Islam And Violent Separatism

Ashok Swain, Swain

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138992672
• eBook ISBN: 9781135024413
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 2007. Political demands for autonomy and independence by radicalized ethnic groups have recently intensi?ed as a result of the globalization of the post-Cold War world. In addition to facing the challenges posed by democratization, development and social movements, governments everywhere are striving to manage and contain 'political Islam'. This is particularly true in Southeast Asia, where the violence and instability caused by Islamic radical groups have affected the consolidation of liberal democracy in the region. This volume examines the roles of the state and of civil society in three of the new democracies in Southeast Asia – the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. Focussing on the way these democracies address the in-creased threat posed to their nation-building projects by political Islam, Islam and Violent Separatism makes an important contribution to the understanding of new security risks, terrorism, democratic consolidation and contemporary Southeast Asian politics.

1

VIOLENT SEPARATISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: OLD CONFLICTS, NEW CHALLENGES

ASHOK SWAIN

Violent ethnic conflict has become one of the most important threats to global peace. It has replaced ideological competition as the main source of strife within and between nation-states.¹ After the collapse of Soviet Union, a number of ethnic struggles turned violent, and this trend has for the most part continued since then. There is much controversy over the causes of ethnic conflict. It is a fact that the definition of ethnicity still remains one of the most contested issues in social science. Partly due to this definitional problem, there are several perspectives on how ethnicity relates to group conflict. According to primordialists, for whom human societies are virtually collections of ‘tribes’,² conflicts among ethnic groups in pluralist societies occur as a result of competition over resources. On the other hand, the epiphenomenalist approach, based on Marxist tradition, argues that ethnicity is an incidental appearance, which hides the identity of some class groupings fighting for political and economic power.³ The instrumentalists (alternatively known as structuralists), in using the ascriptive approach, make an attempt to bring together primordialists and epiphenomenalists, and argue that ethnic groups can exist but it does not necessarily lead to social action without the involvement of political community acting as ‘identity entrepreneurs’.⁴

The ascriptive approach of instrumentalists faces criticism from ethnic activists as well as the proponents of class struggle. However, this approach helps to analyze ethnicity as a causative variable, not as the total explanation of the projects designed to capture state power or to control a new territory. There are nearly 200 states in the world; only a few of them are really ethnically homogeneous and the rest bear the ‘burden’ of being culturally diverse. More than 4000 ethno-cultural groups reside in these nation states: countries such as Finland, Belgium, Canada, Lebanon, Fiji, Thailand and the Philippines are ethnically bipolar while India has more than 100 of such groups. Pluralism from one country to another varies in terms of the number of ethnic groups, their size, history and the depth of their cultural and racial differences and commonalities. Similarly, the relation between ethnic groups from one country to another differs from ‘domination and genocide to many forms of accommodation and sharing.’⁵

Ethnic conflicts take place between two or more ethnic groups, one of which possesses the actual state power. State has the legitimate monopoly on violence in the society, which gets contested by the ethnic groups. Strategies of actors in an ethnic conflict are interdependent. State strategies vis-a-vis a challenging ethnic group can be of two types: strategies of confrontation and strategies of accommodation. A confrontation policy is when a state actively tries to implement the idea of one nation, one state. Nationalism is always an exclusionary project, which generates enormous problems when political leaders use their powers to create greater homogeneity within their borders.⁶ At the same time, nation-building often is a contentious process, fought out in a political, cultural, social, economic, or military setting. As soon as a society is divided in ethnic or religious terms besides the economic, social, and other lines of conflict, a further dimension is added to the existing potential for conflict.’⁷ Confrontation policy may vary from assimilation to cultural domination, forced migration, ethnic cleansing and the most violent one, genocide. On the other hand, accommodation strategy of the state includes following the policy of power-sharing among different ethnic groups, creating autonomous areas and also federal forms of governance.⁸ Depending on the state’s strategy, challenging ethnic groups usually determines theirs response. Usually violence invites violence, and accommodation helps to bring lasting peace and viable order.

Thus, it is not that where there is greater ethnic diversity, there is greater interethnic conflict. In most of the cases, media focuses its attention on countries affected by ethnic violence and pays no attention to many more cases of peaceful coexistence among different ethnic groups. It is true that ethnic diversity presents several challenges to the nation-state making project. But why do some states succeed while others fail at facing these challenges? Which factors contribute to the violent escalation of ethnic conflicts? The purpose of this publication is to develop an understanding of how the political institutions influence the course of ethnic conflicts in Southeast Asia, while the region is struggling to cope with economic crisis and global terrorism.

Long-term peace and stability still eludes the region of Southeast Asia.⁹ Despite the early promise of peace and development after the end of the Cold War as well as economic growth till the mid-1990s, the situation in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century has in fact deteriorated. There has been a marked increase in the numbers and intensity of ethnic conflicts and insurgency activities in recent years. This situation has been further complicated due to the ongoing ‘war on terrorism’ after 11 September 2001.

However, there have been no violent conflicts between the memberstates of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since the establishment of the Association in 1967. Since the mid-1990s, the countries of the Indochina subregion have joined the regional outfit, but continue to resist any political reform on the home front. Three out of five of the original members of the ASEAN have recently experienced democratic transition despite occasional problems moving towards consolidation. Democracy is still in its infancy Indonesia and the Philippines and has already taken a pause in Thailand. There is an increasing acceptability of democracy as the only game, but the consolidation process is far from over. The other two original members of the ASEAN, Malaysia and Singapore, are still governed under the old order, though there are some occasional efforts to project slow and gradual transformation. The countries that are passing through the democratic consolidation process are the ones that have been experiencing a number of violent ethnic conflicts within their borders. The largest country of the region, Indonesia, has been forced to make territorial concession to an ethnic group, resulting in the birth of a new nation-state, East Timor.

In Southeast Asia, numerous civil society organizations (CSOs) and peoples organizations (POs) play an important role in building peace and in bringing different ethnic groups together. CSOs are involved in many projects to address issues of peacebuilding, both short and long term. These projects include psychological trauma initiatives; problemsolving workshops; conflict management training (including indigenous conflict management mechanisms); promoting peace; peace committees, commissions and conferences; collaborative community activities; and projects related to democracy and human rights.¹⁰ In countries experiencing intrastate conflict and a democratic transition process where the central governmental institutions are still weak, CSOs can play a valuable role in creating and supporting bottom-up processes aimed at healing divisions in society. The individual chapters in this publication each will discuss the contribution of civil society organizations to the different peace processes in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Democratic Transition in the Region and its Impact on Ethnic Conflicts

A near consensus has now been achieved among decision makers and academics alike on the virtues of democracy. Besides freedoms and prosperity, successful democratization appears to bring peace and stability to potentially warring states. Several theorists even extend the democratic peace thesis to argue that a ‘democratic peace’ is evident within intrastate conflicts as well. While some scholars state that there is no relation between democracy and civil war once income is controlled for, and that democracies or federal governments are no more or less likely to have civil wars,¹¹ most argue that democracy reduces the likelihood of discrimination, especially of minorities, and thus the likelihood of political repression and ethnic conflicts.¹² There is evidence that democracies rarely fight with each other. However, the proposition that democratic states enjoy internal peace seems problematic. Several democracies, well established and newly emerged alike, are facing violent opposition from minority groups. Based on the data of the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, of sixteen violent ethnic conflicts, which were active globally in 2004, fourteen are in democracies or semi-democracies. In Asia, there are seven minority rebellions and all of them are in democracies.¹³

According to Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio, democracy is in essence the replacement of the power of force by that of persuasion. As he rhetorically puts it, ‘What is democracy, other than a set or rules, for the solution of conflict without bloodshed?’¹⁴ When defining democracy, the usual tendency of the international community is to follow the archetypal definitions, which are minimalist in nature. Schumpeter writes¹⁵ democracy is merely a system in which rulers are selected by competitive elections, while Popper defines it as a means by which people remove rulers without resource to force.¹⁶ Democracy is certainly much more than rule of the people and by the people. Democracy needs to be defined as a system where the government is in power by the consent of the people and the government is accountable to the governed. More over, democracy also means that there are free elections, checks and balances on executive power, a division of power, constitutional protection of minority rights, freedom of association, a free press, respect for human rights and equal rights before law.¹⁷

Democracy, which introduces competitive elections, is commonly offered as a solution to political problems. However, as Przeworski points out, majoritarian politics do not converge on common interests in modern polities, and elections may not represent the will of all population groups ¹⁸Several countries consistently argue that majority rule renders constitutionally guaranteed minority rights unnecessary. For example, in Sri Lanka or Turkey a minority has been denied all participation in the democratic process, other than voting and being automatically outvoted. There are several countries, like these two, that refuse to follow international human rights standards, subjecting minorities to arbitrary power by a predatory majority.¹⁹ In a democracy, the majority has the ability to abuse its electoral power against the minority or to elect a government that imposes laws and mores of one religion.²⁰

Diversity poses significant challenges for democratic politics. History plays an important role in shaping this diversity. Most of the post-colonial states face the absence of consensus on their nationhood due to their colonial masters’ construction and politicization of the diversity to keep them in power. Democracy is also inherently difficult in ethnically or culturally segmented societies as it can encourage zero-sum political behavior, particularly by the majority group.²¹ Thus, as Sisk argues: ‘Minorities, particularly, equate democracy not with freedom or participation but with the structured dominance of adversarial majority groups.’²² This may explain why a number of well-established democracies, as well as countries engaged in a transition process, face violent challenges from minority groups within state borders. It shows an inherent weakness in democracies, that majority rule is not necessarily friendly to or understanding of minorities and their desires and needs.²³ This does not mandate an abandonment of democracy, but it suggests that efforts at democratization should be guided by the realization that it is a conflict-driven process which may exacerbate inequalities and encourage affected groups to pursue insurgency.²⁴ Institutionalized power-sharing mechanisms, for example, may offer incentives for cooperation between ethnic groups.²⁵ At the same time we need to take into account that increasing ethnic diversity does not undermine democracy per se. Some argue that it is likely that a high level of ethnic fragmentation can actually help democratic consolidation if no group has the capacity to control power alone.²⁶

Democracy is a delicate plant that thrives only if the soil is carefully cultivated. Good governance is necessary for the survival of democratic values, meaning equal opportunities for participation by all, vibrant civil society, transparency, accountability, and the rule of law. As Young argues, ‘the normative legitimacy of a democratic decision d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgement
• Contributors
• 1. Violent Separatism in Southeast Asia: Old Conflicts, New Challenges
• 2. Present Challenges to Conflict Resolution in Southern Thailand
• 3. The Phillipines: Challenges to Peacebuilding in the GRP-MILF Process
• 4. The Aceh Conflict and the Roles of Civil Society
• 5. Terror and Insurgency in the New Democracies of Southeast Asia
• References
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4