[PART 2] FINDING LOVE AND JIHAD
BY: ANA P.SANTOS
'That could have been me'
It was in 2015 when Putri, then 22, left
her hometown in the mountains of Central Java to become a domestic worker in
Singapore. She had wanted to be a teacher. She had always liked studying and
her math grades proved that she was actually good at it, but money was always
tight for her and her family. It was a more practical choice to join her older
sister who was already a domestic worker in Singapore.
After two years in Singapore, the novelty
of living abroad gave way to the drudgery of domestic work and the isolation of
living in a different country. The world she found online on Facebook and in
chat rooms was her source of daily social interaction – and even romance.
Young Farmer reached out to her on Facebook
Messenger and introduced her to Islamic readings. After 3 months of chatting
online, Young Farmer asked her to marry him on Telegram. Putri refused – not
because she wasn’t in love with him – but because “Marriage on Telegram cannot
be real!” Young Farmer soothed her misgivings by proposing to meet in Turkey
and getting married there before moving to Syria to live in The Caliphate. It
all sounded so exciting to Putri. “I started saving money to go to Turkey,” she
said.
The trip to Turkey never happened. Putri
never even got to meet Young Farmer in person. Young Farmer, who had been under
surveillance by authorities, was arrested in 2017 in Indonesia for plotting
suicide bomb attacks. Also arrested with him was Adilatur Rahman and Rahman’s
bride, Anggi Indah Kusuma, a domestic worker in Hong Kong he had met and
married online. Kusuma had been deported back to Indonesia after she posted a
Facebook video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.
The 3 were accused of manufacturing
home-made chemical bombs. Young Farmer’s electronic footprint led back to
Putri, causing her to be deported from Singapore. Putri read about Young
Farmer’s arrest online and the involvement of the former domestic worker,
Kusuma, and shuddered. “That could have been me.”
From bride to bomber
Dian Nova Yuli would have been Indonesia’s
first female suicide bomber had she not been arrested by Indonesian authorities
in December 2016. Yuli, her husband, and a group of other radicals were
plotting a suicide bomb attack at the presidential palace.
Yuli was working as a domestic worker first
in Taiwan and then in Singapore when she was radicalized online. She was
inspired by reading profiles of jihadists on Facebook. Through others, she was
introduced to her husband, Nur Solihin. The two were married over Telegram
despite never having met each other. The couple was reportedly tutored on
bomb-making methods through encrypted messaging channels.
A few months later, Ika Puspitasari was
arrested for planning a suicide bomb attack on the resort island of Bali.
Puspitasari was a domestic worker in Hong Kong who was radicalized by a husband
whom she also met online.
“Both were moderate Muslims when they were
in Indonesia. You could even call them beginners in Islamic teachings. They
were introduced to the ideals of violent extremism by men they met online and
became their boyfriends,” said an officer of Detachment 88, Indonesia’s elite
counter-terrorism group, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Men are usually
the ones indoctrinating women. I wouldn’t say that they are particularly
targeting migrant workers, but they are using marriage and courtship to hook
women in,” the Detachment 88 officer added.
Several terrorism experts and an NGO
official Rappler interviewed confirmed that women were targeted for
radicalization by extremist groups. Migrant women, in particular, are
attractive to jihadists because they can be convinced to donate their salary to
fund terrorist activities.
“Extremists will tell them that their
salary is haram (forbidden by Islamic Law) because they are working for takfir
– a non-believer. To be a good Muslim, they need to purify their salary by
making a zagat or donation to a certain charity or organization, which may be
just a front for terrorism,” said Mira Kusumarini, executive director of
C-SAVE, a Jakarta-based network of civil society organizations working together
to prevent violent extremism.
“Migrant women are absolutely a target.
Terrorists need women to amplify attacks. Women are drawn to jihadists – they
find them sexy,” said Mohammad Adhe Bhakti, director of Indonesia’s Center for
Radicalism and De-radicalization Studies.
Sumber: Rappler.com– 28 Disember 2019
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