[PART 4] FINDING LOVE AND JIHAD
BY: ANA P.SANTOS
For love or jihad?
Women have traditionally been passive
bystanders in jihad, taking on auxillary roles in support of the men in their
life – fathers, brothers, and husbands. Their motivations to take on more
active roles as suicide bombers are a subject of debate.
“A woman falls in love with her ears first
before their heart,” said Rizka Nurul, a researcher who appears in the
documentary film about former domestic workers Yuli and Puspitasari entitled,
Pengantin, which means bride, but is also code for suicide bomber.
According to Nurul, while Yuli and
Puspitasari were wooed and radicalized by the promise of eternal martyrdom that
could be attained by becoming suicide bombers, their connections with these men
also made them feel loved and the idea of jihad gave them a sense of purpose.
Nava Nuraniyah, an IPAC researcher argued
against the binary view that women are either brainwashed and seduced into
taking up jihad or terrorist provocateurs. A mix of personal crisis and
political grievances are potent motivators for women to subvert subordination
in jihadist organizations and assume female combat roles.
“Far from being coerced, most women join
ISIS of their own free will. A shared ideology might spark the initial interest
in ISIS, but it is emotional factors such as a feeling of acceptance and
empowerment that make them stay,” said Nuraniyah.
Andhika Chrisnayudhanto, director of
regional and multilateral cooperation at the National Counter Terrorism Agency
of Indonesia (BNPT), said ISIS has successfully marketed itself to both men and
women.
“Unlike other terrorist organizations like
Al-Qaeda, ISIS appeals to both women and men. They even made it more appealing
for men, shaming them by showing that women are joining, as if saying, ‘Hey,
why are you guys doing nothing?’”
Chrisnayudhanto, however, is cautious about
singling out migrant women as a primary target for radicalization. “It’s hard
to say who is most vulnerable. Migrant workers are prone but we shouldn’t
single them out and be stigmatized.”
Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based
terrorism expert, sees the migrant workers radicalized in Southeast Asia as
small in number but significant in terms of threat.
“It is important for the Indonesian
embassies to work together with the government in host countries to educate the
other migrant workers so that they will not drift towards extremism. It is a
recent phenomenon, but it has to be addressed sooner or later,” said Gunaratna.
Currently, both Indonesia and the
Philippines are working on bolstering orientations given to migrant workers to
include a counter-terrorism module.
BNPT’s Chrisnayudhanto said that their
country has included countering violent extremism modules in its mandatory
seminars for departing migrant workers. The agency supplements this effort with
talks on recognizing and preventing radicalization in countries where there are
a large number of Indonesian guest workers.
In the Philippines, Jay Teves of the
Overseas Workers Welfare Association (OWWA), confirmed that the mandatory
pre-departure orientation (PDOS) seminars have been updated to include sessions
on countering violent extremism. The sessions were developed in partnership
with the country’s National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA).
“The PDOS service providers have all
undergone training to include counter-terrorism in all PDOS seminars,” said
Teves.
New reality in jihadi structure
A recent IPAC report noted that the fall of
ISIS territories in the Middle East emboldened jihadist networks in Indonesia
rather than discouraged them.
Rogue individuals, mostly men, find each
other online and band together to plan terror attacks. Parallel to this may be
the rise of pro-ISIS women willing to take on more combat roles.
Indonesia has already seen the extent that
women would go to carry out a terror attack.
In May 2018, 3 coordinated bomb attacks in
Indonesia’s second largest city of Surabaya, rocked two churches and a police
station. The attacks killed 28 people and shocked the world who saw for the
first time terror attacks carried out by suicide bombers who included women and
their children.
In a United Nations Security Council report
released in February, the Surabaya bombing was described as “a new model for
suicide bombings and noted that a caliphate had provided some of the
inspiration for the attacks. The role of young people and women in terrorist
operations in the region appears to be changing. ISIL initially discouraged the
involvement of women, but more recently has welcomed their direct
participation.”
Experts said that counter-terrorism
efforts, surveillance, law enforcement, and deradicalization will shift from
its focus on only-male terrorists to factor in women’s roles and better
understand their motivations.
IPAC director Sidney Jones said that
Indonesian authorities have much to gain by studying the women currently in
detention and learning from their experience.
“We have to accept that women are now a
permanent part of the jihadi structure,” said Jones.
Source: Rappler.com– 28 Disember 2019
FOLLOW US👇
https://al-haqcentre.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/alhaqcentre
https://instagram.com/alhaqcentre
"UNITED AGAINST EXTREMISM!
Comments
Post a Comment