Ethnicized violence in Indonesia: Where criminals and fanatics meet

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

Volumn 13, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 367-403

  Brown, David ^a   Wilson, Ian Douglas ^a  

^a MURDOCH UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNICITY; ETHNOPOLITICS; NATIONALISM; RELIGION; VIOLENCE;

ASIA; EURASIA; INDONESIA; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

EID: 34548463476     PISSN: 13537113     EISSN: 15572986     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13537110701451579     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. The term "ethnicized violence" is employed in order to avoid the assumption sometimes accompanying the term "ethnic violence" that the violence is caused by ethnocultural differences between the participants. The term "ethnicized violence" indicates both that the conflict is characterized to some degree by ethnic alignments, and that the participants have developed an ethnic consciousness of the self and the other. But the question of causation is left open as a subject for investigation rather than assumption.
2. Information on the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (Forum Betawi Rempug) has been accumulated by Ian Wilson through archival research and through three months fieldwork in Jakarta in 2003 and 2005. Interviews were conducted with FBR leaders and several dozen rank-and-file members, with the full-knowledge of FBR's leadership. Interviews were also conducted with FBR-affiliated groups and individuals. The researcher attended numerous FBR events and spent time with members both "on duty" and socially. Preman gangs vary between the purely criminal and the overtly political. The FBR was chosen, not because it is typical, but rather because it exemplifies the linking between criminality and ethnic rights claims which this article seeks to explore.
3. See Timo Kivimaki and Ruben Thorning, "Democratisation and Regional Power Sharing in Papua/Irian Jaya: Increased Opportunities and Decreased Motivations for Violence," Asian Survey, Vol. 43, No. 4 (2002), pp. 651-72
4. Robert Cribb, "From Total People's Defense to Massacre: Explaining Indonesian Military Violence in East Timor" in Colombijn and Lindblad (eds.), Tim Kell, The Roots of Acehnese Rebellion, 1989-1992 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1995)
5. Jamie S. Davidson, "Communal Violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi: Where People Eat Fish and Fish Eat People," Indonesia No. 72 (2001), pp. 45-80
6. Jemma Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia, 1966-1999 (Singapore: Select Books, 2006)
7. Tim Lindsey, "The Criminal State: premanisme and the New Order," in Grayson Lloyd and Shannon Smith (eds), Indonesia Today: Challenges of History (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001).
8. For example, see Henk Schulte-Nordholt, "A Genealogy of Violence," in Freek Colombijn and Lindblad (eds.)
9. Jerry van Klinken, "Indonesia's New Ethnic Elites," in Henke Schulte-Nordholt and Abdullah Irwan, Indonesia in Search of Transition (Pustaka Pelajar: Yogyakarta, 2002)
10. Romain Bertrand, "Behave like Enraged Lions: Civil Militias, the Army and the Criminalization of Politics in Indonesia", Global Crime, Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (2004) pp. 325-44.
11. Richard Robison and Vedi Hadiz, Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets (London: Routledge, 2004).
12. George Aditjondro, "Guns, Pamphlets and Handie-talkies: How the military exploited local ethno-religious tensions in Maluku to preserve their political and economic privileges," in Ingrid Wessel and Georgina Wimhofer (eds.) Violence in Indonesia (Hamburg: Abera Verlag, 2001).
13. One exception is Peter Kreuzer, "Applying theories of ethno-cultural conflict and conflict resolution to collective violence in Indonesia" in Peace Research Institute Frankfurt Report, No. 63, 2002, which examines theoretical approaches relating to the psychological, institutional and cultural dimensions of violence.
14. Yahya Sadowki, The Myth of Global Chaos (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), p. 8.
15. Vedi Hadiz, "Decentralization and Democracy in Indonesia: A Critique of Neo-Institutionalist Perspectives", Development and Change, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2004) pp. 697-718.
16. Robison and Hadiz, 2004.
17. Stein Kristiansen, "Violent youth groups in Indonesia: The cases of Yogyakarta and Nusa Tenggara Barat", Sojourn, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2003) pp. 110-38.
18. Bertrand, 2004.
19. Greenfeld, 2005.
20. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 76
21. see also Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War (London: Vintage, 2001).
22. Arief Budiman, Barbara Hatley and Damien Kingsbury (eds.), Reformasi: Crisis and Change in Indonesia (Clayton: Monash Asia Institute, 1999)
23. Edward Aspinall, Opposing Suharto: Compromise, Resistance, and Regime Change in Indonesia (Indiana: Stanford University Press, 2005)
24. Kevin O'Rourke, Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia (New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 2002).
25. Max Lane, "Mass Politics and Political Change in Indonesia" in Budiman, Hatley and Kingsbury, 1999, pp. 247-8.
26. Isaiah Berlin, "The Bent Twig: On the Rise of Nationalism", in Henry Hardy, I. Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991).
27. Ruth McVey, "Nation versus State in Indonesia" in Damien Kingsbury and Harry Aveling (eds.) Autonomy and Disintegration in Indonesia (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 22-3.
28. Ian Douglas Wilson, "Continuity and Change: The Changing Contours of Organized Violence in Post-NewOrder Indonesia", Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2006), pp. 265-97
29. Rudy Gunawan and Nezar Patria, Premanisme Politik [Political Thuggery] (Jakarta: Institut Studi Arus Informasi, 2000)
30. Akuat Supriyanto, "Paramilitary and Democracy: The mapping of paramilitary groups related to five major political parties in Indonesia" Research Paper for the Security & Democracy Lecture Series, National Democratic Institute of International Affairs, 2002.
31. The term was habitually employed by New Order government spokesmen, defending state institutions from accusations of corruption or atrocity, by blaming such acts on individuals acting outside the command structure.
32. Henk Schulte-Nordholt, "The Jago in the Shadow: Crime and "Order" in the Colonial State in Java", Review of Indonesian and Malaysian affairs, Vol. 25, No. 1 (1991) pp. 74-92
33. Margreet Van Tillen, "In Search of Si Pitung: The History of an Indonesian Legend", in Bijdragen KITLV, Vol. 152, No. 3 (1995) pp. 461-82
34. Ian Wilson, "The Politics of Inner Power: The Practice of Pencak Silat in West Java", PhD. Thesis, Murdoch University, 2002.
35. Originally derived from the Dutch word vrijman [freeman], "preman" was used during the colonial period to refer to those freed from forced labor, or plantation slavery. In seventeenth-entury Batavia it meant one who was not in the service of the VOC (Dutch East India Company), but who nonetheless carried out business on their behalf. From the 1950s through to the 1970s the word took on the meaning of a police or military officer not on duty. By the early years of the New Order, "preman" was used to refer to undercover agents - see Loren Ryter, "Pemuda Pancasila: The Last Loyalist Free Men of Suharto's Order?", Indonesia, No. 66 (1998). By the 1990s "preman" had taken on the connotations of criminality and political thuggery it has today, no doubt due to the ambiguity that exists between criminality and state practice.
36. Robert Cribb, Gangsters and Revolutionaries: The Jakarta People's Militia and the Indonesian Revolution 1945-1949 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991)
37. Ryter, 1998.
38. Cribb, 2002.
39. Ryter, 1998.
40. Ibid.
41. The dependence of the New Order on the presence of criminality is explored in James Siegal, A New Criminal Type in Jakarta: Counter Revolution Today (London: Duke University Press, 1998).
42. David Bourchier, "Skeletons, Vigilantes and the Armed Forces Fall from Grace," in Budiman, Hatley and Kingsbury, 1999; also John Pemberton, On the Subject of "Java" (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
43. Other gangs have pursued different agendas. The Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam or FPI) is one example of a gang that has waged a vigilante style campaign to "eliminate vice" but has also been accused of extortion and racketeering, see Wilson (2006). There has been little serious research done on youth gangs and militias in the post-New Order environment. Exceptions include Kristiansen, 2003
44. also Untung Widyanto "Antara Jago dan Preman: Studi Tentang Habitus Premansime Pada Organisasi Forum Betawi Rempug FBR" [Between Jago and Preman: A Study on the Habits of the Preman in the Betawi Brotherhood Forum Organization], Masters thesis, University of Indonesia, 2005.
45. Maduranese are people originating from the island of Madura situated off the north-eastern tip of Java.
46. Born in Cakung in 1961, the son of a trader and religious teacher, Fadloli Muhir graduated from the famous Lirboyo pesantren in Kediri, East Java in 1986 after which he established the Ziyadatul Mubtadi'ien religious boarding school in Cakung, in 1990. He joined the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) before its split in 1996 with Megawati, who forwarded him as a candidate for membership of the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA). In 1998 he was promoted to a presidential advisory body. In 1997 Fadloli established the Indonesian Santri Movement (Gerakan Santri Indonesia or GSI), a conservative anti-vice Islamic organization. In 2004 he ran, unsuccessfully for election as a member of the Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah or DPD).
47. From the 2000 Indonesian census.
48. "Memperkenalkan Forum Betawi Rempug" [Introducing the Betawi Brotherhood Forum], internal ms. Jakarta 2002. The FBR uses the English phrase "real owner of the island". Some of its other promotional material also uses English phrases, such as "Fighting Spirit, Brave, Religious."
49. Other groups identifying as Betawi and often linked to the world of preman include Forkabi, Persatuan warga Betawi (PERWABI), Persatuan Orang Betawi (POB) and the Ikatan Keluarga Besar Tanah Abang (IKBT). Many of these organizations are affiliated with the umbrella organization the Betawi Consultative Body (Badan Musyawarah Betawi or Bamus), currently led by Betawi vice governor Fauzi Bowo with Fadloli Muhir as his deputy.
50. Interview with Fadloli el-Muhir, Jakarta, 3 July 2003.
51. The term jawara is employed by the FBR to distinguish themselves from criminal "preman" gangs denoted as Jago-an [pseudo-jawara. According to Irawan Syafaie, a Betawi community leader, and former militia and gang member during the 1940s and 50s: "Jawara were pillars of the community. If there was a disturbance or a robbery people would go to them rather than the police, and they would take care of it. They didn't drink or gamble, were devoutly religious and were protective of the community in which they lived. Jago-an on the other hand were like the preman of today, they stole, extorted and drank and gambled. People feared them, but didn't respect them." Interview with Irawan Syafaie, Jakarta, 30 August 2005. See also Wilson, 2002.
52. Field notes, Jakarta, 28 August 2005.
53. The term "ressentiment" derives from Nietzsche, and has been applied to the study of nationalism particularly in Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992)
54. Liah Greenfeld, "Nationalism and the Mind," Nations and Nationalism Vol. 11, No. 3 (2005) pp. 325-41.
55. Benedict Anderson, "Indonesian Nationalism Today and in the Future," in Indonesia, No. 67 (1999), pp. 1-12
56. also Ruth McVey, 2003.
57. Susan Abeyasekere (ed.) From Batavia to Jakarta: Indonesia's Capital 1930s to 1980s (Clayton: Monash University, 1985).
58. David Lake and Donald Rothchild, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 8.
59. Interview with FBR official, Cakung, Jakarta, 3 September 2003.
60. Roger Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred and Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe (Victoria: Cambridge University Press, 2002) p. 25.
61. On the diverse manifestations of ressentiment, see Greenfeld, 2005.
62. Octave Mannoni, Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
63. Those ethnic minorities occupying homeland territories on the periphery of the state are more likely to believe that opposition to the state is feasible, in the form of ethnonational separatism. Under such circumstances, as in the case of Aceh, the interweaving of instrumental and ideological bases for ethnic nationalism take a different form; see David Brown, "Why Independence: The Instrumental and Ideological Dimensions of Nationalism", International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol. 45, No. 3-4 (2004), pp. 277-96.
64. Elizabeth Morelli, "Ressentiment and Rationality". Paper delivered at the 20th World Congress of Philosophy, Massachusetts (1998) http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anth.AnthMore.htm, [accessed 28 October 2006].
65. Donald Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), p. 547.
66. Lance Castles, "The Ethnic Profile of Djakarta", Indonesia, Vol. 3, 1967, pp. 153-204.
67. Ibid.
68. Interview with Fadloli Muhir, Jakarta, 26 August 2005.
69. Interview with FBR member, Kebayoran, South Jakarta, 3 August 2005.
70. Interview with FBR member, Cakung, East Jakarta, 23 February 2005.
71. The FBR characterizes Betawi culture as centered upon the "three Ss" - silat, shalat and sekolah (martial arts, prayer, and school), that reflect the life of the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) a pivotal institution in Betawi society. Interview with Fadloli el-Muhir, Jakarta, 24 February 2005.
72. van Tillen, 1995.
73. Susan J. Browne, The Gender Implications of Dangdut Kampungan: Indonesian "Low-class" Popular Music (Clayton: Monash Asia Institute, 2000).
74. Speech given Fadloli el-Muhir at the opening of a new FBR branch in Kebayoran, South Jakarta, 27 August 2005.
75. Fadloli el-Muhir, speech in Kebayoran, Jakarta, 27 August 2005.
76. A rival Betawi organization, the Communication Forum for Children of Betawi (Forum Komunikasi Anak Betawi or Forkabi) was also established in the wake of the killing of a Betawi street vendor by a Maduranese in 2001. The "Kabi" of For-kabi is Betawi slang for "smash," and the group was said to be like the FBR, a "front" through which to "deal with the problem of the Maduranese." Unlike the FBR its support base drew from several high-ranking ex-military and a group of affluent Betawi from central Jakarta. Interview with Irawan Syafei, former Forkabi advisor, Jakarta, 30 August 2005.
77. FBR leaflet, 2002.
78. FBR: Tanah Warga Betawi Dirampas Penguasa Orde Baru (FBR: Betawi Land has been Pillaged by the New Order) (28 September 2005), http://www.tempointeraktif.com/hg/jakarta/2005/09/28/ brk,20050928-67199,id.html [accessed 23 August 2006].
79. Interview with FBR official, Pasar Senen, Jakarta, 4 September 2005.
80. Tempo, "FBR Minta Polisi Amankan Wilayah Penggilingan" (The FBR Ask that the Police Secure the Penggilingan Area) 18 July 2002.
81. Interview with Fadloli el-Muhir, Cakung, Jakarta, 24 August 2005.
82. Horowitz, 2001.
83. Alfried Schulte-Bockholt, "A Neo-Marxist Explanation of Organized Crime", Critical Criminology, No. 10 (2001), pp. 225-42. This argues that elite alliances with organized crime groups, gangs and vigilantes commonly transpire during crises of hegemony. In this respect Indonesia is by no means unique.
84. For a comparative analysis of state-criminal alliances in Indonesia and Russia see Ian Douglas Wilson, "Vigilante Violence in Post-Authoritarian States: The Case of Indonesia and Russia," paper presented at 4th International Symposium of the Journal Anthropology Indonesia, Depok: University of Indonesia, 12-15 July 2005.
85. Bertrand, 2004.
86. This dual stance towards the state appeared at its apparently most unprincipled when Fadloli accepted donations from the Suharto family, while accusing the Suharto regime of embodying the corruption which had marginalized the Betawi. It should be noted however that knowledge of these donations was limited to a few FBR leaders, and that most FBR members were consistent in their opposition to the Suharto regime.
87. "Dukungan buat Mega-Hasyim di Silang Monas" (support for Mega-Hasyim at the national monument) (September 2004), http://www.liputan6.com/view/086181,1,01162179692.html [accessed 28 October 2006]. At an event hosted by the FBR as a display of public support for Megawati prior to the presidential elections, Fadloli glowingly declared that Megawati had "made improvements in every aspect of national life."
88. The Indonesian police and military operate in a similar fashion.
89. A copy of the letter is online at http://www.munindo.brd.de/milis/saran/ saran_01/fbr.html" http://www.munindo.brd.de/milis/saran/saran_01/ fbr.html [accessed 28 October 2006].
90. Interview with FBR official, Cakung, East Jakarta, 22 August 2005.
91. For more on the siskamling and neighborhood surveillance see Bertrand 2004
92. and Barker, 2001.
93. Interview with Fadloli el-Muhir, Cakung, East Jakarta, 26 August 2005.
94. Field notes, Jakarta, 28 August 2005.
95. Field notes, Jakarta, 27 August 2005.
96. See for example, "FBR Gelar Apel Relawan Ambalat (FBR hosts a Ambalat volunteers) (20 March 2005), http://www.detiknews.com/index.php/ detik.read/tahun/2005/bulan/03/tgl/20/time/104757/idnews/321540/idkanal/ 10 [accessed 30 October 2006].
97. Field notes, Jakarta, 5 March 2005.
98. Interview with Fadloli el-Muhir, 23 July 2006. In its support of the bill the FBR has aligned itself with a coalition of hard-line Muslim groups such as Hizbut Tahrir the Islamic Defenders Front, the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (Majelis Mujahadeen Indonesia: MMI) and the government funded Indonesian Council of Religious Scholars (Majelis Ulama Indonesia: MUI).
99. The bill was in fact withdrawn. If it had become law, groups such as the FBR and the FPI would have been strategically placed to take it upon themselves to enforce and police it, opening up new opportunities for both rent seeking and partnership with the state.
100. Field notes, Jakarta, 5 March 2005.
101. Morelli, 1998.