FPI

Don’t make martyrs of religious-themed thugs: lessons from Egypt

Welcome to 2018, which will doubtless be a year of political speculation ahead of the 2019 presidential elections. I spent New Year’s Day kayaking down the Nile. (Off-topic alert: if you’re looking for a truly fabulous holiday that combines decent exercise in great landscapes with a good dollop of ancient culture, check out the Nile Kayak Club’s trips from Aswan to Luxor.) While paddling, I chatted with newly-met Egyptian friends about the pariah status of the Moslem Brotherhood, which is…


Should Jakarta voters trust a cleric who takes money from Playboy?

On Wednesday, we saw once again that Indonesian voters are more grown up than the people they are voting for. Though the Jakarta elections were repeatedly presented as a test of strength of political Islam, I’ve always thought the white-robed mobs were more a throw-back to the everyday tactics of the Old Guard, as I argue in this commentary in Nikkei Asian Review. But as the capital faces a second round of voting, we can certainly expect the FPI to…



Ignoring Indonesia: What you can’t say in The Guardian (Updated)

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of white-robed protesters stomped through the streets of Jakarta, baying for the blood of Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, aka Ahok. To simplify a complex story, Ahok stood accused of the sin of quoting the Quran while being Christian. In the best Indonesian tradition of rent-a-crowd politics, many of the “protesters” were there for the promise of money and a packed lunch; one told TV reporters that, though he came for the cash, he…


In the name of God [bad things happen]

Does it matter to the police what religion I profess? Or to the people who are processing health insurance cards, or to the airline staff checking that I match the name on my ticket? Yes it does, is the implication of Indonesia’s rule that a citizen’s religion must be stipulated on their ID card.


The FPI is (half) right: they must be more responsible thugs

With a first draft of Indonesia Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation now sitting on my editor’s desk, I finally have time to get back to musing on this blog about Indonesia’s delights and contradictions. In writing the book, I’ve had a lot of time to think about the way language and culture mirror one another. And I’ve also found myself inadvertently agreeing with the leadership of the ever-more-thuggish Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), though not in a good way. Back in…


Headhunters stand up against religious thuggery

One of the mysteries of life in Indonesia is how the government and the security forces allow absolute chaos, sometimes even mass murder, to develop in totally predictable ways. As groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam or FPI in Indonesian) move around the country beating up hookers and inciting violence against non-Moslems, the President and his ministers play Three Monkeys — see no evil, hear no evil, and therefore never have to speak about any evil. …