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Over 100 marriages involving families of key Jemaah Islamiyah
or JI leaders have been uncovered by intelligence officers.
Security officers said that arranged marriages amongst JI
members had created one large extended terrorist family.
Its suspected that some of the members’ spouses are
involved in funding or propaganda within JI.
Will this mean the terrorist network would be harder to dismantle?
A question Valarie Tan asked Dr Andrew Tan from the Institute
of Strategic Studies in Singapore.
AT: To some degree, it would be, because when we look at
the Jemaah Islamiyah, for example, there are many members
whose families were involved in the Darul Islam Muslim rebellion
in the 1950s in Indonesia. The objective of the Darul Islam
was to create a Muslim state in Indonesia and the rebellion
cost 25 thousand lives. So many of the JI members that we
see today in fact have relations or parents who were involved
in the whole rebellion in Indonesia in the 1950s.
From this latest data, we now know that JI members are not
just linked by common political ambitions, they’re also
closely linked by blood ties. Would it harder then to get
information out from them with regard to JI?
AT: Yes to some degree, that would be one difficulty because
they wouldn’t want to give away people who have close
blood ties with them. But I think that’s not necessarily
the problem. I think because of the generalised ideological
strength that radicalism has posed today, the ideology itself
to a large degree unites many of these adherents together
in terms of the objective and their beliefs, to such a degree
that they are almost akin to close kinship ties.
Officials said that marriages amongst members were arranged
and in some cases, involve those in southern Philippines where
JI members were trained in the use of weapons. How do these
marriages strengthen the Indonesian and Malaysian arms of
JI?
AT: Those transnational linkages are clearly useful in building
up regional networks and to a degree penetrate local communities
where radical agendas might be acceptable to some people.
It is through these transnational marriages that the JI to
some degree has been transformed to a transnational threat
that is not identifiably Indonesian in that sense. But then
again, I think its important to bear in mind that we shouldn’t
overblow this kinship factor. There’s of course the radical
ideology and in certain places like Mindanao, the presence
of local grievances.
According to the International Crisis Group or ICG which
has done research on JI, one criterion for JI membership appears
to be the reliability of the wife. How important are the roles
of the members’ spouses within the organization?
AT: Given that the role of women seems to be to quite subordinate
within these radical organisations in this part of the world,
although certainly they’re not the case in Chechnya for
example, it is important that the women play the roles assigned
to them which is as being supportive and being agreeable to
the radical activities of the husbands who are being prepared
to make great sacrifices for the cause. So in many ways, the
womenfolk who do marry into JI families to a large degree
prepared to put up with the sacrifices required. At the same
time, they also have to agree to raise the children within
the confines of a very narrow definition of a religion.
There’s been much attention placed on the male members
of JI. With this new information about their spouses and their
possible involvements in the organization, will we see more
names of female members being profiled?
AT: Not at the same scale or extent of male members. This
is not Chechnya. We’ll have to do more research why in
Chechnya women seem to play such important roles. But certainly
in radical organisations all around the world, women do not
play a primary role, although they might play a supportive
role. We’ve seen very few names anywhere to begin with.
So I don’t expect this to be a significant phenomenon.
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