[Kabar-indonesia] 40% of RI Muslims Would Wage War for Faith: Survey [+NYT: Arab Opinion Turns]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: NYT: Changing Reaction: Tide of Arab Opinion Turns 
to Support for Hezbollah 

The Jakarta Post
Friday, July 28, 2006

Survey Reveals Muslim Views on Violence 

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Up to 1.3 percent of Indonesian Muslims nationwide admit using violence 
against people or objects they consider contradictory to their beliefs, a survey 
found, with more than 40 percent ready to wage war for their faith.

Acts of violence in the survey on religion and violence by the Center for 
Islamic and Social Studies (PPIM) ranged from 0.1 percent of respondents 
admitting their involvement in demolishing or arson of churches constructed without 
official permits, to 1.3 percent who committed "intimidation" against those they 
considered had blasphemed Islam. 

The survey spanned 1,200 Muslims in 30 of the country's 33 provinces. 

"The percentage looks very small but it is very high in its real figure when 
you note that 85 percent, or 200 million, of the country's 230 million 
population are Muslims," PPIM researcher Jajat Burhanudin said Thursday during the 
release of the results. 

However, other scholars said violence was traditionally widespread in local 
cultures, and it was unfair to blame Islam for its prevalence. 

The survey, conducted from 2001 to March 2006, found 43.5 percent of 
respondents were ready to wage war on threatening non-Muslim groups, 40 percent would 
use violence against those blaspheming Islam and 14.7 percent would tear down 
churches without official permits. 

"This condition has helped terrorists easily recruit new comrades and makes 
the country a fertile ground for sectarian radicalism," Jajat said. 

He added that a simultaneous study on the reasons for the results found 
Islamic teaching and Islamism made the most significant contributions to violent 
behavior, both in the domestic and public spheres. 

"The more Muslims give their support for certain Islamic teachings 
legitimizing the use of violence, the more violence will happen." 

He noted that between 30 percent and 58 percent approved of amputation of the 
left hand for thieves and the stoning to death of rapists, as well as other 
tenets of sharia law, and opposed the election of non-Muslims for president. 

Simplistic understanding of Islamic teachings and the introduction of 
so-called "yellow books", detailing Islamic law and regulations, in Islamic boarding 
schools contributed to the emergence of hard-line groups, the issuance of 
sharia bylaws and sowed hostility toward non-Muslims, he said. 

"To end this, the government must take strategic steps to campaign for 
pluralism among the people and enforce the law to ensure legal certainty." 

But Islamic scholar Azyumardi Azra said the roots of the violence could not 
be blamed entirely on Islam, but also on the vengeful nature of some local 
cultures and common social and political problems, such as poverty, unemployment 
and political instability. 

"The country's self-image of kindness, tolerance and hospitality must be 
questioned because local cultures are very close to violence," he said. 

Although there has been increasing unrest since the end of authoritarian rule 
in 1998 and the dawning of the reform era, he said there were numerous ethnic 
conflicts since the 1950s. 

Azyumardi, also rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in 
Ciputat, Tangerang, suggested the reformulation of all Islamic teachings that 
could be construed as promoting violence and the development of democracy through 
a campaign for pluralism and tolerance. 

"Besides, the country is in dire need of a strong government to create 
political stability and good governance and ensure the rule of law, while the 
development of democracy should not end with the general elections and local 
elections," 

He warned that religious radicalism would become a dangerous threat unless 
good governance was created, laws were enforced and old religious doctrines were 
reformulated. 

-----------------------------------------

The New York Times
Friday, July 28, 2006

Changing Reaction

Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah 

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

photo: A crowd in Cairo on Wednesday, cordoned off by the police, 
condemned the killing of Lebanese civilians and expressed support 
for Hezbollah. Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images

DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 -- At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab 
governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly 
provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink 
and a nod to continue the fight. 

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the 
vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion 
across 
the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite 
group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in 
official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially 
more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are 
scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry 
readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new 
Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression. 

Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all 
Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, 
releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his 
organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.

Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the 
International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent 
issue in this part of the world.” 

Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This 
week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a 
cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that 
his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli 
aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel. 

The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — 
offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to 
the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish. 

“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, 
“then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling 
the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those 
whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.” 

The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure 
on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the 
destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said. 

American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line 
publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell 
the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a 
nod.

There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for 
Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this 
long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge 
their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public 
opinion. 

But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his 
emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 
1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, 
played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from 
Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes. 

Egypt’s opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to 
Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both. 

An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy 
jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current 
Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim 
lands until they controlled them all. 

After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet 
Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 
20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah. 

“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made 
to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr. Negm said in an interview. “I 
asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he 
said: ‘Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him 
triumphant!’ ”

In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik 
Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders. 

“Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and 
public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states,” she wrote in 
an e-mail message posted on many blogs. 

In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the 
region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, 
particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a 
“new Middle East.” That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran 
Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which 
ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged. 

A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed an 
Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.

Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that 
the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to 
challenge Israeli militarily. 

Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah’s rising stock more than the sudden 
appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the 
limelight. 

Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri 
(za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center 
as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda 
commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed 
Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for 
the Palestinians.

Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq 
paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization 
by name. 

“It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine,” he said. “Muslims should 
support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is 
established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine.”

Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims 
in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has 
labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the 
bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there. 

But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts 
said. “Everyone will be asking, ‘Where is Al Qaeda now?’ ” said Adel 
al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists. 

Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah’s ability to 
withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel 
exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than 
Hezbollah.

“Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than 
you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your 
disposal, then what the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rabbani said. “In comparison with 
the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing 
idly by twiddling their thumbs.”

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha 
Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.

-----------------------------------------

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