Abstract
Southeast Asia has been considered as a fertile land compared to other regions for terrorism breeding in the world outside Middle East region as the basis of its operation. The Muslim population in Southeast Asia contributes to the vast development of terrorism in the region, specifically ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) as the widest terrorist network. Indonesia, in this context, becomes the common target of the group’s expansion due to its large Muslim population as well as its strategic location. However, though ISIS has been infiltrating the country for years and influenced some people with its radical perspective to run jihad for establishing global Islamic State, a relatively constant movement has taken place without making any significant progress of recruitment and social leverage. This essay will elaborate the reason why ISIS, though rapidly developed within the country, but can not create an apparent progress for the group regarding the expansion of its extreme ideology to the society. In line with this argument, we found two distinct factors that strain the group's radical teachings, which are leadership and ideological barriers. Leadership lies on the Jokowi's unequivocal policies on counterterrorism which enable the country, and region to some extent, to resist the external threat of ISIS. On the other hand, the group can not deal with the plural Muslim community within the country due to its different ideological perspective on Islam, precisely on jihad.
Highlights
Indonesia as Muslim-majority country in the world has committed to combat terrorism and suppress the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, especially extreme Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria, as a consequence of signing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2170 [1]
Since ISIS is the widest and prominent Islamic terrorist group in the world, some might believe that the group can get more from Indonesia as this country is widely known as the common target of a terrorist group for its fertile environment to breed jihadists
Apart from the fact that the revision of TNI involvement on antiterrorism operation law still in the process in the legislative, it showed that Joko Widodo is firm both on his effort to fight back terrorism by any means necessary and prevent the radicalism in the society through "soft" approach
Summary
Indonesia as Muslim-majority country in the world has committed to combat terrorism and suppress the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, especially extreme Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria, as a consequence of signing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2170 [1] For this phenomenon, Indonesia sees ISIS (or Islamic State) as a current major threat in which the world agreed upon the point that this menace should be combatted together. Since ISIS is the widest and prominent Islamic terrorist group in the world, some might believe that the group can get more from Indonesia as this country is widely known as the common target of a terrorist group for its fertile environment to breed jihadists On the contrary, this point will be proven wrong with the argument that national ideology and Jokowi's unequivocal policies are significant to combat terrorism. Schools as the fundamental institution in delivering the teaching to all of the organisations' members
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