Rock ‘n’ Roll and Osama Too

On the wall of a squatters’ cafe in the Indonesian capital hangs an oil painting of Osama bin Laden. But this is no haven for fundamentalist Islam.

Street musicians have squatted in the buildings of the government’s youth center in Bulungan, South Jakarta, for about 17 years. They have the tacit blessing of local authorities because they help keep the area clean and safe. The cafe I’m visiting is newly opened and features live music but no alcohol. Electric guitars scream and singers belt out the lyrics of reggae, rap and rock ‘n’ roll.

I have come to the cafe during Ramadan, a month of fasting and prayer for Indonesia’s 200 million Muslims and a time when fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran come into conflict with the way many Indonesian Muslims live. In Jakarta, a curfew on nightlife has been imposed for Ramadan. Clubs and bars must shut by 1 a.m. To enforce the curfew, stave- and sword-wielding vigilantes in robes and turbans patrol the city on motorcycles.

On this night, at 1 a.m., the musicians are at the peak of their performance when the music is interrupted by whistles, sirens, shouting and the thundering of hundreds of motorbikes. The fundamentalist vigilantes have arrived to close the club.

They are thugs, used to bullying prostitutes and frightening club owners. But the squatters aren’t easily intimidated. The street musicians crank up their sound systems and shout back. From the cafe stage, a man with a theatrical voice wails a lunatic laugh into the microphone: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” he booms, over and over.

The vigilantes seem baffled. They continue shouting, but with less heart. Eventually they move out, revving their engines and roaring away into the night in search of meeker victims. The cafe skirmish ends quickly, but the larger war between fundamentalism and a more moderate Islam rages on in Indonesia. Thugs, terrorists and Islamist clerics aggressively -- and sometimes violently -- push their views. Indonesian authorities are intent on capturing Al Qaeda operatives and other fundamentalist terrorists, but they also know they must tread carefully.

Abu Bakar Bashir, a cleric believed to be the spiritual leader of the shadowy Southeast Asian terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiah, is being held by police, who have accused him of involvement in bomb attacks and a plot to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri. But even in jail, he is allowed to write a column for a Jakarta newspaper. In a recent article, he argued that the proof of faith is upholding Islamic law. He urges his readers to follow the path of the prophet Abraham, who, according to the Koran, blindly followed God’s order to sacrifice his son, Ishmael.

When the Indonesian police brought Imam Samudra -- the most important terrorist yet arrested in connection with October’s Bali nightclub bombings -- to Jakarta for interrogation, he managed to get a few words to the news media: “Patience. Patience. God willing, this is not a dishonorable struggle. It is a holy quest.” Police have linked Samudra to a series of other terrorist attacks and an armed robbery of a jeweler’s shop. Samudra told his interrogators that taking the wealth of unbelievers is lawful in Islam. As for the Muslims killed in the nightclub blasts, he said: “It was their own fault to be in a sinful environment. But, God willing, [they] will enter paradise.”

Another alleged terrorist had a poem to his wife published by a Jakarta daily. “Don’t be sad that I have to leave you,” he wrote. “One day you will be proud to have known me.” It is obvious that the terror suspects know how to play the media and paint themselves as humane fighters for “real Islam.”

They refer to scripture with such certainty that many doubt their guilt. After all, a true jihad is a holy war every Muslim must fight. Whenever the war against terrorism is presented as the United States’ war against Islam, the terrorists’ views become more widely accepted. There might be only a small core of hardened fanatics who resort to large-scale killing, but there are thousands and thousands of “petty terrorists” who enjoy intimidating and collecting protection money from “sinful businesses.”

Then there are the untold numbers more who, like those here at the squatters’ cafe, aren’t terrorists or even fundamentalists but admire Bin Laden for what they see as his standing up to U.S. imperialism. They don’t support his religious views or his role in Sept. 11, but they are deeply concerned about U.S. motives in the world, particularly toward Muslims.

A small number of Muslim intellectuals here do speak out against fundamentalism, namely the loose group around Nurcholis Madjid, known as the propagandists for “Liberal Islam.” But they are an elite few. If the U.S. wants to make a difference in Indonesia -- and perhaps get those Bin Laden posters off the walls of Jakarta -- it must provide support for moderate ulamas, respected religious scholars who often give advice to Muslim leaders.

Both moderate and fundamentalist ulamas often run Islamic boarding schools, so the U.S. could help in funding and scholarship opportunities for the more moderate schools. Currently the U.S. is broadcasting on Indonesian television advertisements posing as mini-documentaries about happy Muslims living in the U.S., but the thinly veiled propaganda is unconvincing. The U.S. is still widely seen as having an anti-Islam, imperialist agenda.

The confrontation with the motorbike gang demonstrates another way to fight fundamentalism. As Otig Pakis, an actor and performance artist at the cafe tells me with a grin: “You’ve got to be crazy when you face the fundamentalists. Crazy people do not have to follow Islamic law.”