Non-violent extremists? Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia

Abstract

Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) is a radical Muslim organisation whose origins go back two and a half decades. It espouses an ideology crafted during the 1950s by the Palestinian, Taqiuddin an-Nabhani. Hizbut Tahrir's international leadership exerts control over its Indonesian branch's activities to an extent virtually unprecedented in Indonesian political life. Like other radical Muslim movements, HTI is bitterly anti-Western and rejects capitalism, democracy, liberalism and pluralism. Its objective is to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state that would be merged into a global caliphate or Muslim superstate. Unusually for a radical group, HTI strictly eschews violence, though its rhetoric is often strident and inflammatory. HTI also opposes terrorism, but contrives to depict terrorist attacks that have taken place in Indonesia as the result of Western manipulation and conspiracies. Although HTI retains some elements of the clandestine life it led when it was first set up, it has provoked surprisingly little hostility from the Indonesian political mainstream or security authorities. It is likely to continue to grow and remain the source of a powerful critique of Indonesia's status quo. But this is no guarantee, however, that it will succeed even in the long term in positioning Indonesia for merger into an international caliphate.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for comments and suggestions to Ed Aspinall, Greg Fealy, Tony Johns, Ross McLeod, Marcus Mietzner and Fahlesa Munabari. I am also indebted to Greg Fealy for the loan of valuable material, and to Taufik Andrie for collecting documents for me in Indonesia.

Notes

1. All translation from Indonesian are the author's.

2. Salim (2005: 147) calls the council or committee majlis, while Rahmat (2005: 58) and Munabari (2008b: 12) call it lajnah, as does Taji-Farouki (1996: 117). The latter writer, who has published the most systematic study of Hizbut Tahrir, says that Hizbut Tahrir's 'sphere of operation is divided into “provinces”, defined by the leadership committee as “every land in which there is a government”. Party documents stress that this decision is for administrative facility only and insist that the sphere of operation comprises an organic whole' (Taji-Farouki 1996: 117). She adds that provinces can coincide with nation states or with a particular region within a nation state.

3. By reading HTI's monthly journal, al-Wa'ie, and the website <http://hizbut-tahrir.or.id>, I have found it possible to determine the names of up to eight members of the leadership council. As a consequence, no doubt, of HTI's secretiveness, there is some disagreement among Indonesian sources about the identity of HTI's leader. Rahmat (2005: 59) reports that the amir appoints the overall head of HTI, but that neither his identity nor his title is publicised. Munabari (2008a) says that the leader-called mu'tamad, a term Taji-Farouki (1996: 118-9) also uses-is ‘85 percent likely’ to be identical to the chair. He also reports Yusanto as saying that it is unimportant who the leader is (Munabari 2008b: 12).

4. Rahmat (2005: 59) mentions that HTI cannot communicate directly with other national Hizbut Tahrir branches, but must go through the Jordan-based leadership.

5. These were not the only caliphates in Islamic history. For further details, see Hourani (1992: 489-90).

6. Al-Khaththath's successor, Hafidz Abdurrahman, wrote even less ambiguously on the HTI website in November 2008 that an offensive jihad could only be declared by a caliph. This was HTI's first response to the 10 November execution of the Bali bombers, Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Mukhlas. See <http://hizbut-tahrir.or.id/2008/11/12/pr-pasca-eksekusi-amrozi-dkk/>.

7. Based on my field notes of the speeches at the rally discussed here.

8. See <http://hizbut-tahrir.or.id/2008/08/18/thalab-an-nushrah/>, August 2008.

9. Not all Indonesian radical Muslim organisations deny al-Qaeda's role in 9/11. In an interview in February 2002, FPI chair Habib Rizieq told me that the attacks proved that Muslims were both ‘brave and clever’.

10. See <http://fpks-dpr.or.id/main.php?op=isi&id=587&kunci=ismail yusanto>, December 2005.

11. See <http://hizbut-tahrir.or.id/2008/07/06/mr-kurnia-isu-terorisme-untuk-membendung-arus/>, July 2008.

12. The LSI reported in March 2006 that 12.1 percent of Indonesians had heard of HTI but only 3.3 percent supported it (Lembaga Survei Indonesia 2006). The LSI reported in October 2006 that HTI's support rate was 7.2 percent (See <http://www.Isi.or.id/liputan/177/survey-reveals-muslim-ambivalence-on-terrorism> 2006). It is highly unlikely that HTI's public approval rating really jumped over 100 percent in seven months in the absence of dramatic political or other circumstances. The March 2006 survey produced other strange findings. It showed that support for the stoning of adulterers had reached 39 percent in 2001, risen further to 55 percent in 2005 and fallen back to 48 percent in 2006. Moreover, over 17 percent of Indonesians supported Jemaah Islamiyah, a figure above the proportion of Indonesians backing most presidential candidates.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ken Ward

Ken Ward is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University1