minority rights, and cultivated a strongman image that could presage continued democratic erosion. We do not yet know if he will continue on the newer, tolerant course he charted to be electable or, once in power, will pivot back to the hardline persona he exemplified for decades.
Although the election is over, Indonesia now faces another choice. It can forge ahead with working with local nongovernmental groups, avoiding demonstrating religious or ethnic favoritism, humbly reflecting on the role it has played in driving violent extremism due to its (in)actions, and renewing its NAP by the end of the year. Or it can allow Prabowo to tilt again towards the militaristic and securitized approach of the past — or worse, let the country slide back towards the age of military human rights abuses.
The collaboration, moderation, and bureaucratic machinations required for advancement are not typically associated with a strongman. Perhaps Prabowo will see that a nation’s real strength comes not from a heavy hand but united hands in pursuing the common goal of peace.
