Suchergebnisse

This study analyses the intellectual and political history of Laskar Jihad, the most spectacular Muslim paramilitary group that emerged in Indonesia in the aftermath of the collapse of the New Order regime in May 1998. Using an interpretive framework derived from social movement theory and identity politics, this study exposes the roots of the group and its transformation into a militant, jihadist movement. Based on extensive fieldwork, numerous interviews and a study of the movement's literature, this study demonstrates that the very existence of Laskar Jihad cannot be dissociated from Saudi Arabia's immensely ambitious global campaign for the Wahhabization of the Muslim umma. Operating under the banner of the transnational Salafi da'wa movement, this campaign has succeeded in disseminating the Wahhabi message around the world. The impact of this campaign has been felt in Indonesia since the mid-1980s, reflecting the success of the movement's proponents to attract a significant number of followers and establish an exclusive current of Islamic activism. This study addresses how the rapid efflorescence of the Salafi movement coincided with increasing tension among its protagonists caused by their increasing competition to become the movement's legitimate representative. Fragmentation and conflict among the Salafis became inevitable. The movement's main actor was Ja'far Umar Thalib, a typical cadre of Islamism who grew up in the puritanical atmosphere of al-Irsyad and Persis, two reformist Muslim organizations in Indonesia. His militancy matured in Pakistan, and he went to Afghanistan to fight with the Afghan mujahids. Upon return, he immediately immersed himself in Salafi activism, giving lectures and sermons in Salafi teaching centres scattered among various Indonesian cities. Bolstered by further study with Muqbil ibn Hadi al-Wadi'i of Yemen, he quickly emerged as the movement's most visible, and leading, authority. Utilizing pre-existing networks and interpersonal bonds formed through his activism in the Salafi movement, Ja'far Umar Thalib mobilized thousands of Salafis and other aspirant mujahids to join Laskar Jihad. Through conspiracy rhetoric blaming Zionist and Christian international powers for the escalation of the Moluccan conflict, he created a pretext for collective action that encouraged an analytical shift from individuals to groups. Based on this pretext, which was strengthened and legitimized by fatwas from prominent religious authorities in the Middle East, the Salafis justified their actions and created a new collective identity as heroes for their religion and fellow faithful and as patriots for their beloved state. Thus it is not surprising that they vied with one another to captain the ships that would take them to the frontlines of the Moluccas in a fervid attempt to absorb themselves into a protracted, bloody communal conflict in the islands. For these youths jihad seems not only a demonstration of their commitment to Islam but also a way to express their resentment and frustration in the face of rapid modernization and globalization. From April 2000 until its disbanding in October 2002, Laskar Jihad dispatched more than 7,000 fighters to the Moluccas to confront Christians. This brief episode of jihad activism owed much to the support of military elites who saw it as a chance to use militant Muslim groups to retaliate against Abdurrahman Wahid for having sacked them from key military positions. Ironically, however, most of the Laskar Jihad fighters were unskilled combatants. They went to the Moluccas with limited experience and an untried fighting capacity. Their greatest achievement perhaps lay in creating propaganda that successfully influenced public opinion through the media. Given this fact, this study argues that the jihad conducted by Laskar Jihad can be more accurately described as drama: an endeavour by the Salafis to shore up their self-image as the most committed defenders of Islam, and thereby to put their identity on the map of Indonesian Islam.

Indonesia is a diverse country, if not one of the most diverse ones in the world. Due to its geographical fact as the largest archipelago in the world, Indonesia's territory has been inhabited by not less than 1340 different tribes who speak more than 600 local/traditional languages since ancient times. It is also the territory where there were some prominent Hindu-Buddhist ancient kingdoms, such as Srivijaya and Majapahit, in which their existence determined the civilization existing in South East Asia today. Once Islam came into this archipelago, it then quickly became the dominant religion, and this then makes Indonesia the biggest Muslim country in the world without changing its status as a place for people from various religions to live and co-exist with each other. Those all shape the existence of Indonesia today. The world's biggest Muslim country with its inherent diversities that have been existing since long before the establishment of this country. However, such a fact of diversities, especially in the matter of religious life, has been under threat. There have been many cases where the religious minority groups encountered marginalization, discrimination, or even persecutions, in which it happened in the relationship with the Muslims as the dominant religious group. Resistances against the establishments of churches or other worship places of the non-Muslims that is more and more frequent happening in various places in Indonesia, or resistance against non-Muslims to be the governmental leaders, such as what happened during the moment of the provincial election in Jakarta in 2017, are examples of how some Muslims in Indonesia are getting intolerant towards their fellow citizens from different religions. Even worse, such an emerging tendency of intolerance didn't only happen towards non-Muslims, but also towards the minority groups within the Muslims too. The persecution against the members of the Ahmadiyya sect in the village of Cikeusik, province of Banten, in 2011, as well as the one against the Shiites in the town of Sampang, province of East Java, in 2012, which resulted in the deaths of some Ahmadiyya members and the displacement of the whole Shiite community in Sampang, obviously highlighted the condition of how such diseases of intolerance and hatred have been significantly growing among some Muslims in Indonesia towards those who differ. Surely, the problem is not with Islam per se, but instead with how Islam is interpreted, practiced, and used by some people in Indonesia. As such, I argue that this problem derives from the so-called Islamic fundamentalism. It is from this context, the research through this Ph.D. thesis is carried out. Through this research, I investigated how Islamic fundamentalism has been developing in Indonesia since the beginning through historical analysis (Chapter III). From such an investigation, I then investigated and analyzed further the existing legal frameworks in Indonesia regarding how these all have failed in properly dealing with the paradigm of Islamic fundamentalism (Chapter V). Surely, all those works are done after I conducted the necessary elaboration and clarification regarding the concept of Islamic fundamentalism (Chapter II). And since pluralism is the core value embraced in this research that needs to be protected from the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, I also made theoretical elaborations on some principles and approaches under the umbrella of the politics of recognition of difference to protect and advance diversities (Chapter IV). I close this Ph.D. thesis with a chapter (Chapter VI) where I proposed what I argue as the best legal framework possible to combat Islamic fundamentalism as well as to advance diversities in Indonesia as a Muslim majority country. There, I argued that some key principles developed in the Western world are indeed necessary to serve as the fundamental basis for such a legal framework.

Posto che la fase costituente di transizione dovrebbe implicare la codifica di un giudizio negativo sull'operato del regime autoritario, nonché il mutamento dell'assetto istituzionale e dell'assiologia dei valori, si valuterà se nel percorso post-autoritario seguito dall'Indonesia sussistano queste condizioni o meno, laddove la loro mancanza potrebbe contribuire a spiegare l'attuale impasse nell'apertura democratica.

The one of horse dances, commonly known in Indonesia as jaranan, kuda lumpingor jathilan, is a branch of ceremonial musical performances during which a group of artists led by a pawang− analogous, hence not perfectly corresponding, to the one of the shaman – and accompanied by an ensemble of musicians, undergo a series of voluntary possession by the spirits of the ancestors. After having analyzed the Sundanese version of this phenomenon (kasenian réak)problematizing it in the wake of the polar tension between the concepts of tradition and innovation, tourism and orthodoxy in the previous issue of this magazine, the author reconstructs the history of cultural policies in independent Indonesia, trying to explain the evolution of the phenomenon and to understand what a possible future of the practice could look like. ; Quella delle danze del cavallo, comunemente conosciute in Indonesia come jaranan, kudalumpingo jathilan, è una famiglia di performance musicali di matrice cerimoniale, nella quale un gruppo di artisti guidati da un pawang – figura analoga, in quanto non perfettamente coincidente, a quella dello sciamano – e accompagnati da un ensemble di musicisti, si sottopone a possessioni volontarie ad opera degli spiriti degli antenati. Dopo aver problematizzato la versione sundanese di tale fenomeno (kasenian réak)e aver sviluppato l'analisi nel solco della tensione polare tra i concetti di tradizione e innovazione, turistificazione e ortodossia nel numero precedente di questa rivista, l'autore ricostruisce la storia delle politiche culturali nell'Indonesia indipendente, cercando di dare ragione dell'evoluzione del fenomeno e comprendere quale possa essere un possibile futuro della pratica.

Russia as an essential actor for global politicsThe end of the bipolar system, with its competitive charge between the two blocs, started a phase of stasis in the global system. Furthermore, the new global system is chaotic because of the lack of a preparatory and consensual work supporting the transition from the earlier regime of international relations. The US-driven North-Atlantic bloc is losing its hegemony and a new ensemble of States looking for a greater role for themselves is appearing on the international scene. If the first level of States is composed by the United States, the Western Europe, Russia, China, Japan, India and Brazil, the second is composed by Egypt, Venezuela, Argentina, Indonesia, Turkey and other more. In this context, Russia has the essential role of "equalizer",while waiting for the completion of a multipolar order.

This bio-bibliographic note presents the main aspects of the economic formation of the author, of the relations with important Italian and foreign economists, of the essential traits of his research on economic policy, the theory of economic growth and development, comparative economic development, labor economics. All this is accompanied by elements of contemporary economic history and by analyses and reflections, in a comparative context, on economic development trends and policies regarding the Italian and European economies, the United States, Germany and the main Asian economies: China, India, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. The general conclusions are that without sufficiently inclusive and sustainable economic policies any economic development process tends to deteriorate or implode and that economic long-run trends are strongly interwoven to the evolution of historical, institutional, social and political phenomena. ; Questo saggio bio-bibliografico presenta gli aspetti principali della formazione economica dell'autore, dei rapporti avuti con noti economisti italiani e stranieri, della maturazione della sua ricerca su temi relativi alla politica economica, alla teoria della crescita e dello sviluppo economico, agli studi di sviluppo economico comparato ed alla economia e politica del lavoro. Tutto ciò è accompagnato da elementi della storia economica contemporanea della seconda metà del secolo XX e dei due primi decenni di questo secolo e da analisi e riflessioni, in ottica comparativa, sulle politiche e le tendenze di sviluppo dell'economia italiana e di quella europea, nonché alle fasi di crescita o di crisi economica degli Stati Uniti, della Germania e delle maggiori economie dell'Asia. Le conclusioni generali sono che senza una politica sufficientemente inclusiva e sostenibile ogni processo di sviluppo economico tende nel lungo o lunghissimo periodo a deteriorarsi o implodere, e che i mutamenti economici di fondo sono strettamente intrecciati con l'evoluzione della storia, delle istituzioni e dei fenomeni politici e sociali.