Understanding Violent Religious Behavior in Indonesia; From the Concept to the Prevention

Abstract

AbstractOne of the social issues that are developing rapidly in Indonesia today is violent religious behavior. Several terms are used to describe such behavior as fundamentalism, radicalism, extremism, or terrorism. The government and the authorities are trying to prevent and eradicate this problem, but it will not be effective if the four concepts above are still used ambiguously by the mass media and scientific journals. Therefore this article will explain these constructs elaborately so that the eradication of violent religious behavior can be done accurately. The method for this research uses a normative juridical method that examines references or secondary data as a basis for the analysis by searching the literature relating to the problem under study. The results and discussion of the research explain that extremism and radicalism are the seeds of the birth of criminal acts of terrorism, while fundamentalism is how an individual feels belonging to a religion and thus considers that his belief is the most right faith and ready to defend it. Besides, this paper will also analyze what factors are the causes of extreme religious actions, as well as how to handle them psychologically (internally) and interventions from government and society (external). Keywords: Violent Religious Behavior; Fundamentalism; Religious Identity, Spirituality