Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor | July 18
THE terrorist bombings in Jakarta are a savage blow against Indonesian democracy and society that demonstrate the ferocious resilience of Islamist extremism as a motivating ideology, and the terrorist groups that give life to it.
No country has done more, or better, than Indonesia in fighting Islamist terrorism. There have been hundreds of arrests, dozens of transparent trials that have educated a sceptical Indonesian public about the intentions and capabilities of the Islamist groups.
Hundreds of people have gone to jail long-term. A society-wide consensus has been forged against terrorism. The biggest and most influential Islamic groups all condemn terrorism without qualification.
Indonesia has not done all this to please Washington, still less to please Australia. The nation has taken this stand because it reflects Indonesia's values and interests and identity.
Indonesia is not a permissive environment for terrorism.
Yet seven years after the Bali bombings, Islamist terrorists can still blow up a five-star hotel, the JW Marriott which they bombed five years ago.
In hitting Jakarta's Ritz Carlton, they hit the very heart of Indonesia's commercial engagement with the world. Of course, they also stand a chance of hitting Jakarta's leading commercial and political figures.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, just re-elected President in a landslide victory, described the bombings as a cruel and inhuman act.
Kevin Rudd rightly described them as barbaric, said they were an attack on us all and that we remain under threat from terrorism.
SBY is right. This act is cruel not only to its victims but to all Indonesia, which has done so well to consolidate democracy, weather the global economic crisis and turn its face hard against extremism.
Rudd is also right -- we are all under threat from terrorism.
Islamist extremism is an exceptionally resilient and powerful ideology. Read more here...
Source: The Australian
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