Oleh: Surya Darma Hamonangan Dalimunthe
There are at least two ways to define radicalism. One is through etymological accuracy, the other popular interpretation. Etymologically, the word ‘radicalism’ originates from the root ‘radical’. Merriam-Webster Word Central website stated that:
Our word radical was formed from the Latin adjective radicalis, which simply meant “of or relating to a root.” The Latin word radix meant “root.” This meaning was kept when the word radicalis came into English as radical, but new senses developed too. Since a root is at the bottom of something, radical came to describe what is at the base or beginning, in other words, what is “basic, fundamental.” Later, radical was used to describe something that was extremely different from the usual. Then, as a noun radical came to be applied to a person who wants to make extreme or “radical” changes in the government or in society.
Indeed, the popular interpretation for the word ‘radical’ is currently related to extreme changes in government or society. Andy Fitzgerald has written that even though being labeled a ‘radical’ is nowadays often meant as an insult, history tells us otherwise:
It’s a similar scenario with “radical” – a word often used to evoke associations with extremism, instability and an absolutist approach to politics. But the popular usage belies the important role many radicals have played in promoting democracy and justice throughout history, not to mention the continued role radical ideas and activism have to play in unfinished projects .
Fitzgerald wrote that in the context of the United States of America, “it was “radicals” who were responsible for sowing the seeds of two of America’s most important social movements: worker rights and racial justice.” He cited Saul Alinksy, the father of American community organizing, who wrote, “America was begun by its radicals. America was built by its radicals. The hope and future of America lies with its radicals.”
If the word radical has negative and positive interpretation, in Indonesia the word radicalism is more often than not perceived negatively. A popular definition of the word as can be found in casual conversation and mass-media is described in Wikipedia Indonesia:
Radikalisme adalah suatu paham yang dibuat-buat oleh sekelompok orang yang menginginkan perubahan atau pembaharuan sosial dan politik secara drastis dengan menggunakan cara-cara kekerasan.
Namun bila dilihat dari sudut pandang keagamaan dapat diartikan sebagai paham keagamaan yang mengacu pada fondasi agama yang sangat mendasar dengan fanatisme keagamaan yang sangat tinggi, sehingga tidak jarang penganut dari paham / aliran tersebut menggunakan kekerasan kepada orang yang berbeda paham / aliran untuk mengaktualisasikan paham keagamaan yang dianut dan dipercayainya untuk diterima secara paksa.
To discuss radicalism in Indonesia, this paper uses this last definition, focusing on the phrases “cara-cara kekerasan” and “fanatisme keagamaan”. Another focus is on Islam as the religion of the majority.
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Yusef Progler, a transnational Islamic intellectual and activist active in the Multiversity project, has cited the native American scholar Ward Churchill’s label of ‘White Studies’ for “the amalgam of Western theory and method” or “Euro-American centric knowledge system” in which “a set of theories and practices that were developed with Western modernity and spread by colonialism” is adhered to. In his response to Churchill’s critical label, Progler suggested the options proposed by John Mohawk in dealing with White Studies, becoming a good subject, bad subject, and last but not least, no subject at all:
A good subject means that you play by all the rules, you treat it with respect and reverence, and ou do what you are supposed to do, you work within the hierarchy, you follow all the parameters, procedures and protocols of the system, and you are a good subject. The second response is to become a bad subject.
A bad subject means that you do not really question the foundations of the system, of the discourse, but you merely engage in quibbling over its details, arguing and perhaps even trying to wrestle some control away of the discourse from those who established it, much the way nationalists tried to wrestle control of the state away from the colonialists. But, the bad subjects cannot really change much, they can just gain control, or they complain, or they argue, but they do not really get at the root of the problem, they do not alter the terms of the discourse, and so they more or less perpetuate the same colonial system.
But there is a third option, to continue with John Mohawk’s reasoning, and that is to become a non-subject, to abandon the discourse completely, to “vacate the space,” if you will, to give up on it. Now, granted, this third option is very difficult to pursue, but it is none the less, at least in my view, a viable option that ought to be pursued. …Maybe some academics (need to become the next Edward Said and work from within the university system) can do that, but many of us cannot, first of all. Second of all, and more importantly, by staying the course and not vacating the space we are validating the system. We are in a sense paying allegiance by our very participation, by publishing in its journals, by teaching in its institutions, by sending our children to its schools, by seeking jobs and fame and fortune from within this system, we are supporting it, perpetuating it. So, vacating the space is a way to force the system to fold in on itself, by removing the diversity that it needs in order to be a legitimate academic system. We have the power to withhold that diversity, and to reveal the system for what it is, which is White Studies, for all to see.
To borrow Mohawk’s options, there have been three effects of radicalism among Indonesians. The first is the ‘good subject’ effect. Most Indonesians, including the ulama and intellectuals, have accepted the label of ‘radical’ and ‘radicalism’ to be related with Islam and busy themselves with speaking and writing for or against it. A simple search on Google Scholar and Portal Garuda, the premier Indonesian academic database, with the keywords ‘radicalism’ and ‘radikalisme’ can prove this. The multitudes of seminars, workshops, symposiums, conferences, and other events arranged by Indonesians in every layer of government and society containing either word in its theme for the past decade is a further proof.
Only a minority becomes ‘bad subject’, rejecting the relationship between’radicalism’ and Islam, stating as Mohamed Ghilan, “Radicalism is a political problem, not an Islamic One”:
The very idea that Islam can be categorised into radical, moderate, extremist, etc., gives credence to the Islamophobic assumption that Islam has an inherent quality within it that makes it dangerous – regardless of context. It also removes responsibility from the individual and places blame on the religion itself, as if it is something that can stand on its own without the human element. To assume that Islam is the primary motivation for the presence of extremist violence in the Muslim world is to assume that without Islam, no violent groups would arise in the same political conditions that exist today. It is not mere coincidence that all violent groups in Muslim majority countries in modern times constantly speak of themselves as legitimate forces of resistance against foreign occupation or local despotic governments that serve foreign interests.
Islam is not a religion of peace. It also is not a religion of violence. It is a religion for human beings, who by nature of their primal instincts sometimes engage in violent conflicts. It is, therefore, not appropriate to view the Koran as a contradictory text, simply because it contains peaceful as well as violent verses. Rather, it is a text that contains passages that relate to behaviour during violent conflict, surrounded by passages calling towards peace and coexistence.
However, very few has become ‘no subject’, that is not ignoring ‘radicalism’, but finding and doing other more important things for the benefit of the nation and the ummah. To understand this last option, it is necessary to discuss the causes of radicalism.
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Causes of Radicalism
In his essay in The Cairo Review of Global Affairs titled “The Problem with Radicalism”, the American-Turkish scholar Omer Taspiner stated that both ideology and economy are important to explain the causes of radicalism:
The question about the root causes of radicalism has generated a very polarized and so far inconclusive debate. Generally speaking, two major views have emerged. In one camp, there are those who see ideology, culture, and religion as the main drivers of radicalization. In the opposing camp, social and economic factors such as lack of education, unemployment, and absence of upward mobility trump other causes. The correlation between deprivation and radicalism is strongly rejected by the first group focusing on ideology for a simple reason: most terrorists are neither poor nor uneducated. In fact, the majority of terrorists seem to come from middle class and ordinary backgrounds. Terrorism is therefore almost exclusively perceived as a “security threat” with no discernible socioeconomic roots or links to deprivation. As a result, while the second group wants to prioritize development, education, and good governance to struggle against radicalism, the first group defines the fight against terrorism as a security issue with a single-minded focus on ideology.
Offering another nuanced view, the famed sociologist Manuel Castell observed that ‘identity’ is very important in a ‘network society’ of this twenty first century:
Let’s say, the global capitalist network, left to itself, will include in the network companies, countries, regions, people, that enhance the value of this network in money-making terms. This is an extreme situation, but it’s not completely away from what’s happening in the world.
Then, people who don’t have this value, don’t have the education, don’t have the infrastructure, don’t have the institutions, what do they do? They cannot live without these networks which provide them with everything and capture any wealth from anywhere through processing everywhere. At the same time, if they cannot actually contribute to these networks, they are switched off. So we observed two sorts of reactions. Some people in some countries, in some regions, are saying, “Well, if you don’t value me as a producer of bananas, I’ll produce cocaine, and then I become part of the cocaine network, and then what I do is smuggling; or I sell women and children,” and that goes into the so-called perverse connection.
The global criminal economy is a new phenomenon. It’s interconnected throughout the world. And at this point, it’s equivalent, more or less, according to the IMF, to about $1.5 trillion in the world, which is about the GDP of the United Kingdom. So, that’s one reaction.
The other reaction is to say, “Wait a second. If you exclude me, in terms of your values, from your network, I exclude you.” What I call the exclusion of the excluders by the excluded. And then they say, “You may be very rich and very technologically advanced, but I have gut. And my gut is better than your money, and that’s different.” Or “I have my historically rooted ethnic identity. I am a Chiapas Indian. As a Chiapas Indian, I don’t care about your North American Treaty of Free Trade, because you will have to acknowledge me, or I will die for it.
Specific to Indonesia, the causes related to radicalism has been elaborated in the paper ‘Building Religious Harmony through Economic Empowerment and Public Goods’. Solutions are also offered in the paper, which can be effectively summed-up in the name of Muhammadinah, which can be short for ‘Muhammad di Madinah’, as well as a renewed version of Muhammadiyah or Muhammadiyah 2.0.
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Solutions of Radicalism
Taspiner has offered the concept of ‘relative deprivation’:
Radicalization is too complex of a phenomenon and it has multiple causes. An ideal breeding ground for recruitment emerges when various social, cultural, economic, political, and psychological factors come together. Dismissing the economic and social roots of radicalization on the grounds that most terrorists have middle class backgrounds is simplistic and misleading. It is equally wrong, however, to argue that ideology, culture, and religion play no role in the radicalization process.
The key to understanding who joins violent movements is to go beyond social and economic factors or pure ideology. The challenge is to see the interaction between cultural and economic factors without focusing exclusively on ideology or development. In other words, instead of cultural or economic determinism, we have to avoid deterministic, mono-causal explanations and focus on how ideological and socioeconomic factors interact. Only by adopting such an inclusive methodology can the two camps find common ground and come up with more effective prescriptions for policymakers in the fight against radicalism.
The place to start is to accept that ideology becomes much more important when socioeconomic aspirations are on the rise. This is why the concept of relative deprivation—rather than absolute deprivation—deserves more attention. Unlike absolute socioeconomic deprivation, which looks at the consequences of abject poverty or absence of formal education, relative deprivation is all about aspirations and expectations relative to opportunities. Relative deprivation is a growing problem in a world where aspirations and expectations remain unfulfilled and therefore contribute to a process of individual or collective radicalization.
As a conceptual tool, relative deprivation is useful in bridging the gap between the diverging camps concerned about socioeconomic factors versus ideological ones in the radicalization process. As the gap between expectations, opportunities, and accomplishments widens so does the possibility for ideological radicalization. It is precisely when people develop high expectations, aspirations, and hopes for upward mobility that we have to pay more attention to the potential for frustration, humiliation, and ideological radicalization. In addition to studies focusing on how rising expectations may cause revolutions, there is a growing body of literature that looks at “frustrated achievers” with high ambitions and high levels of individual dissatisfaction.
Dismissing the importance of socioeconomic factors as potential drivers of radicalization can therefore be a faulty approach in the context of developing societies. Improving educational standards without increasing prospects for employment, or providing jobs and economic benefits without creating outlets for political and social participation, create a combustible environment where frustrated achievers are increasingly tempted by radicalism. Education without employment, or employment without a sense of political empowerment, fuel the dynamics of humiliation, alienation, and frustration. This is why the growing numbers of educated but unemployed youth are particularly alarming for those who are concerned about the rise of frustrated achievers in the Arab World—and among Muslim minorities in Europe, where there are additional identity issues exacerbating the problem.
It would be reductionist to look only at the Muslim World or at Muslim minorities in analyzing the problems of relative deprivation and frustrated achievers. We live in a global context and globalization itself further complicates the problem of relative deprivation. Poverty is no longer an absolute concept in the context of globalization. Globalization creates an acute awareness about opportunities available elsewhere. But the absence of opportunities relative to expectations is particularly acute in the Arab World and larger Islamic World. Socioeconomic decay in the Islamic World often creates considerably more frustration than in other parts of the developing world for historical and civilizational reasons.
Another solution is the form of ‘Kaffah’ management being initiated and practiced by Zulfikar MS in Medan. The ‘Kaffah’ system offers products and services at-cost, with the customer being given the opportunity to give ‘keuntungan seikhlas hati’. Examples of the success of this method is the Prophet Muhammad’s practice when selling his wife-to-be Khadijah’s merchandise and the Muslim traders practice in replacing the non-Muslims as the dominant force in the Madinah market. The Prophet and the early Muslims were in fact among the notable people in history who practiced being not a ‘good subject’ or a ‘bad subject’, but a ‘no subject’ to the prevailing capitalist economy. That is, they create their own subject which can attract a large number of people due to the relevance of their subject to those people. It is for us to study their examples and adapt it to our current context. (*)
