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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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In a Balinese court, the histrionics of a silly little man trying to make a virtue of his particular brand of evil were apparent in the forced gestures of triumph—the overextended arm waving, the chest beating, the fist shaking. Nothing in his bravado could dissuade the objective outsider from concluding that here was a man running on empty.
The intelligent world wasn’t listening to his cries of defiance and was not moved by his fanatic religious convictions. If ever he dared to listen in, he would’ve found none but he and his fellow terrorists attune to the vibrations of religious fervour that so infect the enthusiasm of a cultic Islamic fundamentalism.
The rest of the world dances to a different drum. It may be insensitive to call it “civilisation,” but one could hardly be faulted for naming it such when this pathetic figure was seen against the quiet dignity of the Balinese court that was endowed with the responsibility of trying him.
If 9/11 has become inscribed as shorthand for global terrorism, 10/12 has been tattooed on our antipodean mind as a cipher for regional insecurity. The fact of Indonesia with its proximity, shadowy military and its 200 million apparently threatening Muslims makes for an Aussie migraine.
Since Sukarno ruled, Indonesia has been a foreign-policy and security problem. Bali 10/12 came as a rude reminder of the reality of Australia’s main game: coming to terms with the Garuda. Wherever else trade, defence or blood relationships may connect Australians, its geographical placement will always trump historical and other obligations. Britain and Europe will continue to remind the majority of Australians of where they have come from—their past—but Asia and the Pacific will always speak to Australia’s present and future.
Remembering the tragedy of Bali 10/12 (/02) is also an opportunity to embrace that reality. It shouldn’t be an excuse for isolationism. It should never put Australians on the back foot, retreating from Asian engagement. Rather, Bali is a reminder that our neighbour’s problems are our problems, no matter where we live. When stability and instability coexist, the latter will always threaten to undo the former unless proactive thinking is engaged by the former.
When wealth and poverty, Western sophistication and Oriental conservatism lie side by side, borders become an illusion. There is no defence against the anger of the ascetic, the resentment of the poor, the bitterness of the downtrodden other than address and engagement. As Christians, we may turn the other cheek, but we must never turn our backs.
At our backs are activist and potentially terrorist Indonesian groups like the Islamic Youth Movement, the Islamic Defenders Front, Darul Islam, the Hizbullah Front, Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama, Mujahadin Council, Laskar Jundallah, Laskar Jihad and the now well-known, Jemaah Islamiah. If the Indonesian state is to come to grips with these shadowy threats to its rule and its desire for regional stability, we must assist.
If, as it appears, some 70 million Indonesians are persuaded of the worth of these Islamic activist groups, then we must work to convince them otherwise. That can come only with engagement against the self-righteous arrogance of Imam Samudra, Amrozi, Mukhlas and others of their ilk.
But up against the emptiness of their religious justification for evil, comes the words of Jesus: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). As Christians standing in the shadow of the Bali tragedy, we take these words as addressed to thieving neighbours as much as to their innocent victims.
Extract from Signs of the Times, April 2004.
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