There are often quite a few intelligent conversations on this board and sad to see that this is not one of them.
Personally I don’t care if Amrozi is killed - his death wont affect anything - indeed it will only work to benefit his cause, especially if you see him go to his death still smiling. His death wont assuage the anger that we all feel for his participation in this act of bastardary. No – show him to be wrong.
I was in Jakarta last week when the bomb went off - I came back yesterday from a 3 week stay in Indonesia where my wife and I celebrating our Muslim cum Javanese wedding. Indonesia is a culturally rich and diverse country and the 'Amrozi's' only reflects a very small fringe of Indonesia's political discourse. The victims last Tuesday were Indonesian’s – Muslims – and though a US linked building was defaced, Indonesia was the true victim. This message needs to be constantly repeated, these so called Muslims need to be shown as vicious murders and not as a reflection of Islam. Unfortunately the current political situation in Indonesia isn't as capable of doing this job – corruption is too rampant and the government is too ineffective.
Most Indonesian's simply want to live their lives in peace – JI is an affront to these peoples lives. Furthermore extremist Islam isn’t deeply imbedded in Indonesia and I strongly suspect that a good starting point would be to show these people for what they. As much as certain xenophobes would disagree – Islam is not about violence in fact a true Muslim deplores violence. Terrorist groups saying that they represent Islam are purely basing this on an expedient way to recruit the disenfranchised and the terror network in Indonesia is simply a collection of murders.
Every country has its fringe and certain controversial voices speak out to these peoples concerns. Think about the extreme right wing in America and Australia – these people are often simply dismissed as lunatics. Their politics are spoken of in child like terms as though they simply don't understand how society actually works.
Give guys like Amrozi or Bashir a chance to be interviewed – their desired goal is to have a very traditional Islamic society – something akin to Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. Show the flaws in their desired goals – let people know what sympathy for these people means.
Amrozi is too simple to have organised the Bali bombing himself though he certainly shares a big part of the blame. In Chess one often sacrifices a piece for position – Amrozi is a pawn – and killing him wont strengthen our position, indeed Amrozi may serve his masters better dead than alive, so leave him alive in prison.
