internal dynamics of the prosperous justice party and jamaah tarbiyah 37
organisation that is willing to participate in the democratic political
process, he believes that this is merely a facade to conceal its real agenda.
He wrote, provocatively, that
despite the Justice Party’s social work, little separates its thinking from
Jemaah Islamiyah’s. Like Jemaah Islamiyah, in its founding manifesto,
the Justice Party called for the creation of an Islamic caliphate. Like
Jemaah Islamiyah, it has placed secrecy – facilitated by the cell structure
both groups borrowed from the Brotherhood – at the heart of its
organisation. Both offer a selective vision of modernity – one in which
global science and technology are welcome, but un-Islamic values
are shunned. The two groups differ chiefly in their methods: Jemaah
Islamiyah is revolutionary; the Justice Party is evolutionary.¹⁹Yet others try to capture the complexity and paradox more comprehen-
sively. Martin van Bruinessen wrote that pks politicians are ‘imperfect
democrats but perhaps Indonesia’s strongest force for democratisation’
based on the fact that many of the party’s spokesmen believe in anti-
Islamic conspiracies, are anti-Zionistic, anti-Western, and have been
known to be hostile to liberals and secularist Muslims. At the same time,
the pks
is one of the very few forces in the political arena that may seriously
contribute to a gradual democratisation of the country, as it believes
in participation in the existing political system and in changing
society through persuasion of individuals rather than through grabbing
power.²⁰Likewise, Bubbalo and Fealy wrote that the pks has some ambivalence
towards the West, actively participating in various protests against Amer-
ican support of Israel and the invasion of Iraq, and tends to be suspicious
of the political agendas of the eu and us, especially the ‘war on terror’.
Yet many of its senior figures have a Western tertiary education and visit
the West frequently, and their awareness of international developments
is probably higher than that of any other Indonesian Islamic party.²¹
Sadanand Dhume, ‘Radicals March on Indonesia’s Future’,Far Eastern Economic
Review168, no. 5 (2005).
Martin van Bruinessen, ‘Genealogies of Islamic Radicalism in post-Soeharto
Indonesia’,Southeast Asian Research10, no. 2 (2007), 117–154.
Anthony Bubalo and Greg Fealy, ‘Joining the Caravan? The Middle East, Islamism
and Indonesia’, The Lowy Institute for International Policy paper 05 (Alexandria:
Longueville, 2005).