In Reply to: Posted posted by dickkyboy on Monday, 3. October 2005 at 14:37 Bali Time:
Bashir was put in jail by Suharto because of his opposition to the secularity of Indonesia and various criticisms of Suharto, who was a dictator.
It's possible that they entertained some weird notion of Indonesia voting in someone who would be able to enact sharia law, though there's never been a genuine chance of any candidate doing that.
This alleged proposal that JI wants a pan-asian Islamic state sounds like the sort of thing that knob-ends would dream about, but they seem to be going about it very strangely.
For starters, they could just move to Aceh and live under sharia there, and then try to expand it to the rest of Sumatra and work their way through the country that way.
There are two states of Malaysia that follow sharia law, and the two most wanted JI dudes are Malaysian. Why not base themselves in the Malaysian Sharia states and work on the neighbouring states? They also have the option of living in Brunei.
Instead, we've got the minority Muslims struggling in southern Thailand and pissing off the Buddhists. There's pockets in the Phillipines pissing off the Christians. In Indonesia they're pissing off the Christians in Ambon and Poso, the Hindus in Bali, and the Muslims in Jakarta. They seem to have been pretty quiet in Malaysia, though they have been crossing the border a lot between Malaysia and south Thailand.
Anyway, so they've spread themselves thinly across the region and pissed off Asians everywhere, and all the major religions including their own. Basically, everyone in the whole region wants to punch them in the head, and their attacks have galvanised the entire world against them so that the westerners they supposedly hate are working more closely with Indonesia than they have in years. At what point are they expecting everyone to say: "Oh, yeh, you're right!" ?
Their actions seem like those of agitators fighting a foreign occupancy. Perhaps that's how they perceive SBY: as a US trained lacky of the West. The embassy bombing did take place on SBY's birthday, shortly before the election.
But then, there was speculation that the embassy bombing was supposed to aid SBY by convincing people to vote for a military candidate. It was down to him or Mega at that point, and they'd already done a few big attacks while she was in power. So they couldn't have been on her side.
So I don't quite buy the theory that it's against SBY primarily. And they don't seem to care whether there's a democracy or a dictatorship. (Though maybe they're thinking of somehow installing a Sultan. I can't see Hamenkebowono taking the job, and I'm sure I've spelled his name wrong.
It could be designed to undermine the Indonesian economy, though. More poor people means more people to manipulate, and the bulk of the economy is either foreign owned, or controlled by Chinese Indonesians.
It still doesn't sound entirely convincing, though.
If only these dudes would sit down with someone and explain exactly what it is they hope to achieve, we could all suggest a better way for them to go about it.
The whole "trying to bomb people into accepting sharia law" is kind of an acceptable theory, if you also accept they are either stupid or tragically optimistic. Or both.
And if you accept that theory, then you have to accept that it's at odds with everything Bashir has written and, as far as I can tell, preached. Which is that ultimately, when everyone fully understands the teachings of Islam, they will accept sharia law willingly. Without violence.
I don't think both of those theories can coexist.
But then again, they may all just be a pack of nutters.
And speaking of nutters, here's some fodder for conspiracy theorists (and I accept that many conspiracy theories become conspiracy facts)...
Obvious beneficiaries of an economically weak Indonesia: Oil and mineral companies.
Obvious beneficiaries of a timely terrorist attack: US weapons makers -- since George has been trying to convince the senate to start trading arms with Indonesia for a few years now; the Howard Government, who are trying to push through a bunch of retarded anti-terrorist laws.
For those last two, with or without a conspiracy, you can be sure that this latest bombing will be used to push the wills of the leaders, so we all have to try to think rationally rather than letting our emotions/fears convince us to agree to stupid things.
anyway... that should give us a few things to argue about for a while :)