The Women ‘Behind’ the Mujahidin Eastern Indonesia: Negotiating Agency and Gender Dynamics

Abstract

Since 2015, the Mujahidin of Eastern Indonesia (Mujahidin Indonesia Timur, MIT), a Poso-based terrorist group, has had active female members. By July 2020, a total of seven women were convicted on terrorism charges. These include the country’s first three female fighters, the wives of MIT’s top leaders, who were trained to use guns and run guerrillas in Gunung Biru, a forested mountainous area above Poso City. By using the biographical narratives of four female MIT members, this article discusses how female jihadis negotiated their agency and navigated life pathways before and after joining the MIT group. This study employs an ethnographic approach, including participant observation and in-depth interviews with informants conducted in Poso (2019 and 2021) and Bima (2021). Our fieldwork found that most women grew up in moderate Muslim families, then turned to adopt extremist ideology in their late adolescence, and subsequently intensified their ideology before and after marriage. Although their ‘active role’ within the MIT group was a consequence of their engagement with male jihadists through marriage, it does not mean the absence of agency. We argue that these women were not just passive ‘extensions’ of their husbands but exercised their own agency by negotiating gender relations. They actively embraced a more radical Islamism, chose to get involved with MIT, and, after serving time in prison, they reshaped their own life trajectories. Two of them eventually started a new life by leaving Poso’s extremist network, while the other two opted to stay but repositioned their roles within the group.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Muhammad Najib Azca and Moh. Zaki Arrobi, “When Communal Violence Turned into Terrorism: Policing, (in)Security and Religion in the Post-Conflict Poso, Indonesia” (forthcoming).

2 For a detailed analysis of the Poso conflict see Lorraine V. Aragon, “Communal violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi: where people eat fish and fish eat people”, Indonesia, 72 (2001): 45–79; Dave McRae, A few poorly organized men: interreligious violence in Poso, Indonesia (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2013); George Aditjondro, “Regional military command (kodam) expansion in Sulawesi,” unpublished paper (2002); M. Nasrum, M., “From communal conflicts to terrorism in Poso, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia: a shifting terrain”, Journal of peacebuilding & development, Vol.11, No. 2 (2016): 83–8; A. Sangaji, “The security forces and regional violence in Poso,” in Renegotiating boundaries: local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia ed. H. G. C. Schulte Nordholt and Gerry van Klinken (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007), 255–81; John T. Sidel, Riots, pogroms, jihad: religious violence in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).

3 Kirsten E. Schulze, “From Ambon to Poso: Comparative and Evolutionary Aspects of Local Jihad in Indonesia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 41, no. 1 (2019): 47.

4 Solahuddin, NII Sampai JI: Salafi Jihadisme di Indonesia. (Komunitas Bambu, 2011).

5 S. Ginting, S., “Kiblat radikalisme mengapa Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT) menjadi sentral dari gerakan jaringan kelompok terduga teroris di Indonesia?”, Republika, 12 January 2016, https://republika.co.id/berita/koran/teraju/16/01/12/o0tyga1-kiblat-radikalisme-mengapa-mujahidin-indonesia-timur-mit-menjadi-sentral-dari-gerakan-jaringan-kelompok-terduga-teroris-di-indonesia.

6 IPAC, “Mothers to bombers: the evolution of indonesian women extremists”. IPAC Report No. 35 (31 January 2017).

7 M. Najib Azca. “Poros damai Poso-Bima”, Republika, 22 October 2021.

https://www.republika.id/posts/21454/poros-damai-poso-bima. See also IPAC, “Recent and planned releases of extremist prisoners: an update”, IPAC Report No. 49 (10 August 2018).

8 Unaesah Rahmah, “Women in Jihad: An Indonesian Context”, Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, 12, no. 4 (2020): 21–26.

9 V. Arianti and Nur Azlin Yasin, “Women’s Proactive Roles in Jihadism in Southeast Asia,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, 8, no. 5 (2016): 13.

10 These are pseudonyms chosen specifically for this project and not their real names or aliases.

11 Saba Mahmood, Politics of piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject (Princeton University Press, 2005): 18.

12 Ibid, 29.

13 Ibid, 115.

14 Kelsy Burke, “Women’s agency in gender-traditional religions”, Sociology Compass, 6, no. 2 (2012): 123–5.

15 See R. Rinaldo, “Pious and critical: muslim women activists and the question of agency”, Gender & society, 28, No. 6 (2014): 824–46.

16 C.E. Gentry and L. Sjoberg, L. Beyond mothers, monsters, whores: thinking about women’s violence in global politics (London: Zed Books, 2015); Navhat Nuraniyah, “Not just brainwashed: understanding the radicalization of Indonesian female supporters of the Islamic State,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 30, no. 6 (2018): 890–910; L. Chandler. “[Re] locating agency in women terrorism”. Carleton Review of International Affairs, 5 (2018): 19–30; E. Gayatri. Women, agency, and terrorism: a study of the experience of terrorists’ wives in Indonesia, masters thesis (Gajah Mada University, 2019); K.E. Brown, Gender, religion, extremism: finding women in anti-radicalization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); and Najib Azca and Rani Dwi Putri ed. Agensi perempuan dalam lingkaran ekstremisme kekerasan: narasi dari Poso, Bima, Lamongan dan Deli Serdang (Locus, Tiara Wacana Group, 2021).

17 Nelly Lahoud, “The neglected sex: the jihadis’ exclusion of women from jihad”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 26, No 5 (2014): 780.

18 Ibid. See also Nelly Lahoud, “Can women be soldiers of the Islamic State?”, Survival, 59, no 1 (2017): 61–78.

19 A. Termeer and I. Duyesteyn, “The inclusion of women in jihad: gendered practices of legitimation in Islamic State recruitment propaganda”, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 15, no. 2 (2022): 466.

20 Mia Bloom, M. “Mother, daughter, sister, bomber”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 61, no. 6 (2005): 54–62.

21 Mia Bloom, “Bombshells: women and terror”, Gender Issues, 28, no. 1–2 (2011): 3.

22 S. de Leede, Women in jihad: a historical perspective (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2018), 4.

23 de Leede, Women in jihad; K. Laster and E. Erez, “Sisters in terrorism? exploding stereotypes”. Women & criminal justice, 25, no. 1–2 (2015): 83–99; and J. Stone and K. Pattillo, “Al Qaeda’s use of female suicide bombers in Iraq” in Women, gender and terrorism, ed. L. Sjoberg and C.E. Gentry (University of Georgia Press, 2011), 163–5.

24 M. Najib Azca, M. Zaki Arrobi, S. Handayani, and Rani Dwi Putri, Memperkuat agensi perempuan dalam upaya kontra- ekstremisme: studi atas agensi perempuan dalam ekstremisme dan kontra- ekstremisme pada masyarakat pasca-konflik di Poso, unpublished research report (2019). See also M. Najib Azca and Rani Dwi Putri, “Perempuan dan peran regenerasi dalam lingkaran ekstremisme kekerasan: narasi dari Indonesia Timur”, Jurnal Sosiologi Agama, 12, no. 2 (2021): 281–300.

25 IPAC, “Extremist women behind bars in Indonesia”, IPAC Report No. 68 (21 September 2020). Ali Kalora became a leader of MIT in 2016 who was of Ambonese descent but born and grew up in Kalora, a small village in Poso. He was killed in an attack by security forces in Parigi Moutong district on 18 September 2021. See https://jakartaglobe.id/news/who-is-ali-kalora (20/9/2021) and https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2021/09/19/11431511/profil-ali-kalora-pemimpin-kelompok-teroris-mit-yang-tewas?page=all (19/9/2021).

26 ICG, “How Indonesian extremists regroup”, Asia Report 228, 16 July 2012.

27 Azca, Arrobi, Handayani, Putri, Memperkuat agensi perempuan dalam upaya kontra- ekstremisme.

28 For narratives of the ignorance among (some) MIT women, see Najib Azca and Rani Dwi Putri, ed. Agensi perempuan dalam lingkaran ekstremisme kekerasan: narasi dari Poso, Bima, Lamongan dan Deli Serdang, 45.

29 See Azca and Putri, “Perempuan dan peran regenerasi dalam lingkaran ekstremisme kekerasan: narasi dari Indonesia Timur”, See also IPAC, “Covid-19 and the Mujahidin of Eastern Indonesia (MIT)”, IPAC Short Briefing No 3 (28 August 2020).

30 Interview with Yani, Poso, 7 October 2021.

31 See Eva F. Nisa, Face-veiled women in contemporary Indonesia (Routledge, 2023), 218.

32 Nuraniyah, “Not just brainwashed”, 904.

33 Marrying at the age of thirteen is a rare occurrence in Indonesia. However, this might have occurred due to economic factors (poverty) and cultural norms – see Ratnaningsih, Muliani et al., “Child Marriage Acceptability Index (CMAI) as an essential indicator: an investigation in South and Central Sulawesi, Indonesia”, Global Health Research and Policy, 7, no. 32 (2022): 2.

34 Interview with Yani, Poso, 7 October 2021.

35 See IPAC,”Extremist women behind bars in Indonesia”.

36 Interview with Nini, Poso, 13 October 2021.

37 See H. Geertz, The Javanese family: A study of kinship and socialization (Waveland Press, 1961); N. Smith-Hefner, Islamizing Intimacies: Youth, Sexuality and Gender Contemporary Indonesia (University of Hawai’i, 2019).

38 Interview with Iin, Poso, by phone, 10 October 2023.

39 Interview with Sari, Bima, 24 September 2021.

40 Interview with Sari, Bima, 24 September 2021.

41 Kirsten E. Schulze and Joseph Chinyong Liow, “Making Jihadis, Waging Jihad: Transnational and Local Dimensions of the ISIS Phenomenon in Indonesia and Malaysia”, Asian Security, online 2018; p.8. See also V. Arianti, “Aman Abdurrahman: Ideologue and ‘commander’ of IS Supporters in Indonesia.” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, 9, no. 2 (2017): 4–9.

42 Interview with Sari, Bima, 24 September 2021.

43 Burke, “Women’s agency in gender-traditional religions”.

44 Denise Kandiyoti, “Bargaining with Patriarchy”, Gender and Society, 2, no. 3 (1988): 275.

45 Al-Madinah pesantren has a longstanding relationship with Poso’s jihadi network. Some of their students and alumna joined MIT and married Poso’s jihadis, including Zuli. However, Al-Madinah has tried to get rid of their stigma by actively building connections with the government.

46 IPAC, “The decline of ISIS in Indonesia and the emergence of new cells”, IPAC Report No. 69 (21 January 2021).

47 Gayatri, Women, agency, and terrorism.

48 Burke, “Women’s agency in gender-traditional religions”, 127.

49 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age (London: Polity Press, 1991), 143.

50 Ibid.

51 L. Taskarina, Perempuan dan terorisme (Jakarta: Kompas Gramedia, 2018), 79.

52 see IPAC. “The decline of ISIS in Indonesia and the emergence of new cells”.

53 See J. P. Bartkowski and J. N. G. Read. “Veiled submission: Gender, power, and identity among evangelical and Muslim women in the United States”, Qualitative sociology, 26, no. 1 (2003).

54 Interview with Nini, Poso, 13 October 2021.

55 Interview with Sari, Bima, 24 September 2021.

56 See Azca and Putri, Agensi perempuan dalam lingkaran ekstremisme kekerasan. See also IPAC. Covid-19 and the Mujahidin of Eastern Indonesia (MIT).

57 Interview with Yani, Poso, 7 October 2021.

58 James M Jasper, The Art of Moral Protest, Culture, Biography and Creativity in Social Movements (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 83.

59 The security forces attempt to find a husband for Zuli was part of their endeavours to build closer and casual relations with former-terrorist prisoners and their family. It was part of a territorial and community approach usually carried out by the Babinsa and Bhabinkamtibmas (village-territorial army and police low rank officer).

60 IPAC, “The decline of ISIS in Indonesia and the emergence of new cells”, 12.

61 The group has been responsible for several terror attacks in Indonesia, including the Surabaya and Makassar bombings in 2018 and 2021, respectively.

62 IPAC, “Terrorism, recidivism and planned releases in Indonesia”, IPAC Report No 66 (4 Sptember 2020).

63 Interview with Zuli, Bima, 23 September 2021.

64 Interview with Sari, Bima, 24 September 2021.

65 Dirgantara, “Napi Teroris MIT Poso Brasri Ikrar Setia”, 2 October 2021, https://news.detik.com/berita/d-5750085/napi-teroris-mit-poso-basri-ikrar-setia-nkri

66 Ibid.