A MUSLIM ARCHIPELAGO pdf download

A Muslim Archipelago – Islam and Politics in Southeast Asia

A MUSLIM ARCHIPELAGO

The Muslim Archipelago is a profoundly Islamic region, and Jemaah Islamiyah is only a small portion of this reality.

The attention Dr. Gross pays to ABIM in Malaysia, of which I was a part, and the civil Islam movement in Indonesia, of which the late Nurcholish Madjid was a principal spokesman, is greatly appreciated.

Those unfamiliar with the background and role of the traditional Islamic PAS party in Malaysia, as well as the Darul Islam movement in Indonesia, will find the author’s account highly beneficial.

The MNLF, the MILF, and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, as well as the various Islamic movements in southern Thailand, are also carefully explained.

As a retired career employee of the U.S. Department of Defense, Dr. Gross has paid much attention to security issues, highlighting the conflicts that continue to beset us and efforts by the governments of the region to resolve them even as final settlements remain elusive.

 In the discourse of the impact of Islam in the region, there is a tendency to view Islam in bipolar terms, the upshot of which is to lump organizations founded on Islamic precepts as being radical with a tendency of associating with terrorist bodies.

This orientation prevents one from discerning between mainstream political Islam and its more extremist peripheries.

It is therefore refreshing that Dr. Gross does not fall prey to this stereotyping and remains strictly objective in his assessment.

For my part, however, perhaps from having been actively involved in the political process pertaining to security matters in Southeast Asia, it would be disingenuous to profess non-partisanship in my overall assessment of the situation.

 I dare say that many in the region still view the U.S. policy on terror as being marked by that Wilsonian machismo that has led it to miss the woods for the trees.

 This is not to suggest that the terrorism-related discourse is an exercise in futility or that it should be