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'Although it's propaganda, we can't be complacent': terrorism expert Greg Barton
No full textSummary
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the latest call to arms by the so-called Islamic State group should be taken seriously, despite Victorian police dismissing it as propaganda.
IS has used a new English-language online magazine called Rumiyah to issue a fresh call to its followers to attack Australians at key sites including the MCG, the Sydney Opera House and Bondi Beach.
Speaking ahead of a regional summit in Laos last night, Malcolm Turnbull said that while the lone wolf threat remained very \u27real\u27, the capacity of IS to carry out such an attack must be kept in perspective.
Australia\u27s threat level hasn\u27t changed from \u27probable\u27, despite these calls from IS.
Counter terrorism expert Greg Barton joins Hamish Macdonald on RN Breakfast
Pandangan Greg Barton tentang Islam Liberal dan Eksistensi Politik Islam di Indonesia
No full textAbstract: The Greg Barton’s point of view on liberal Islam and Islamic political existence in Indonesia departs from the result of his study on liberal Muslim thinkers in Indonesia, including NurcholishMadjid and Abdurrahman Wahid. Their thoughts are classified as a liberal. Madjid, in most of his methodologies, uses a double movement, while Wahid uses a socio-cultural approach. In addition, MadjidCakNuris also known by his secularization project, while Wahidis famous by his pluralism project. Greg Barton arrived at this conclusion after reading Madjid and Wahid’s opinions in books and articles. In relation to the existence of the political Islam in Indonesia, Greg Barton views that the collapse of the Islamist party of Masjumiwaspartly contributed by Madjid’sliberal thought in understanding Islam. On the other hands, the appearance of religious pluralism in society, which is also a part of a liberal Islamic thought, wasexpedited by Wahid when he was a president of Indonesia.Keywords: Islam liberal, Islamic political existence, Greg Barton Abstrak: Pandangan Greg Barton mengenai Islam liberal dan eksistensi politik Islam di Indonesia berangkat dari hasil penelitiannya terhadap tokoh-tokoh Islam liberal yang ada di Indonesia, di antaranya Nurcholis Madjid dan Abdurrahman Wahid. Kedua tokoh tersebut merupakan sample tokoh Islam liberal yang concern dan konsisten dalam pemikirannya terhadap Islam. Pemikiran kedua tokoh tersebut berada pada jalur liberal. Cak Nur menggunakan metode Double Movement dalam kerangka berpikirnya, sedangkan Gus Dur menggunakan pendekatan sosio kultural. Cak Nur dikenal dengan sekularisasinya, sedangkan Gus Dur dikenal dengan pluralismenya. Pemikiran keduanya oleh Greg Barton digambarkan dengan beberapa karya tulis yang menggambarkan sisi sekularnya bagi Cak Nur, dan sisi pluralnya bagi Gus Dur. Dalam kaitannya terhadap eksistensi politik Islam di Indonesia, Greg Barton memandang bahwa runtuhnya Masyumi era Cak Nur, merupakan dampak dari pemikiran liberal Cak Nur dalam memahami Islam. Selain itu muncul nilai pluralitas yang tinggi di masyarakat, yang juga merupakan bagian dari pemikiran Islam liberal. Hal ini dilakukan oleh Gus Dur pada masa ia menduduki pucuk pimpinan negara dan berlangsung lama meskipun ketika Gus Dur lengser.Kata Kunci: Islam liberal, eksistensi politik Islam, Greg Barton</jats:p
Pandangan Greg Barton tentang Islam Liberal dan Eksistensi Politik Islam di Indonesia
Get PDFAbstract: The Greg Barton’s point of view on liberal Islam and Islamic political existence in Indonesia departs from the result of his study on liberal Muslim thinkers in Indonesia, including NurcholishMadjid and Abdurrahman Wahid. Their thoughts are classified as a liberal. Madjid, in most of his methodologies, uses a double movement, while Wahid uses a socio-cultural approach. In addition, MadjidCakNuris also known by his secularization project, while Wahidis famous by his pluralism project. Greg Barton arrived at this conclusion after reading Madjid and Wahid’s opinions in books and articles. In relation to the existence of the political Islam in Indonesia, Greg Barton views that the collapse of the Islamist party of Masjumiwaspartly contributed by Madjid’sliberal thought in understanding Islam. On the other hands, the appearance of religious pluralism in society, which is also a part of a liberal Islamic thought, wasexpedited by Wahid when he was a president of Indonesia.
Keywords: Islam liberal, Islamic political existence, Greg Barton
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Abstrak: Pandangan Greg Barton mengenai Islam liberal dan eksistensi politik Islam di Indonesia berangkat dari hasil penelitiannya terhadap tokoh-tokoh Islam liberal yang ada di Indonesia, di antaranya Nurcholis Madjid dan Abdurrahman Wahid. Kedua tokoh tersebut merupakan sample tokoh Islam liberal yang concern dan konsisten dalam pemikirannya terhadap Islam. Pemikiran kedua tokoh tersebut berada pada jalur liberal. Cak Nur menggunakan metode Double Movement dalam kerangka berpikirnya, sedangkan Gus Dur menggunakan pendekatan sosio kultural. Cak Nur dikenal dengan sekularisasinya, sedangkan Gus Dur dikenal dengan pluralismenya. Pemikiran keduanya oleh Greg Barton digambarkan dengan beberapa karya tulis yang menggambarkan sisi sekularnya bagi Cak Nur, dan sisi pluralnya bagi Gus Dur. Dalam kaitannya terhadap eksistensi politik Islam di Indonesia, Greg Barton memandang bahwa runtuhnya Masyumi era Cak Nur, merupakan dampak dari pemikiran liberal Cak Nur dalam memahami Islam. Selain itu muncul nilai pluralitas yang tinggi di masyarakat, yang juga merupakan bagian dari pemikiran Islam liberal. Hal ini dilakukan oleh Gus Dur pada masa ia menduduki pucuk pimpinan negara dan berlangsung lama meskipun ketika Gus Dur lengser.
 
Douglas Ezzy, Anna Halafoff, Greg Barton and Rebecca Banham (eds): Religious Diversity in Australia: Living Well with Difference
Get PDFBook review of Douglas Ezzy, Anna Halafoff, Greg Barton and Rebecca Banham (eds): Religious Diversity in Australia: Living Well with Difference. London: Bloomsbury, 2024, 251 pp
Indonesia's fresh chance
No full textThe signs are that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has the potential to be a successful president, writes Greg Barton
THE quiet nature of Yudhoyono’s emphatic victory speaks of the nature of the challenges and opportunities facing Indonesia’s new president. There is little antipathy but considerable ambivalence felt towards Yudhoyono. Clearly his better than expected performance suggests that in the final week many undecided voters decided to get behind him and give him a chance. But the relatively high level of informal votes suggests that many Indonesians feel much more positive about democracy itself than they do about the candidates that it has so far produced.
Yudhoyono is clearly a likeable individual and there is little doubt about his character and integrity. And yet the rise and rise of SBY has been met with profound ambivalence among some of the most progressive sections of Indonesian society. To a considerable extent this uncertainty about Yudhoyono stems from his military background and his connections with the Soeharto New Order regime. The fact that he does not yet have clear support in parliament further reinforces the perception of him as a nice guy but a rather wooden and indecisive leader vulnerable to being controlled by the former regime elements that have flocked to his side.
Had Yudhoyono emerged as a presidential candidate several years ago in more turbulent times, or had his margin of victory on Monday been much less substantial, there would be good grounds for doubting his ability to manage one of the modern world’s most difficult political assignments. But success in politics is very much a matter of timing and this week SBY, and arguably the nation of Indonesia as a whole, appears to have gotten lucky. There is no doubt that the nation and its new president faces a plethora of challenges and that there are many ways for things to go wrong but there are, nevertheless, at least half a dozen reasons for believing that Yudhoyono might just succeed.
Firstly, the quiet support for democracy evident in this year’s three peaceful and successful elections speaks of a significant degree of social maturity in Indonesia. The remarkable absence of violence and unrest puts Indonesia at the top of this year’s very large class of developing nations going to the polls and underscores the innate common sense of ordinary Indonesians.
Secondly, the incumbent president and her administration, together with the people of Indonesia, deserve credit for having achieved a degree of social and economic stability that even merciless terrorists with bombs have been unable to disrupt. Yudhoyono is not inheriting an ungovernable nation nor is he taking charge of a hopeless economy.
Nevertheless, and thirdly, SBY’s steady rise in popularity over the last six months, and the sharp swing towards him in recent days, speaks of a widely held desire for change. Few people thought ill of Megawati but few were convinced that she was capable of delivering real change. The fact that she lifted her public relations efforts several notches in recent months was not enough to offset the impression that hers was a ‘do nothing’ presidency. This impression was further reinforced by her failure to introduce new policies or new personalities since her party’s shocking performance in April’s parliamentary elections. When Megawati first succeeded Abdurrahman Wahid as president in July 2001 her very inertness was seen as her greatest asset. She was welcomed by many precisely because, unlike her idealistic but bellicose predecessor, she was not trying to change everything and consequently was not going to draw fire from all sides. The stability that that approach brought was welcome, particular to the markets, but ultimately it was found wanting. Difficult though it be Indonesia needs change. Reform is necessary for its own sake in many areas of national life but it is also essential if Indonesia is to rebuild the confidence of investors and regain the level of economic growth necessary to meet the basic demands of its fast-growing population.
Fourth, it is Yudhoyono’s good fortune to appear on the stage at time when the nation is longing for change, after three year’s of Megawati’s administration, and yet is realistic and reasonable about what is possible; in sharp contrast to the unreasonable expectations of five years ago at the outset of the Wahid presidency. Quiet realism about what democracy can reasonably be expected to deliver has replaced extravagant romanticism.
Fifth, the new president’s political base is further consolidated by the strong mandate achieved by his twenty percent margin of victory. This clear display of public support for his presidency should go a long way to enabling him to consolidate support in the legislature. The nature of the pre-poll alliance between Golkar, PDIP and PPP, its failure to sway voters and the subsequent magnitude of Yudhoyono’s victory makes it inevitable, whatever party chairmen might care to claim, that the question of political alliances is going to have to be revisited. Securing reliable support in the legislature, however, remains Yudhoyono’s greatest challenge.
Sixth, and finally, Yudhoyono’s character and integrity represent his greatest assets. If he can remain true to his principles in the midst of the demanding arena of politics and communicate that clearly he will ultimately be rewarded with a degree of political influence unachievable by the horse-traders and slick operators who for so long have called the shots in Indonesian politics and whom are now manoeuvring to block him in the legislature. Indonesia and its people deserve good leadership. If the new president realises his potential and meets or exceeds the modest expectations of his people then ambivalence will quickly be replaced with firm support and ‘muddling through’ will give way to real progress.
Dr Greg Barton is a senior lecturer in politics at Deakin University. His book, Indonesia\u27s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam, was published last week by UNSW Press in association with APO
What did we lose when we took Dr Haneef's visa away?
No full textCountering terrorism means winning hearts and minds, writes GREG BARTON
ALTHOUGH no one died, 16 July 2007 can be added to the list of dates when Australia lost something in the struggle against terrorism. The decision by the immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, to revoke the professional employment visa of Dr Mohammed Haneef represents a heavy blow for the Indian doctor and his young family. It also represents a significant blow to Australian justice and to our efforts to counter terrorism. This is not to suggest a comparison to the loss that occurs when lives are snatched away and bodies maimed in the horrors of a terrorist attack, as happened in New York, Bali and Jakarta. Nor is it to suggest that the issues involved are simple and the answers clear. But something has been lost and we need to recognise that.
Terrorism is an awful thing. It works on the principle of leveraging impact and influence well beyond the initial and direct victims of criminal violence with the intention of bringing about political change. Terrorists do this in part by provoking the sort of political and security responses that can fuel their public relations and marketing efforts to sow seeds of doubt, cultivate sympathy and recruit support.
Modern terrorism is very much a struggle for hearts and minds. Our efforts to counter terrorism must likewise, if they are to be truly effective in the longer term, concern themselves with hearts and minds. Responding to perceptions and building trust are key elements in this struggle and we neglect them at our peril.
The British police understand this dynamic better than most police forces. It is a realisation learnt the hard way through decades of violence linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland. They understand the importance of community policing - of building rapport with the communities that terrorists claim to represent. They have learnt that without winning the confidence of these communities they cannot hope to win a lasting peace. And yet despite this awareness and much good work the British police acknowledge that have yet to win the trust and broad support of British Muslims and Muslim communities.
The Australian Federal Police have learnt much from both their British and Indonesian colleagues. Their remarkable success in our region deservers our praise and gratitude - many attacks have been thwarted and likely many lives saved. Consequently, when the AFP appeals to Kevin Andrews to use his powers to keep Haneef in detention we should carefully weigh the matter before jumping to conclusions about election year politics. And whilst it is certainly right that we should be concerned about antiterrorism legislation eroding civil liberties we also need to be mindful of the challenges facing police in anti-terrorism cases.
In Australia we have been quick to criticise the Indonesian courts when we perceive them to be too soft on terrorists but what we generally fail to understand is that courts in open democratic societies all around the world have found it difficult to successfully prosecute terrorists. Just as we learnt earlier with respect to organised crime, it is one thing to have reliable intelligence of criminal intent and collusion it is quite another thing to prove it, beyond reasonable doubt, in a court of law. The fact that Al Capone was finally bought to task on charges of tax evasion was certainly not because the FBI did not care about his racketeering.
So in general terms the frustration felt by the AFP in responding to terrorism threats is entirely understandable. All too often they are damned when they do take action and damned when they don’t.
Nevertheless, the facts as we know them in the case of Dr Mohammed Haneef demand that we give the matter careful scrutiny. The police, quite rightly, took time to make a careful investigation of the material evidence against him. At the end of this process, all they could say publicly against Haneef is that he “recklessly” passed on a pre-paid mobile phone SIM card, presumedly with sufficient remaining credit to be of some value, to his second cousin when he left Britain to come to work in Australia. Just how reckless this act was remains unclear. Did Haneef know enough about his cousin to recognise the danger that he posed? Clearly the Queensland magistrate who heard the evidence against Haneef judged him to be of sufficiently low risk to society to have granted him bail on the modest undertaking of $10,000.
Haneef’s passport had been handed in and it is reasonable to expect that, once out on bail, he would have been kept under careful police surveillance. It is understandable that the AFP might feel it necessary to continue working on the Haneef case but it is difficult to see what could possibly have been lost had he been allowed out on bail.
Sadly the cost of Kevin Andrew’s intervention is potentially very high indeed. There is, of course, the considerable personal cost to Haneef and his family. But quite about from this there is the inevitable ongoing cost to our efforts in countering terrorism.
Enduring success in our long struggle with terrorism will depend very much on people like those in the extended family of Dr Haneef speaking up when they see things that concern them. If such people feel that they cannot, or dare not, approach police to talk about the worrying behaviour of their cousin, their neighbour, or perhaps even their brother or son then we will all lose.
And if our carriage of justice is perceived as being partial and prejudicial then we risk not only being deprived of vital intelligence but also handing the terrorists a public relations bonanza that will serve to both lesson community vigilance and further expose vulnerable young idealists to the seductive allure of a global struggle for justice. •
Greg Barton is the Herb Feith Research Professor for the Study of Indonesia at Monash University where he works with both the Global Terrorism Research Centre and the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies. He is the author of Indonesia’s struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam, published in APO’s Briefings series by UNSW Press.
Photo: Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews speaks during a press conference in Canberra on 16 July 2007 after cancelling the visa of Dr Mohamed Haneef. AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Bob Hering, Soekarno, Founding father of Indonesia, 1901-1945; Keith Loveard, Suharto. Indonesia's last sultan ; R.E. Elson, Suharto. A political biography ; Paridah Abd. Samad, Gus Dur. A peculiar leader in Indonesia's political agony, a political analysis ; Greg Barton, Gus Dur. The authorized biography of Abdurrahman Wahid
No full textRaillon François. Bob Hering, Soekarno, Founding father of Indonesia, 1901-1945; Keith Loveard, Suharto. Indonesia's last sultan ; R.E. Elson, Suharto. A political biography ; Paridah Abd. Samad, Gus Dur. A peculiar leader in Indonesia's political agony, a political analysis ; Greg Barton, Gus Dur. The authorized biography of Abdurrahman Wahid. In: Archipel, volume 66, 2003. pp. 201-210
Bob Hering, Soekarno, Founding father of Indonesia, 1901-1945; Keith Loveard, Suharto. Indonesia's last sultan ; R.E. Elson, Suharto. A political biography ; Paridah Abd. Samad, Gus Dur. A peculiar leader in Indonesia's political agony, a political analysis ; Greg Barton, Gus Dur. The authorized biography of Abdurrahman Wahid
No full textRaillon François. Bob Hering, Soekarno, Founding father of Indonesia, 1901-1945; Keith Loveard, Suharto. Indonesia's last sultan ; R.E. Elson, Suharto. A political biography ; Paridah Abd. Samad, Gus Dur. A peculiar leader in Indonesia's political agony, a political analysis ; Greg Barton, Gus Dur. The authorized biography of Abdurrahman Wahid. In: Archipel, volume 66, 2003. pp. 201-210
Submission to Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security
No full textIn May 2021, CRIS and AVERT members Professor Michele Grossman, Mark Duckworth, Lydia Khalil, Dr Joshua Roose and Dr Mario Peucker appeared as expert witnesses at the public hearings held in Canberra for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security’s Inquiry into Extremist Movements and Radicalism in Australia. Professor Michele Grossman, Mark Duckworth, Professor Greg Barton, Dr Vivian Gerrand, Dr Matteo Vergani, Dr Mario Peucker, Professor Hass Dellal and Jacob Dave
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