The House of Representatives has been working to amend the laws that govern the dissemination of “propaganda” materials in the U.S.  What seemed like a good idea to me and others–one long overdue–is being spun by some observers as a dark effort by the DoD and State Department who want authorization to brainwash Americans.

Last night Buzzfeed posted an article claiming that the changes were being quietly inserted into a defense authorization bill. However, as Matt Armstrong reported, the changes were also part of a stand-alone bill (H.R. 5736) introduced last week.  I confess I am no expert on the arcania of legislative machinery, but the fact that this bill was introduced a week ago and published by the Library of Congress–then later attached to the defense bill–strikes me as more of a procedural move than an effort to sneak something through.

In a further effort to build a sinister narrative, Buzzfeed frets that this is some sort of effort to enable unfettered psychological operations by the military and government on the U.S. population.  Assorted quotes from the article:

The bill’s supporters say the informational material used overseas to influence foreign audiences is too good to not use at home, and that new techniques are needed to help fight Al-Qaeda, a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches Americans online.

The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public.

“Senior public affairs” officers within the Department of Defense want to “get rid” of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am not a legal expert, and I suppose changes could have these kinds of consequences if not made carefully.  But I doubt these these are the intended outcomes.

People in the strategic communication and public diplomacy arena (including me) have agreed for some time that changes to Smith-Mundt are needed.  Nobody I know wants changes so they can–MWAHAAHAAHAA!–run propaganda ops on Americans.  It’s more of an effort to recognize the reality of the modern situation.

The law in question was passed after World War II and the intent of the sections under review was originally indeed to prevent State Department communication from influencing the U.S. government.  But since then an interpretation has evolved that the law forbids propaganda destined for foreign audiences from being disseminated domestically, that it applies to the military as well, and that it applies to the most innocuous kind of information.  As Matt points out, “legally, the American public is not supposed to know what Michelle Kwon, for example, does when she is traveling abroad on behalf of the State Department as that is a public diplomacy trip.”

Maintaining a firewall between foreign and domestic audiences was perhaps more feasible when the Internet hadn’t even been conceived.  Today it is impossible.  Any communication by the U.S. government or military anywhere can make it back to the United States in a matter of seconds.  Changes in law are needed to recognize reality and prevent our strategic communication agencies from spending time/resources trying to stop the inevitable.  Not only is this a waste of resources but it inhibits our ability to respond to events in a timely manner when communication plans have to be reviewed by teams of lawyers in an effort to comply with an archaic law (I have been told this is something that happens regularly).

Unintentional domestic dissemination is one thing, but what about more intentional efforts critics are claiming this legislation would enable?  The language in the House bill seems clear enough that it only applies to “materials prepared for dissemination abroad” and does not in any way authorize expenditures for targeted influence of domestic audiences.

Update May 20

Other posts on this topic:

• Jonathan Turley
• Juan Cole

No related posts.

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The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) has released a short monograph, De-Legitimizing al-Qaeda: A Jihad-Realist Approach, by sociologist Paul Kamolnick, a professor at Eastern Tennessee State University. Kamolnick criticizes current US efforts to counter al-Qaeda’s messaging and recruitment strategies as ineffective, and proposes an alternative two-fold solution to marginalize and defeat al-Qaeda. However, Kamolnick’s proposed strategy is problematic for several reasons.

In the first component of his proposed strategy, Kamolnick suggests that since Islam (specifically Sunni Islam) is a religion of orthopraxy and law, American policy makers and strategists should determine how Islamic jurispru­dence, specifically discourses on jihad, “may be leveraged for, and not against, vital U.S. national security interests.” It is unclear what exactly this “leveraging” entails. But he does warn that the US government must do so in secret (deferring “open association” until a later time) so as not to taint the legitimacy of potentially helpful sharia scholars and their formulations.

These formulations should ideally come from “credentialed actors of immense statue and learning.” And these jurists would reaffirm how Islam and the sacred texts prohibit things such as killing non-combatants indiscriminately. He is particularly interested in what he calls “jihadi-realist” scholars, meaning militant Islamists (such as Sayyid Imam, aka Dr. Fadl) who have rejected terrorism as a strategy to bring about change. By “leveraging” this sort of work (how remains unclear) for “vital U.S. national security interests” the US can create a narrative (my wording, not his) that portrays the US as a country “on the side of the lawful and just” against those who violate sharia (i.e., al-Qaeda).

The truth is that there is no shortage of Muslim scholars, jurists, preachers, activists, and so on, who have condemned terrorism and al-Qaeda’s violent strategies – despite the bizarre yet common refrain in America that no one in the Muslim community has done so. The traditional rules of warfare in Islam, such as prohibitions against killing civilians or women and children, are also already commonly known among Muslims. Therefore, I’m not sure how having the US secretly “leverage” these condemnations will harm al-Qaeda. When it comes to fatwas (Islamic juridical rulings) it only takes one to justify a practice or behavior. And there have been plenty of bizarre and isolated fatwas out there justifying abhorrent behavior.

It must also be said that while sharia is important to Sunni Muslims, especially Salafi and other über devout people, Kalmonick’s emphasis on the resounding mass influence of sharia on the decisions people make, especially the youth, seems exaggerated. At the end of the day, someone bent on committing an act of violence won’t stop because someone gave a ruling that it was a sinful or bad idea. Aspiring perpetrators will either find a ruling to support them, make their own ruling, or dispense with a juridical ruling altogether and act anyway. They could even invoke a dream where the Prophet Muhammad told them to act – which is not as far fetched as it sounds.

Another issue on the topic of sharia and fatwas is that even seemingly clear-cut issues can be stretched, twisted, and overturned by using a range of well-established juridical principles. That’s why most everyone knows that killing civilians is forbidden, but al-Qaeda still manages to win some people over. For example, it is a well-established belief in Islam that suicide is forbidden. Suicide is a grave sin.

There are numerous hadiths that describe the truly horrific punishments that someone will receive in Hell if they commit suicide. We can also find countless rulings by Muslim jurists that prohibit suicide. These positions are well-known. So why do we have some Muslims committing suicide by strapping bombs to their bodies or crashing airliners into buildings for al-Qaeda? It could suggest that religio-legal justifications aren’t that important when it comes to people seeking vengeance or justice for outstanding sociopolitical grievances.

But more to the point, extremists also utilize concepts like niyya (intention), darura (necessity), and reciprocity, among others, to neutralize these prohibitions against suicide or whatever else goes against their preferred strategy or plan of action. For example, al-Qaeda might claim that a terrorist who blew himself up at a military outpost in Iraq did not commit suicide because his intention was to attack and inflict harm on the enemy. After all, the Prophet once said: “All actions are judged by intentions.”

For al-Qaeda, it only counts as suicide if the person was lost in despair and their intention was to end their life. That was not the intention though, it is argued, and thus the prohibition is nullified. Instead, the terrorist is a celebrated battlefield martyr. The core of the matter is that sharia is always the product of interpretive agents; meaning people devise the divine rules according to their own subjective human interests and goals. So I wouldn’t invest too much in the restrictive powers of Islamic law as a counter-terrorism strategy.

The second part of Kalmonick’s strategy is a radical shift in US foreign policy and military policy in order to fundamentally alter perceptions of US intentions in the Muslim world. No specifics are given. “No amount of spin or messaging matters,” he writes, “when daily life and its common-sense interpretation contradict official pretensions and pronouncements.” I can agree with this statement, but then again he doesn’t provide any specifics. And let’s get real. Given the various special-interest groups and ideological trends currently entrenched in the US political system, this part of Kamolnick’s strategy is probably even less plausible than his problematic covert sharia ideas.

Major changes in US foreign and military policies might help alleviate some of the serious grievances among Muslims that al-Qaeda invokes in its messaging against the US. And I think most scholars would agree with that. But Kamolnick does not specifically discuss what changes should be made – maybe a compelling US push to establish a two-state solution along the 1967 borders to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Nor does Kamolnick address how the memories of past events still influence the present. For example, ending the Crusades centuries ago hasn’t stopped it from being invoked (as a narrative system) at every opportunity.

Regardless, it is extremely unlikely that the US government will ever make major changes to address Muslim grievances, such as the annexation of East Jerusalem or Russian control of Chechnya. More importantly though, the intention or meaning behind any changes to US foreign policy are still entirely subject to interpretation, despite US intentions or what Kamolnick calls “common-sense interpretation.” Those interpretations, typically conveyed as narratives, can vary widely among different audiences.

For example, if the US withdraws from a country (e.g. Iraq) under the pretense that the mission was accomplished and it has no interest in occupying the country, al-Qaeda disseminates a narrative that the US withdrawal was a “retreat” and a victory for the mujahideen over the “Crusaders.” This is the business of narrative, and human beings, regardless of religion, love and live by their stories. And do not think for a second that “leveraging” condemnations of al-Qaeda by some credentialed Muslim jurists or “jihadi-realists” won’t fall victim to al-Qaeda’s narratives either. Sayyid Imam, aka Dr. Fadl, was dismissed by Zawahiri and other extremists as a sell-out and someone who gave into torture in prison. Extremists discredit and condemn Muslim scholars and jurists who oppose them as hypocrites, apostates, heretics, Zionist agents, even as the “magicians of the Pharaoh,” every day. And this sort of rhetoric existed long before al-Qaeda ever took shape in Afghanistan.

In the final evaluation, I did not find anything that is particularly new or plausible in Professor Kamolnick’s approach to dealing with al-Qaeda’s messaging and recruitment strategies. In fact, I fear that his dismissal of the importance of narrative and counter-narrative strategies would set the US back in this ongoing struggle and make his own strategy suggestions all the more untenable.

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The Arab Spring showed the world how social media can help organize mass political dissent. In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, single issues coalesced online into far broader and diverse campaigns that toppled ruling regimes. Recently, outside of the Arab world, discriminatory government policies  in Iran against Afghans have come to light. Decried by critics as overt state-backed racism, it is a scandalous hot-button issue that the rulers of the “Islamic Republic” have little chance of defending.  Already a nascent but growing social media campaign has emerged to condemn it and may soon tap into broader popular grievances against the entire regime.

“We are all Afghans” is the new rally cry among Iranian and Afghan social media users, shocked by recent discriminatory Iranian government policies against the over two million Afghans living in Iran. A Facebook page with over 20,000 members now exists. And yes, there are protests planned. Iran’s recent Oscar-winning filmmaker, Asghar Farhadi, is speaking out too.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hardly dispelled these growing charges of racism either. On the contrary, his recent speeches have contained overt declarations of Persian supremacy. The regime of the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” whose clerical leadership claims the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad (an Arab) and his family, is baring an increasing resemblance to the resurgent Neo-Fascist parties of Europe. And it is ironic that the hated Shah Reza Pahlavi regime, overthrown by the 1979 Revolution, was once fiercely condemned by Shiite clerics for emphasizing a Persian identity for Iran instead of an Islamic one.

The BBC reports that the deputy governor-general of Iran’s northern Mazandaran Province announced late last month that all Afghans must leave the province  irrespective of their legal status by July 2 (meaning it’s not an illegal immigration issue). The deputy governor has further warned the public that offering employment or any kind of assistance to Afghans is a crime “punishable by the full force of the law.” He also asserted the validity of a law passed in 2006 that made marriage between Iranian women and Afghan men illegal. Meanwhile, last month in Isfahan, Afghans were banned by officials from attending Nowruz (Persian New Year) celebrations in a public park because they “caused insecurity.”

One Iranian blogger, suggesting a more pervasive racism beyond Iranian government institutions, recently posted photos of signs in Iran that ban the use of facilities by Afghans or dictate segregated facilities for Afghans. Still another Iranian blogger compared recent events to the rise of Le Pen’s anti-immigrant Front National  party in France and lamented the racism in Iran by stating: “[We tell Westerners that] we are from the land of Cyrus the Great, but we think Afghans are murderers, Arabs are savages, Turks are naive and Blacks smell.”

Responses to the controversy from officials in Iran’s “Islamic” government have ranged from silence and denial to speeches glorifying the supremacy of the Persian people among the nations of the earth. Take, for instance, a recent speech (broadcast on state television) by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 11, 2012, in the province of Hormozgan. In the speech, he states:

Inside Iran, some ask me why I always speak about Iran. They say this is, I do not know, nationalism, ethnic racism, and so forth. Such talk is baseless. Iran is not an ethnos. Iran is a culture, vision, ethics, and ideology. . . . You look for people similar to our people in other countries. Look around the borders and compare with neighbors, and you will see the difference. There is a huge difference. This difference does not mean arrogance and vanity. It is first of all a divine gift, the glorification of the divine gift. It points to a mission [for our people].

Ahmadinejad goes onto boldly claim that: If you take away the share of the Iranian nation from human civilization, nothing will be left. In support of his ethnocentric narrative, Ahmadinejad sprinkles his speech with a range of anecdotal stories. In one instance, he recounts how extensively he has traveled, visiting more places in Iran than anyone else. Thanks to his travels, he claims, he has seen firsthand that “the best people of the world are living in Iran today.” He also lists some recent achievements of Iran, claiming in the vaguest terms that Iran has improved “nanotechnologies and biotechnologies,” making it “among the few top countries in the world.” And finally he recounts a story that seems to be a hadith from the Prophet Muhammad (again, an Arab), although I am personally unfamiliar with it. It relates that the Prophet once told his followers that “Iranians will [one day] guide and lead, and introduce the truth of Islam to the world.” This, Ahmadinejad says, proves that Iranians have a divinely decreed mission to lead the world (and they must act on it).

This rhetoric of racial or ethnic pride and supremacy goes entirely against Islamic ideals about the equality and universal brotherhood of all Muslims as a single ummah. And yes, I do mean ideals. On an everyday level, one can find examples of racism and prejudice in every Muslim country in the world, just as one can find it in any other country, including the United States of America. But what makes this case so peculiar is that most countries don’t claim to be an “Islamic Republic” or a righteous state representing God’s Mahdi on earth. Moral condemnation aside, it is a tremendous blunder for the theocratic regime to indulge in this sort of racist rhetoric and behavior. And I cannot see how the “Great Satan” or the “Zionist entity” can be blamed for this one. At the very least, Iran’s treatment of its Afghans, many of whom arrived as refugees during the Soviet invasion, will only further alienate its Sunni neighbors and produce further international isolation.

More importantly though, recent events in mind, I have to wonder if the “We are All Afghans” movement might coalesce into something much more. After all,  there is no shortage of grievances among the Iranian populace. Iran’s nuclear program has yet to produce anything but international tensions and sanctions. And the tragic martyrdom of Neda Agha Soltan amidst the 2009 election scandal has yet to be forgotten, despite the regime’s best efforts. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but who would have thought that a fatal case of police brutality in Alexandria, Egypt, would have led to the “We are all Khaled Saeed” campaign that grew into a popular revolution that overthrew the US-backed Mubarak regime? Perhaps there’s a “Persian Spring” on the horizon after all.

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Indonesian extremists continue to portray Ambonese Christians as engaged in separatist rebellion against Indonesia, and a crusade against Muslims. This isn’t true, but raises the question: where on earth did they get this idea?

The adage that if a lie gets repeated enough times it becomes true is, apparently, applicable in Indonesia’s Ambon region. It was home to a brief separatist insurgency following the Indonesian revolution (1945-49).  Following their defeat in 1950, the separatists (who were Dutch loyalists and both Christian and Muslim) fled the region for asylum in Holland.  There they have carried the torch for an independent Republic of the Southern Moluccas (RMS) ever since.

A strange thing happened with the case of the RMS over time, however: It came to be perceived as a Christian movement that is anti-Islam in nature. Islamist sources in Indonesia repeated this claim Tuesday as the 25 April anniversary of the declaration of the RMS approaches:

History shows that the formation of the RMS is a kind of rebellion among a number of Christian Moluccans opposed to the Jakarta Charter (that would impose Shariah law as state law) as the foundation for the state… This proves that the Moluccan Christian Community has the spirit of separatism, where the church protects these separatist movements.

Nevermind that Islamist extremists aren’t particularly fond of the Indonesian state and its newfound democracy, and that some of them want the state dissolved into a pan-Southeast Asian caliphate that include Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, and southern Philippines.

Scholars – notably Richard Chauvel – have noted that the RMS movement was supported by both Christians and Muslims, especially those who gained by their associations with the Dutch. This included village-level and higher Muslim authorities. They were supported by the Dutch and felt that they would lose the prestige and financial rewards – and be punished by the Indonesians – for this association with the former colonizer.

Because much of the fighting that occurred was between the Ambonese Dutch colonial soldiers (who were predominantly Christian and trusted by the Dutch) and the predominantly Muslim nascent Indonesian military, the perception that it was a war of Christians versus Muslims emerged and spread. This is despite the fact that Indonesia’s first president had Christian Moluccans among some of his most trusted (and rewarded) advisers.

While it is true that most Christians, including Moluccans (such as Johannes Leimena, co-founder of the Christian political party Parkindo and member of both Sukarno’s and Suharto’s cabinets) opposed the Jakarta Charter and lobbied against it, so did many Muslims. Opposing the Jakarta Charter did not make one a separatist, but rather merely one who disagreed with Sharia as the foundation of the state. But among some of today’s Islamist thinkers in in Indonesia, opposing sharia as state law makes one a separatist.

After the debate over the Jakarta Charter, many of the Muslims who supported it, such as Muslim cleric, scholar and prolific writer Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, essentially conceded their loss and accepted the desire of the majority. The country had more pressing problems to overcome. In the early years of Indonesian independence, Sukarno made repeated overtures to reassure the Moluccan Christians (and Christians elsewhere) that they would be welcome in the Indonesian fold, even while the smoldering remnants of the RMS waged a low-intensity guerrilla war on nearby Ceram Island (the main RMS rebellion was put down within a year or so).

When Suharto came to power, however, things changed. Following a bloody purge of communist and left-leaning Indonesians, Suharto imposed a security state based on fear to create stability. Despite the lack of danger from the extinguished RMS, Suharto treated the Ambon region as a threat, built up a strong military presence there, and continued to cite it (along with West Papua, Aceh, and after its 1975 invasion, East Timor) as a threat to the unity of the Indonesian state. He planned to ease population density on Java and elsewhere and to “water down” Christian communities perceived as supporting separatism. So Suharto ordered forced and voluntary transmigration to Ambon and other regions. This sparked resentment.

In 1998, the East Asian Economic Crisis caused chaos that crippled Indonesia’s economy and led to the abdication of Suharto. Violence between Christians and Muslims broke out in Ambon and nearby regions. Scholarship has shown that political competition and jockeying for power in a newly democratizing Indonesia was a major factor in the violence in Ambon. The violence started between Christian Ambonese and non-Ambonese Muslim immigrants.

But the government – and Islamists – blamed the RMS. Muslim senior military officials were implicated in programs to send arms and armed groups to the region, which swung the advantage clearly to the Muslims fighting the Christians. A nervous peace emerged in the region following the conflict’s cessation.

It was shattered last September and December as Muslims once again battled Christians (see COMOPS blog post here). Again, Islamists blamed the RMS.

In my experience interviewing Christian Ambonese in Java and the Ambon region, they, and the vast majority of Christian Ambonese, remain frustrated but loyal Indonesians. No matter what they do or how vehemently they refute the accusation that they are separatists, they continue to be framed as such by Islamists and by some in the Indonesian government.

This legacy, dating back to the Suharto era, is based on lies and fear. It goes to show, however, that state-sponsored strategic communication – albeit with dubious goals – can come back to haunt. The nominal enemies of the state – in this case, Indonesia’s Islamist extremist community –  use these arguments to support their calls for violent jihad among a predominantly peaceful and loyal Ambonese Christian community.

Despite the tremendous positive changes Indonesia has made since beginning its transition to democracy, it continues to struggle in some regions that have or are currently experiencing conflict. Ambon is one such region. If the Indonesian government actively worked to dispel the myth that separatism was somehow tied to Christianity in the region and more actively promoted the role of patriotic Christian Ambonese (such as Leimena, who was declared a national hero), it would help to deflate the argument that the Indonesian state’s enemies – the Islamist extremists – are making. It could also deescalate some of the tensions that lead to spasms of violence, and eliminate some of the resentment among Christian Ambonese, many of whom are frustrated with being portrayed as a threat to the state. A more peaceful Ambon is in everyone’s interest – except the Islamist extremists.

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Last month, James Appathurai, NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy,  agreed to participate in an electronic Q&A sponsored by the Atlantic Community.  He answered 20 questions in four installments, on global partnerships and the Arab spring, partnerships in Asia, questions on Central Asia/Caucasus, and the NATO mission.  The latter includes an item on the NATO narrative that illustrates the large challenge the alliance faces in filling a narrative vacuum that currently exists.

Yours truly was invited to submit a question to Mr. Appathurai. As it happened, my colleagues and I had recently been discussing the issue of NATO’s narrative. So I asked:

It is widely acknowledged that public and political support for the NATO alliance is flagging in many member countries. I and many of my colleagues believe this is because NATO’s narrative has been slowly disintegrating. With the Cold War some twenty years in the past, its original motivating conflict is fading from memory.

What do you see as a sustainable narrative for NATO in the 21st Century? What basic conflict does it exist to deal with, and what desire does that create? What is the projected resolution of that desire? What actors, actions, and events lead from the desire to the resolution?

He answered:

This is the classic and very important question. I don’t mean classic in an old-fashioned sense. We debate this here all the time. I personally don’t have too many questions about it.

What we don’t have is a good slogan. In the early days of the Cold War, one NATO Secretary General defined NATO’s purpose as “keeping the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” That was the post-Second World War conception. Since the end of the Cold War, those things aren’t really necessary. The Americans are in. We don’t need the Russians out. Actually, we have them as partners. And the Germans are, of course, strong and vibrant members of this Alliance and of Europe and of the world, without there being anything negative, only positive things about that.

So we never found a good new slogan. And I can assure the new Secretary General has encouraged us to look for one. But to my mind, NATO is about what it is and then about what it does. What it is, is a collection of democracies that is uniquely capable militarily. No other organization can do what NATO can do militarily. You saw it in Libya. You see it in Afghanistan. And that’s a priceless thing because there are times when you need that capability as an international community. We can’t get rid of it.

And it’s also a place where we consult politically. All these 28 countries are here every single day and discussing and debating all sorts of issues. And by the way, with a very wide group of partners now as well. So it is a unique political forum and a very important one.

What do we do? We do three things. We do collective defense. That’s the ultimate mission of NATO, to defend the Allies. Second, crisis management. I mentioned Libya, I mentioned Afghanistan. I can mention Kosovo. I can mention counter piracy missions. And third we do collective security. Building trust and confidence and inter-operability in the broadest political sense as well as technical sense with partners around the globe. So all of that I think is a very important role. But I can’t think of the slogan to define it, and I tried for a long time. I came up with a lot of bad ones, but I never came up with a good one.

I would first like to thank Mr. Appathurai for answering my question, and indeed for participating in entire exercise.  High ranking officials are not required to do things like this, and taking the time that was involved here indicates his commitment to strengthening the alliance’s partnerships and frameworks, and doing so openly and participatively. This is commendable.

That said, I do not find his response especially satisfying.  True, it might be useful if NATO had a slogan. But slogans encapsulate narratives; they do not substitute for them.  I suspect Mr. Appathurai’s difficulty finding one stems from the incoherence of the narrative elements as they exist.  Yes, NATO “defends the Allies” and does collective security, but defends and secures against what?

The second paragraph of my question invokes a narrative arc described by Kenneth Burke.  He said that all narrative is based on a conflict (or other deficiency) that creates desire.  The desire implies a satisfaction (actual or potential). Narrative is a trajectory of participants, actions, and events that leads from the desire to the satisfaction.  This is rhetorically powerful because the narrative is grounded in the desire, and suggests a path to the resolution of the desire.  The need for satisfaction creates an incentive for people to buy into the trajectory–i.e. accept and participate in the narrative.

During the Cold War, NATO had a very strong narrative arc.  The conflict was with the Soviets, as Mr. Appathurai notes, and its behavior in the wake of World War II created a strong desire for protection from the “bear in the woods” (to use the 1984 Reagan campaign’s brilliant storyline).  The bear threatened to eat the North Atlantic countries, so a strong military alliance was the resolution of that desire.  NATO–its participating countries, treaty, mutual defense agreements, joint exercises, funding, etc.–was the trajectory leading from the desire to the resolution.  The story form organizing this narrative was deliverance, in which a threatener menaces a community until a champion comes along to defeat the threatener and restore the community to safety (David and Goliath is a deliverance story).

This was a compelling narrative that served NATO well for many decades.  Then the bear wandered away, leaving a gap where there was once a clear conflict creating a strong desire for the trajectory leading to the alliance.  As a result, to some observers, NATO looks today like a solution in search of a problem.  Lawrence Kaplan, for example, wonders if NATO is anything more than the military arm of the UN.

The 9/11 attacks against the United States are the basis for NATO’s participation in the Afghanistan conflict, and terrorism seems to be the leading candidate for a new conflict/threat to organize NATO’s narrative.  A page on NATO’s website explaining Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty even bears the header (graphic) “NATO and the Scourge of Terrorism.”  Terrorism also figures prominently in  NATO’s most recent (2010) strategic concept.

However, there are many ways terrorism does not fit into NATO’s existing story.  It would be a stretch to link NATO’s action in Libya to terrorism (while the Libyan government is suspected of involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103, that happened over 20 years ago).  The intervention in Kosovo was not related to terrorism. Also numerous terrorist incidents in Europe in the 70s and 80s were never met with a NATO response.  There is even disagreement, especially in Europe, about whether terrorism should treated as a matter of war (as opposed to crime).

Stephen Walt notes the incoherence of the current narrative when he says “in recent years NATO has tried to transform itself into some sort  of global expeditionary force.” This incoherence leaves some NATO partners questioning their investment, and disagreeing about what the organization should be, as Klaus Wittman notes in a Danish Institute of International Studies report:

[T]here is no really solid unity on a number of issues: namely whether NATO is a regional or a global organisation, predominantly political or military, how it must balance collective defence and expeditionary orientation, how it must assess certain security challenges and their emphasis in the view of individual allies, the NATO–EU relationship and its political ‘blockage’, the UN mandate issue, the approach to Russia, nuclear weapons policy etc. (p. 37)

Most commentators seem to agree that NATO should be sustained.  But this requires filling the current narrative vacuum.  To do so, NATO must define a clear conflict and corresponding desire that that alliance resolves. Once this is done, it should be scrupulous about maintaining narrative coherence by lending its name only to those actions that are squarely consistent with resolving the desire.

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In previous posts I have advocated amplifying al-Qaeda’s record of killing Muslims, and argued this practice was doing serious damage toAQ’s brand.  Captured documents from bin Laden’s compound indicate that he was worried about the same thing.

Last week David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote a story based on his “exclusive look” at those documents.  The headline was about bin Laden’s supposed plot to kill President Obama.  But later in the story he describes bin Laden’s hand-wringing over his organization’s image:

Bin Laden’s biggest concern was al-Qaeda’s media image among Muslims. He worried that it was so tarnished that, in a draft letter probably intended for Atiyah, he argued that the organization should find a new name.

The al-Qaeda brand had become a problem, bin Laden explained, because Obama administration officials “have largely stopped using the phrase ‘the war on terror’ in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims,” and instead promoted a war against al-Qaeda. The organization’s full name was “Qaeda al-Jihad,” bin Laden noted, but in its shorthand version, “this name reduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them.” He proposed 10 alternatives “that would not easily be shortened to a word that does not represent us.” His first recommendation was “Taifat al-tawhid wal-jihad,” or Monotheism and Jihad Group.

Bin Laden ruminated about “mistakes” and “miscalculations” by affiliates in Iraq and elsewhere that had killed Muslims, even in mosques. He told Atiyah to warn every emir, or regional leader, to avoid these “unnecessary civilian casualties,” which were hurting the organization.

“Making these mistakes is a great issue,” he stressed, arguing that spilling “Muslim blood” had resulted in “the alienation of most of the nation [of Islam] from the [Mujaheddin].” Local al-Qaeda leaders should “apologize and be held responsible for what happened.”

The moral is that words really do matter when it comes to government strategic communication.  As William Saletan writes in Slate, the Obama administration took a lot of political heat for ratcheting-down the “war on terror” rhetoric, but has been vindicated.  Maintaining the idea that the United States is fighting a religion only reinforces the clash of civilizations narrative, which in turns plays directly into the communication strategy of the Bad Guys.

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“If a group of people feels that it has been humiliated and that its honor has been trampled underfoot, it will want to express its identity.”                                                                                                                       – Abdolkarim Soroush

In a recent NY Times Op-Ed, Professor John W. Owen of the University of Virginia argues that the electoral success of Islamists after the Arab Spring is due to Islamism’s longstanding role as the dominant voice of political dissent. He writes: “Islamism is winning out because it is the deepest and widest channel into which today’s Arab discontent can flow.” It’s an interesting perspective, but I think it misses the mark. Islamism is not about dissent, it’s about identity.

I explored the electoral success of Ennahda in Tunisia and the future of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt previously on COMOPS. If you haven’t read those blog entries, I encourage you to do so. I won’t repeat that material here. Rather, I want to look at the broader issue of identity, which I think lies at the heart of Islamism’s current popularity.

As readers know, Tunisia and Egypt are the only two countries of the historic Arab Spring to hold democratic elections so far. These countries are commonly designated as Arab states. However, there was a time when the “Arab world” was restricted to the Arabian Peninsula and the southern Levant. It was only after the rise of Islam in the seventh century and the subsequent conquest of North Africa that the lands we know today as Egypt and Tunisia started a gradual shift toward “Arabness.”

‘Who is an Arab’ is a far more complex question than you might guess. The simple answer (my apologies Arabist scholars) is twofold: An Arab is someone who speaks Arabic (there’s even a saying by the Prophet Muhammad that ‘Arabness’ is conferred by the tongue) and/or shares a genealogical or cultural-historical heritage with an Arabic speaking people. Despite certain stereotypical images about what an ‘Arab’ looks like, I assure you that Arabs come in every shade and color of the human family. The Arabic language (including its enormous variety of dialects) is the real root of Arab identity. But what does this have to do with Islamist parties?

The Arabic language arrived with the Muslim expansion across North Africa in the seventh century. Arabic gradually became the dominant language of the peoples in those lands over time. This means that Islam is irrevocably bound to Arab identity, despite the fact that millions of Arabs are Christians. The Qur’an is actually the foundation of literary Arabic as we know it. The Arab tribes of the Peninsula were an oral culture and largely illiterate, and the rise of Islam transformed those conditions.

When you add in the fact that national identities (e.g. American, Iraqi) are a modern innovation developed in the West and largely imposed in North Africa by Western colonial powers, we are left with the fact that Islam served as the primary reference point for identity formation for centuries before that time, along with tribal and ancestral ties.

Jump forward to the independence movements in the Arab world of the mid-twentieth century. The British are ousted in Egypt and the French are ousted in Tunisia. The two young nation-states are independent and can choose a system of governance, including a legal system, for themselves. The dominant trend in the twentieth century was to try to ‘catch up’ to the powers of the age and borrow or adopt European systems and ideologies; not only nationalism, but socialism, communism, even fascism. This sort of borrowing extended into culture (even the way people dressed), technology and education as well. The most radical example in the region was Turkey, a non-Arab state, but still a neighbor with strong cultural ties. Among the Arabs, Tunisia came closest to following Turkey’s radical example. As we know, the post-colonial ‘experiments’ in the Arab states of Tunisia and Egypt ultimately produced the authoritarian regimes that would fall during the Arab Spring.

When Tunisians and Egyptians went to cast their votes this past year, they weren’t too concerned with particular candidates (nor were the election systems set up as such). The elections were about people expressing identities and aspirations freely, perhaps for the first time. Judging by the election results, a large segment of Tunisians and Egyptians who cast votes (note the qualifier) believe that it is important to retain or affirm an Arab-Muslim identity. So far these elections have been about asserting that sense of identity more so than caliphates or a desire to implement medieval penal codes or ban wine.

These elections also come at a time when the United States (its military might aside) is a cultural superpower across the globe. People in many parts of the world, not only in Arab states (note the NY Times recent piece on China), fear the loss of ‘who they are’ in the face of American (or Western) cultural or socioeconomic hegemony.  In my home state of Arizona, we have witnessed the strange, sometimes militant, response of Anglo-Americans who fear Hispanic cultural encroachment and cast votes accordingly. Those are identity votes too. I see little difference between them and those people in Egypt or Tunisia who vote for parties that champion longstanding identities rooted in Islam.

_____________________________

* Jeffry R. Halverson is an Islamic studies scholar and an Assistant Research Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. He is the author of Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), Searching for a King: Muslim Nonviolence and the Future of Islam (Potomac 2012), and co-author of Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism (Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

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President Obama has now made his second trip in office to the land where he spent four years of his youth, Indonesia, while on a trip to Asia and Australia. Although Obama’s time in Indonesia was brief, he was welcomed relatively warmly by most Indonesians, who appreciate his ties to the most populous Muslim country. There are, however, plenty of people who disapproved, including the usual suspects, the Islamist extremists.

The trip is part of a plan to shore up ties and increase the US presence in Southeast Asia in order to balance a rising China, and in response to the previous administration’s general neglect of the region (one of the reasons China made such significant inroads there in the last decade). Obama also announced plans to increase the US military presence in Australia, which irked China. The disputes in the South China Sea — the Spratly and Paracel Islands — and China’s increasing assertiveness are certainly part of the decision to increase the US presence there.

Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia staged a protest at the American embassy prior to his visit. Although their website listed the number of demonstrators as 20,000, other sources gave estimates from hundreds to 2500.

“Why Obama (must be) Shot” is the title of a story on the ar Rahmah extremist web site. The image accompanying the story is one they and others have used before — Obama as pharaoh, invoking a strong Islamist narrative of tyranny and injustice. The caption reads “Pharaoh of this time, demon predator of Muslims.” The article goes on to repeatedly refer to Obama as a “crusader,” another powerful narrative — although an explanation of how he can be both a pharaoh and a crusader at the same time is lacking.

The articlH cites Oscar Ortega Hernandez, the 21-year-old who fired shots at the White House last week. Although Pennsylvania police stated that he was mentally disturbed (he told friends that Obama is the anti-Christ, so I guess he does have more than one thing in common with the extremists), the “psychologists” at ar Rahmah give him a clean bill of health:

Funny thing is the Pennsylvania police who arrested Oscar alleged that he suffered mental illness and was reported missing by his family since last week. Yet if you look at the published photos of Oscar, of course anyone would argue that Oscar is not mentally handicapped, but rather very healthy and very aware of what he did, namely to shoot Obama!

Not sure what they will make his tattoo of the word “Israel” — his young son’s name — on Ortega’s neck, however.

According to ar Rahmah, the plan to station Marines in Australia is simply a pretext to begin a crusade against Indonesian Muslims. In agreement with the English extremist group Muslims Against Crusades (a group recently banned by the British government), the assassination of Obama is allowed because of his execution of two Muslim heroes: Osama bin Laden and Anwar al Awlaki.

Jailed extremist leader Abu Bakar Basyir concurs. In another story on ar Rahmah, Basyir argues that because he is the leader of a crusade started by his predecessor, Obama must be fought. Voice of Islam posted a story arguing that Obama was in Indonesia to attempt to “Christianize” the country.

While Obama was in Bali, there was a 5.3 earthquake. Ar Rahmah pinpointed the cause of the earthquake, however: when Obama greeted the Indonesian First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, he (“ferociously”) kissed her on the cheek. It’s another attempt to link a natural disaster with some kind of moral transgression, something Indonesian Islamist extremists do frequently, just as Christian extremists do here in the US.

As usual, ar Rahmah posted a link to their website on Facebook. In a country of around 240,000,000, with around 30,000,000 Facebook users (ranking second in the world), the article about the earthquake received 139 “likes,” 21 “shares,” and 39 comments, including one brave soul who cautioned that posting stories such as this one can make Muslims appear to be provocateurs. In a new democracy with newly found freedoms of press and expression, Indonesia’s extremists continue to test the boundaries. Calling for the assassination of a visiting head of state is apparently within those boundaries. Thankfully the number of supporters of this group are small, and none chose to act on the call to violence.

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Put him in power and see how wise he is.

- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying Islamist ideologues and their ideas during my relatively short lifetime. I’ve never read War and Peace, but I have read Milestones and The Neglected Duty. In recent months, the Tunisian Islamist and leader of Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, has occupied a good deal of my attention. And as regular readers of the Comops Journal may know, I recently returned from traveling around Tunisia. The election results have since been tallied there, and Ghannouchi’s party, Ennahda, won the most seats of any party in the 217 seat constituent assembly. The victory has resulted in a lot of talk about what the old Islamist will do now, and how his party will shape the future of the new Tunisia. In my view, Ennahda’s electoral victory is best understood as a reassertion of a long-marginalized Arab-Muslim identity, and should not be treated as a call for a so-called “Islamic state.” Indeed, I see Ennahda’s rise as a temporary one, and it will quickly return to the ranks of the other parties in future elections. For those interested, I previously wrote about the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in post-revolutionary Egypt.

If you have yet to review the results of the October 23rd election, Ennahda took 90 seats (42% of all seats), while the Congress for the Republic took 30 seats, Ettakatol took 21, Aridha Chaabia took 19 (currently disputed), and 17 seats went to the PDP. No other party won more than 5 seats. For all you Cold War enthusiasts, Tunisia’s Communist party took 3 seats. Overall, twenty-six parties total (including independent lists) won at least 1 seat (my thanks to Tunisia Live for great coverage).

Tunisia’s election, the first of the Arab Spring revolutions, went remarkably well (the Aridha Chaabia issue aside), and it will undoubtedly serve as a model for others in the Arab world, especially Egypt and Libya. These were not parliamentary or presidential elections though. They chose members of the assembly that will craft a new constitution and select a new interim president until the next round of elections (in a year or so). Voters chose from an enormous number (over 100) of “lists,” and based on the number of votes achieved for these lists, a certain number of seats were awarded. Due to this system, it was a given that a coalition would have to emerge and no single party could dominate via absolute majority. Nevertheless, Ennahda’s victory exceeded expectations.

During my time in Tunisia, my peers there thought that Ennahda would win no more than 30% of the seats. The numbers suggest that my colleagues may have been out-of-touch with the extent to which Tunisians profess an Arab-Muslim identity. Ennahda led in nearly every district, but only won an outright majority in the districts of Gabés (Ghannouchi’s hometown) and Tataouine, as well as among the expat community in Italy. Ennahda also had a particularly strong showing in Tunisia’s “second city,” Sfax.

Rachid Ghannouchi, now in his 70s, has not chosen to pursue a political office (as of yet). He appears content to serve as the leader and guide of Ennahda, but his political influence will still hold tremendous sway. History has provided numerous examples of terrible Islamist regimes that rise to political power, most obviously the Taliban. Those examples fail to tell the whole story however. Ghannouchi is certainly at the opposite end of the Islamist spectrum from Mullah Omar. He is definitely a social conservative and quick to condemn anything he deems offensive to his vision of Islam, but he has also repeatedly demonstrated a surprising degree of flexibility, pragmatism, and revision in his viewpoints throughout his lifetime. He is far closer to the teachings of Malik Bennabi (d. 1973) than he is to Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328). His party’s willingness to participate in the democratic process and engage secular parties alone has put him at odds with the most hardline Islamists.

Islamism, I often tell students, thrives in abstraction, but it quickly shows its weaknesses and inadequacies when it comes to the dirty details of governance. It is one thing to tell the crowds that Islam is the solution to a country’s economic woes, and quite another thing to find people jobs and lead them out of poverty. Furthermore, pledges of support for “sharia” are often little more than populist fluff, albeit with potentially disastrous results. Even if one accepts the eternal applicability of the legal content scattered throughout Islam’s most sacred texts, the fact remains that those texts leave much to be desired when governing a 21st century nation-state. This fact generally presents a great dilemma for Islamists and it has even motivated some groups to drag their countries back to a more primitive time to try and resolve it.

Ghannouchi (center) greets Erdogan (right) in Tunis during a recent visit

Ghannouchi has repeatedly said that Turkey’s ruling AKP is the model that Ennahda will follow, and I have no reason, at this time, to doubt the sincerity of his words. Indeed, Turkey and Tunisia, despite the ethno-cultural distinctions, share a fair deal in common with regards to their modern histories. Former Tunisian President, Habib Bourguiba, has often been described as an “Arab Atatürk.” The AKP in Turkey has essentially been a reassertion of Turkey’s Muslim identity and heritage in the public sphere after it was forcefully cloistered away by Kemalists for decades. I see Ghannouchi and Ennahda in this same framework. The electoral success of Ennahda reflects the desire to reassert an Arab-Muslim identity in Tunisia after decades of being pushed into the private sphere by the secularist powers of the Neo-Destour/RCD. Ennahda’s rise has little or nothing to do with a desire to see headscarves forced onto women or hands of thieves amputated.

On a more mundane level, Ennahda’s victory also reflects the simple fact that the party has strong anti-RCD credentials, it was well organized, and it was widely known among the people. There were many new parties in the wake of the revolution (over 130 lists at one point) and few people knew anything about their platforms. Furthermore, many of the parties shared a center-left ideology, splitting those votes among multiple parties, while Ennahda essentially monopolized the religious identity vote.

Now that Ennahda has been granted political power, the people will expect them to resolve their problems and concerns, which are numerous. The economy in particular will loom large in the years ahead. It remains to be seen whether Ennahda can offer solutions beyond pious slogans and public displays of religiosity. In fact, I see a steady decrease in support for Ennahda over ensuing elections, barring a miraculous economic revival (pun intended).

Lastly, I wish to convey the idea that there is an important positive dimension to the election victory of Ennahda, as well as the earlier victories of the AKP in Turkey. Admittedly, I write this as someone who does not have to live under such parties, so keep that in mind. The silver lining here is that these parties offer a viable alternative for peoples who seek a greater public role for Islam in their societies, in contrast to the militant reactionary movements we are all too familiar with.

When Islamists point to Erdogan and the AKP as a model to follow, rather than Ayman al-Zawahiri or Mullah Omar and the “Islamic emirate” of Taliban-era Afghanistan, this is most certainly a positive. Dialogue and cooperation with such parties should be encouraged, not dismissed on the grounds of ideological allegiances. Indeed, if Western countries were to suddenly turn away from Tunisia on the basis of an Islamist party’s electoral success, it would only help the hardliners and further support the erroneous view that militancy and anti-Western sentiment is the best strategy for contemporary Muslim societies. Furthermore, power means responsibility and accountability, and Tunisians will now “see how wise” the old Islamist from Gabés really is.

* Jeffry R. Halverson is an Islamic studies scholar and an Assistant Research Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. He is the author of Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), Searching for a King: Muslim Nonviolence and the Future of Islam (Potomac 2012), and co-author of Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism (Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

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Violence between Muslims and Christians broke out in the city of Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia on Sunday, September 11. Official sources state that an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver named Darmis Saiman was killed in an accident on September 10. But rumors sent via text message spread the following day when he was buried claimed that the Muslim driver had been tortured to death by Christians.At last count, seven people have been confirmed dead and at least 60 wounded, and the government has sent between 200 and 400 Mobile Brigade (Brimob) forces to the region as back up. Although rational voices are pleading for calm, Indonesian Islamist extremists are using the conflict to stoke more violence, recalling the sectarian conflict that roiled the region between 1999 and 2002 and claimed some 9000 lives.

Islamists were quick to use the master narratives of the Crusades and martyrdom in their reports on the conflict.  That the incident occurred on the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the United States was not just a coincidence for the extremists. The extremist web site Voice of Islam reported that the attack was provoked by the United States as a way to portray Ambon as a hotbed for terrorists.  The site stated that if Islamist groups come to Ambon to help the Muslims fighting there, America will simply portray it as terrorism and thus use it as an excuse to kill Muslims.

Voice of Islam also covered Abu Bakar Basyir’s statement on the violence.  Basyir is the former spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and leader of Jama’ah Anshorut Tauhid, recently jailed for 15 years. He issued a fatwa for jihad in Ambon, and repeated the claims that the violence is a conspiracy to to bring attention to the region so that the “crusaders” can eliminate Islam there. Ar Rahmah, perhaps the most popular extremist web site in Indonesia, also invoked the crusader master narrative in its early reporting of the conflict, linking the violence to a coordinated attempt by Christians to wipe out Islam.

In another posting, ar Rahmah urged Ambonese Muslims to be at the ready. The site reported that the violent paramilitary group the Islamic Defenders Front is preparing to send jihad forces to Ambon, using the term “laskar jihad.” This is a loaded term, because Laskar Jihad was a group that formed Islamist militias to go to Ambon in 1999 during sectarian violence there. The group was subsequently disbanded under pressure from the government in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali Bombing.In the story, the FPI claimed that separatist members of the Republic of South Moluccas (RMS) are part of the Christian group, and that Jewish conspirators are behind the violence.

Although there are a few remaining supporters of the RMS in Ambon, and a fringe group called the Moluccan Sovereignty Front emerged during the 1999-2002 violence, separatism is not a serious threat. The RMS exists mostly as a government-in-exile in Holland, and has made recent statements that it is willing to accept Indonesian sovereignty in the region. Nonetheless, the “threat” of separatism — imagined or real — is frequently used to incite violence. A post on Suara Islam Online linked the violence to a supposed Christian military training camp in Bogor, West Java named Christ of Ambon.

Others chimed in to incite. The Council of Indonesian Ulama released a statement as well, claiming as factual that the death of Darmis Saiman was caused not by the accident but by stab wounds inflicted by Christians. They called for a reduction in influence of Christians in Ambon, as well as a call to arm Muslims to prepare for jihad.

Blogger Ghur4Ba invoked the Crusader narrative, and appealed to readers to pray for the warriors of jihad. Voice of Islam, in a subsequent post entitled “The Lessons from Ambon: Preparing Strength for Jihad is Important,” condemned the Crusaders and urged Musims to prepare to fight:

In conclusion, Muslims must begin to prepare for jihad, to begin physical training, preparing the means of war, and make efforts for the perfection of jihad fi sabilillah. That’s because the jihad, according to the basic beliefs Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama, will remain until the end of time.

Despite the rhetoric of the extremists, cooler heads are noting marked differences in the violence between 1999 and Sunday, such as the unwillingness of larger groups to join in, and the fact that the violence did not spread to other regions. In an article in the Jakarta Globe, Najib Azca, an expert on violence in Ambon and a researcher at Gadjah Mada University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies, noted that some of the factors that stoked conflict a decade ago remained, such as poverty and religious segregation. Coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence Haris Azhar, however, argued that this wasn’t sectarian conflict, and noted the differences between Ambon then and now. The article noted how the violence remained contained, and that others in the religiously segregated communities worked to protect minorities in their midst.

Although it ran an alarmist headline, this Jakarta Post story noted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s desire to not repeat the mistakes of a decade ago, and included plans to reach out to local leaders. Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Marshall (ret) Djoko Suyanto acknowledged the role of provocation-by-SMS, and the importance of providing factual information to counter instigation:

In the future, we need to reinforce the people’s resilience so that they are not so easily incited, including through SMS or twitters instigating anarchy. People should be able to filter information.

This brief interview by Radio Australia with International Crisis Group Southeast Asia Senior Advisor Sidney Jones describes the phenomenon of SMS instigation in Indonesia and elsewhere. Consistent with analysis by well regarded Indonesianist political scientists such as Gerry van Klinken, Jones notes that the political context is much different now. In the earlier conflict, in the context of a democratizing Indonesia, local actors in Ambon were jockeying for new political opportunities, which fueled the violence. Politically, things are much more stable now, and it appears that calm — albeit a nervous calm — was restored quickly and has thus far maintained.

Because of the potential for violence, police have been searching passengers for weapons on passenger ships bound for Ambon in Java’s major ports, and continue their efforts to find those who spread incitement via text messages.

Update, 9-21-11:

Reports of police sweeps of ships heading to Ambon noted that some “sharp weapons” were confiscated, but no firearms. The Jakarta Post reports that the police still don’t have a suspect in the sending of the text messages that stoked the violence. Although it is clear Ambon remains peaceful, there are understandably some underlying tensions that remain, as well as some internally displaced persons who have not returned to their homes. Islamist extremists, however, continue to spread disinformation in an attempt to stoke violence.

Islmaist site Ghur4Ba provided some updats on the situation in Ambon, included alerting its readers to where groups of armed Muslims are gathering in preparation for fighting. No fighting broke out, however.

English language site Prisoner of Joy (among others) questioned the police response to the riot, arguing that Muslims were the victim sof the rio, and so it is unjust that they are being targeted by security forces. Accounts of the violence, however, clearly point to Muslim provocateurs sending the original text messages, and starting the upheavals. Although a official account of the death of Darmis Saiman, the ojek driver, showed that he died of injuries sustained in the traffic accident, and that Christian onlookers attempted to help him after the accident, Islamist sites continue to insist that he was murdered and tortured by a group of Christians. Umar Abduh, an Indonesian convicted on terrorism charges but now free after serving a 10-year sentence, argued that the police in Indonesia support “the Crusaders” and, perhaps most astonishingly, that Christians, including those who opposed the Jakarta Charter (which would have made sharia the land of the law in Indonesia), are anti-Indonesia, separatist, and anti-pluralism. This belies a stunning ignorance of Indonesian history, a history in which Christian Indonesians played significant roles in the anti-colonial struggle and in the founding of the Indonesian state. Ar Rahmah posted a story quoting Umar Abduh that paints the violence as a governmnet conspiracy, and argues that the UN should try those responsible in the Indonesian government for the violence. The Islamic Defenders Front, a thuggish paramilitary group organized under the guise of protecting Islam, has given the Indonesian government an ultimatum of one month before they start sending jihadis to the region.

These responses show that the Islamists are merely eager to stoke more violence in the region. It is particularly ironic to hear Islamists such as Umar Abduh accuse the small minority of Indonesian Christians of being against pluralism and diversity — clearly against their self-interest — as well as hear the cry for the UN to get involved, given Islamists history of antipathy toward the organization.

Update, October 4

The International Crisis Group has released its report on the violence in Ambon, available here. As usual, it is a well researched and documented report, and perhaps most notably it describes the presence of “peace provocateurs,” an interfaith group in Ambon who used social media to dispell and counter rumors that were circulating in order to stoke violence:

Their core group was about ten, each of whom had some ten or fifteen contacts around the city’s major flashpoints. They were on the phone with each other constantly, checking out stories and sending informationover Twitter and Facebook and by text messages. When a member of the network in one part of town heard the rumours about the Silo Church being destroyed, he called a member of the network stationed at the church totake a photograph with his phone and circulate it, to prove it was standing undamaged.

 The report also criticizes the government, police and military responses to the violence, and discusses some of the theories circulating about the causes of the violence.

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