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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / The Gray Zone Attacked in Jakarta – Updated for Clarity (4:15 PM)

The Gray Zone Attacked in Jakarta – Updated for Clarity (4:15 PM)

by Adam L Silverman|  January 14, 20161:53 pm| 42 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Silverman on Security, War, Security Theatre

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GrayZone*

The Islamic State attack in Jakarta earlier today is part of the same campaign as the Paris attack last November. While the Jakarta attack was no where near as successful in terms of casualties, including those killed, the objectives of the attack was the same as of last November’s in Paris. Islamic State has two objectives for their attacks – both related. The first is to attack the Gray Zone; the social and civil space** that Muslims live in. It is an attempt to force Muslims, whether in the US or Britain or France or Indonesia or Jordan or anywhere else, to chose sides. To define themselves not only as Muslims, but as Muslim in such a way that sets them apart from their fellow citizens. It is both a figurative and literal attempt to collapse the public realm/sphere into the private one. The Islamic State hopes that by doing so they can then achieve their objectives of recruiting Muslims to relocate to the Caliphate – the only place where actual Islam is being practiced or to stay in place and use their local knowledge to attack targets that further weaken the Gray Zone. So the first objective is to set the conditions for recruiting by attacking the Gray Zone.

The second of the Islamic State’s objective with the Jakarta attack, just as it was with the Paris attack last November, is to get the US, its allies and its partners to provide the ways and means that the Islamic State does not have to achieve IS’s ends. This is terrorism as Psychological Operations (PSYOPS). While Indonesia still has its socio-political problems, they’ve come a long way from the Suharto and Sukarno regimes. This is summed up in what has become the Indonesian national motto: bhinneka tunggal ika, which means unity in diversity. The attacks earlier today are intended to shatter, if not reverse, Indonesia’s attempts to achieve unity in diversity. IS hopes that the Indonesian response, a crackdown on Muslim Indonesians, will destroy the Gray Zone, providing the Islamic State with new recruits and a justification for further attacks, which will then lead to greater crackdowns, as well as the imposition of security protocols that erode the Indonesian political, social, and economic reforms of the past eighteen years. Moreover, they hope that attacks in Indonesia will lead other states and societies to react out of fear and panic, eroding their Gray Zones and putting a truth to the lie that ideals of liberty and freedom and diversity are just a facade. The Islamic State cannot achieve these ends themselves. They are hoping we will be so scared as to do it for them.

——–UPDATE——–

The Islamic State’s goal with these attacks, in terms of trying to destroy the Gray Zone in Indonesia, which is a Muslim majority country, is for Indonesia t0 crack down on those Indonesian Muslims that it identifies as supporting the Islamic State. As I’ve written about in past posts, the Islamic State’s doctrine/theology is that real Islam is rooted in Abd al-Wahhab’s radical understanding of tawheed*** (the unity of the Deity) combined with Abd al-Wahhab’s calls to eliminate innovation, apostasy, and unbelief. Since the Islamic State asserts that Muslims that adhere to Islamic State’s doctrine/theology are the true Muslims, Muslims that crack down on Islamic State or Islamic State supporters can and will be labeled apostates. This allows IS to renew and/or reinforce their call that the Muslims involved in running Indonesia or supporting the governments efforts are unbelievers or apostates. Such assertions contribute to the attempted destruction of the Gray Zone by allowing the Islamic State to reinforce their central tenet of radical tawheed. This provides the justification for future attacks against the unbelievers and/or apostates, including what they’ll claim are innovative Indonesian Muslim practices. The intent is to drive both recruitment and crackdown, then use that for more attacks to drive more recruitment and crackdown.

* Image taken from here. It was originally part of an IS publication.

** The Gray Zone is not just the social and civil public space in which Muslims live. Everyone lives in it when not in private. We can see it under attack by Ammon Bundy and his followers in Harney County, Oregon among white, Christian Americans just as it is under attack in Paris and Jakarta and other places by the Islamic State.

*** All Muslims accept tawheed, but not all Muslims accept the radical understanding of tawheed as taught by Abd al-Wahhab.

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42Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    January 14, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    Here’s a question: did Tim McVeigh think he was attacking a racial “Gray Zone” with Oklahoma City? Or Dylann Roof?

  2. 2.

    jl

    January 14, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    Trump campaign flack thinks Bundy Gang’s fabulous Oregon adventure is a terrific and classy strike against terroristic federal government.

    Trump-Bundy 2016?
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-bundy-2016

    Edit: maybe ‘flack’ is not best description, he is a leader of the fakey Veterans for Trump.

  3. 3.

    Anoniminous

    January 14, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    The ISIS Caliphate is like the Project for a New American Century: a pseudo-intellectual fantasy. It’s not something that is Real-World viable. The Caliphate, like the Project for a New American Century will eventually collapse after creating a holy mess and a big heaping pile of dead bodies.

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    January 14, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    @jl:
    I thought Ted was executed two or three decades ago? Not that they wouldn’t be an interesting pair.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    January 14, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @Anoniminous:
    I agree.

  6. 6.

    jl

    January 14, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @trollhattan: Trump would disavow you, but people are very angry right now, very angry.

  7. 7.

    PST

    January 14, 2016 at 2:26 pm

    Indonesia has more Muslims than any other nation on earth. They constitute almost 90 percent of a population of some 250 million. I can’t think what a “crackdown on Muslim Indonesians” would be, given that Muslims run the show. ISIS appears to want the enmity of the people and government of every Muslim-majority country. It must have a strategy, one that involves stimulating division, but I don’t think this post captures it. Not that I claim I can figure it out either.

  8. 8.

    JohnB

    January 14, 2016 at 2:26 pm

    And idiots like Trump feed into this from the other side by saying, “You can’t be Muslim and part of our culture at the same time.”

  9. 9.

    The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...

    January 14, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    @jl:

    Edit: maybe ‘flack’ is not best description…

    Perhaps if you spelled it FLAK, it might be more appropriate… because if I ever saw a group of people committed to weaponizing stupidity…

  10. 10.

    gene108

    January 14, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    a crackdown on Muslim Indonesians,

    There are about 250 million people living in Indonesia of which about 220 million are Muslim.

    I’m not sure the entire Muslim population will be subject to a crackdown, because cracking down on about 90% of a country is a sure way for a government to get out of power very quickly via violent or non-violent revolution.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I’m not sure it was a racial one for McVeigh, but it was intended to make people chose sides between what he thought America should be versus what it is. Remember he had a long list of grievances, some of them legit (he had a pay/tax issue from when he was in the Army that when it came time to resolve it he was given no flexibility in dealing with the tax issue) and some of them not so legit (blaming others for him washing out of Ranger school when he got sick/injured and not trying again later). This morphed over time into an intense distrust and hatred of the government and the belief that it was tyrannical.

    Roof’s attack, I think, fits far more into what you’re asking about. It was an attempt to draw a bright line and place African Americans on one side and whites on the other.

  12. 12.

    Mike J

    January 14, 2016 at 2:32 pm

    @JohnB:

    And idiots like Trump feed into this from the other side by saying, “You can’t be Muslim and part of our culture at the same time.”

    It’s because ISIL and Trump claim to believe the same thing: all “real Muslims” support ISIL. As I suppose all true Scotsmen do.

  13. 13.

    C.V. Danes

    January 14, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    Hasn’t the world been defined by the mutual hatred of Christianity and Islam for long enough? Apparently not, as long as plenty of suckers can be found to fight in yet another religous war over whose fictitious superbeing has the biggest fictitious you know what.

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @jl: His wife is that NH state rep who thinks the President comes on the tv to lie to her. Funny how he doesn’t believe that there is any legitimate constitutional power/authority above the county sheriff, but its okay for his wife to be a state rep.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    January 14, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @PST:

    Indonesian response, a crackdown on Muslim Indonesians,

    PST is right. This can’t be what they’re doing in Indonesia. You must mean some subset of the general population of Muslims: Fundamentalists? Pro-IS groups? Jamaah Islamiah, which has been recruiting and making other trouble for over a decade around these parts?

  16. 16.

    The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...

    January 14, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    So Adam…

    From your description of the Gray Zone, is it reasonable to compare that with the idea of ‘the Commons’?

    They seem slightly different yet somehow, they also seem related or even overlapping…

  17. 17.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    January 14, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    I’ve said it before: ISIS needs us. They can’t keep slaughtering their own people and hope to have any support, so they need a steady stream of outsiders–psychopaths and sadists–to come and help keep the killing machine running. The only way they can do that is with our help. If we piss off enough of our own Muslim citizens enough, they can be assured of a nice supply of assholes to go over there and fight for them. We would be stupid beyond belief to do their fucking work for them.

    Oh, and the other way we can help them would be to go over to Syria and fight them ourselves. That always gives people like ISIS a nice chance to go to the people they’ve been torturing and killing with a shitload of stories about how Americans have helpfully been committing atrocities, and that gives ISIS a way to cast themselves as defenders of their country and as less awful than we are. We’d be wise to find some way not to fall into that trap, too.

  18. 18.

    gene108

    January 14, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    @PST:

    ISIS appears to want the enmity of the people and government of every Muslim-majority country.

    Most Muslims are Asians. Between Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, parts of Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Central Asia and Indonesia, you are probably looking at over 50% of the world’s Muslims.

    And most Asians do not have a history of following the tenants of Wahhabi Islam, which the Saudi’s and others in the ME are very big on.

    I don’t see ISIS getting much traction there.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @The Republic, Blah Blah Blah…: The Gray Zone is civil space. The commons are public resources. Similar ideas, but different.

  20. 20.

    NonyNony

    January 14, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @gene108: @PST:

    Yeah – I gotta echo gene and PST here. Indonesia is not just majority Muslim, it’s overwhelmingly majority Muslim. And it’s overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim too. I don’t see how that works.

    On the other hand, a quick perusal of stats suggests that while Shia Muslims are a minority, they’re almost all in Jakarta. And while Sunni Muslims are a majority, there is only a tiny sliver of Wahabbists among them. So my initial reaction would be that maybe thinking of this as “everyone vs. Islam” is a little too big picture and this particular attack might turn out to be more about arguments between Islamic sects.

  21. 21.

    scav

    January 14, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    @C.V. Danes: It’s also the hatred of each for the wong kind of each that complicates and drives things. There’s a bright line being drawn there too, those (even governments) of technically the same religion as the extremists but who are overly willing to accomodate others and live in the grey zone must also be made uncomfortable and forced to choose. Accomodation and compromise are as much the enemy as anything.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    January 14, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    @gene108:
    True enough, but even though they aren’t Wahabi, not all my fellow Asian Sunni Muslims are immune to the IS and Jemaah Islamiah.

  23. 23.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    January 14, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    It also helps immeasurably when important, influential assholes in politics and the press insult and demonize Muslim Americans, so, well done Donald trump, et al.! Thanks a heap! Think about this: Babies born to Muslim families about the time of the attack in 2001 have spent their whole conscious lives hearing assholes tell them they’re terrorists, that they aren’t “real” Americans, that they’re disloyal, that they’re less than human, that we don’t want them here, that… You finish it.

    These kids are now 15-20 years old, just the time when they’re trying to work out what’s important to them, what life is about, how they fit in, what their reason for being here is. I swear, if we wanted to breed a generation of angry, disaffected jihadis ready to heed the call of some asshole who tells them to go commit to some cause bigger than they are, then we’re doing a top flight job of it.

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @PST: @gene108: @Amir Khalid: @gene108: I am aware of the demographics. I’m the author of the Army’s Cultural Preparation of the Operational Environment for Indonesia. That and 4.50 will get you a large cup of over roasted coffee at Starbucks.

    You are all correct, but here’s what I think the play is. If Indonesia cracks down it allows IS to renew and/or reinforce their call that the Muslims involved in running Indonesia or supporting the governments efforts are unbelievers or apostates. This contributes to the attempted destruction of the Gray Zone by allowing IS to reinforce their central tenet of radical tawheed (and yes, I know, all Muslims accept tawheed, but this is the radical tawheed as taught by Abd al-Wahhab). This provides the justification for future attacks against the unbelievers and/or apostates, including what they’ll claim are innovative Indonesian Muslim practices. The intent is to drive both recruitment and crackdown, then use that for more attacks to drive more recruitment and crackdown.

  25. 25.

    The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...

    January 14, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: It seems as though the community that results from sharing those resources would be part of the Gray Zone, or even help create it…

    Anyway you define it, it’s about humans co-existing peacefully with each other, no?

  26. 26.

    NonyNony

    January 14, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @C.V. Danes:

    Hasn’t the world been defined by the mutual hatred of Christianity and Islam for long enough?

    Actually Europe was for a long time more defined by the mutual hatred of various kinds of Christians for each other.

    And the Middle East has mostly been defined by the mutual hatred of various kinds of Muslims for each other.

    The Christian vs. Muslim conflict was hot during the attempts by Europe to “reconquer” land lost when Rome collapsed (i.e. the Crusades) but really fell by the wayside after that. It’s only in the last century or so that the conflict has heated up again. (Probably completely unrelated to the rise of petroleum as our major source of energy and the large deposits of petroleum that exist underground in the Middle East. I’m sure that that’s just a huge coincidence).

  27. 27.

    gene108

    January 14, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    @NonyNony:

    And while Sunni Muslims are a majority, there is only a tiny sliver of Wahabbists among them.

    My cousin lived in Jakarata for a few years. His company transferred him there. He said most Indonesians are cognizant of the fact they converted from, most likely Hinduism, a few hundred years ago and though they are Muslim they still have parts of their culture that are derived from other religions and they are open minded enough to keep those parts going.

    Garuda Airlines, Indonesia’s airline, is named after a Hindu demi-god.

    Their brand of Islam is very different than that practiced some parts of the ME.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @The Republic, Blah Blah Blah…: Yes. Its about being able to be, say American all the time, but Jewish or Muslim or Christian or Hindu or Buddhist when one wishes. For some this will be a purely private affair between the individual believer and their understanding of the Deity or Deities or in the case of Buddhists, their understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. For others there will be a more public component that is tolerated by others even when they do not personally accept it. The destruction of the Gray Zone seeks to destroy that. Collapse that space. Make the public and private crash into each other.

  29. 29.

    catclub

    January 14, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Even though PST is correct on the numbers. I think this is still
    relevant:

    This is summed up in what has become the Indonesian national motto: bhinneka tunggal ika, which means unity in diversity. The attacks earlier today are intended to shatter, if not reverse, Indonesia’s attempts to achieve unity in diversity.

    It is still an attack on civil society, as were the Sunni attacks on Shia in Iraq, which were designed to produces a reaction from the Shia and an over-reaction from the government as well. It would be an effort to show that even the majority (but not 100% Islamic) Indonesian government is illegitimate (as compared to a Caliphate) and does not work.

  30. 30.

    NonyNony

    January 14, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You are all correct, but here’s what I think the play is. If Indonesia cracks down it allows IS to renew and/or reinforce their call that the Muslims involved in running Indonesia or supporting the governments efforts are unbelievers or apostates

    Yeah – this makes more sense that the way I read your initial post. If I’m understanding you right, it would be less about Indonesia cracking down on Muslims and more about Indonesia cracking down on certain groups of Muslims who all adhere to radical beliefs. The groups that they’re cracking down on use the crackdown to enhance their legitimacy as the “real Muslims” and folks doing the crackdown are therefore not “real” Muslims.

    (We see this with Christian cults and even established churches all of the time – the ones with the most radical beliefs are the loudest about proclaiming themselves the only “real” Christians and everyone else is a fake Christian. Being able to use that perception of their “real”-ness is a recruiting tool to bring young radical believers into the cult.)

  31. 31.

    catclub

    January 14, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    @NonyNony: The siege of Vienna was 500 years after the Crusades. Christian
    and Muslim still seemed relevant. Also Serbs and Croats never forgot.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    January 14, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Good points. Given the post-9/11 environment, the most surprising thing to me is how few Americans are susceptible to the fundamentalist nutbar sales pitch.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    January 14, 2016 at 3:06 pm

    @The Republic, Blah Blah Blah…:

    From your description of the Gray Zone, is it reasonable to compare that with the idea of ‘the Commons’?

    No. The Commons is land- or by extension some other resource- that’s supposed to be equally available to all. The Gray Zone is an alternative to black vs. white thinking. In this case, the Gray Zone is about Muslims who are willing to get along with non-Muslims. Daesh preaches war against any country that doesn’t follow Islam, with “Islam” being strictly limited to their understanding of it. IOW, you’re either with us or against us. If you don’t follow Islam the way they say you should, you’re just as much an infidel to them as if you’re a Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, etc.

  34. 34.

    Doug R

    January 14, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @gene108: According to Wikipedia 99 percent of Muslims in Indonesia are moderate Sunni, I don’t get their strategy here.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 3:21 pm

    @NonyNony: I’ll update for clarity when I get home.

  36. 36.

    Doug R

    January 14, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    Al queada was stirring up stuff in this corner of the world years ago but the aftermath of the boxing day tsunami and the west’s response of aid really put a damper on them so to speak.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    Updated per my response to Nony Nony.

  38. 38.

    Paul in KY

    January 15, 2016 at 10:36 am

    @Adam L Silverman: His pay/tax issue was not ‘legit’ in the context of blowing up a bunch of civilians & kids.

  39. 39.

    Paul in KY

    January 15, 2016 at 10:38 am

    @Adam L Silverman: As long as she kowtows to the sheriff.

  40. 40.

    Paul in KY

    January 15, 2016 at 10:39 am

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve seen ‘the commons’ used to refer to those not in the aristocracy and/or clergy.

  41. 41.

    The Other Chuck

    January 15, 2016 at 10:40 am

    @Doug R: The idea is to create “us vs them”, where daesh becomes more “us” the more the government cracks down on its own citizens. They don’t need a whole population to flip their way, just a few thousand radicalized potential fighters is a whopping success.

    Don’t really see it working in Asia though: lot more people there have a TV and have already seen daesh’s atrocities on it.

  42. 42.

    Paul in KY

    January 15, 2016 at 10:41 am

    @Amir Khalid: Why is that Amir? Because the U.S. aids their propaganda (stupidly & unintentionally, I think)? Economic reasons? Can’t get a wife?

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