Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Contested Visions of Justice and Community

Militant Islam in Southeast Asia:
Contested Visions of Justice and Community

Feb 19, 2005
Diffendorfer Memorial Hall, ICUThis international symposium seeks to address the roots, transformation and current practices of militant Islam in Southeast Asia and its important implications for contested visions of local, regional and global conceptions of justice, peace and community. Since the world’s largest Muslim populations are in Asia with Indonesia as the biggest Muslim state, developments and changes in Islamic discourses and practices in this strategic region are bound to have a significant impact on both the Islamic and non-Islamic world. Whether armed or unarmed, militant Islam has many faces. In countries such as the Philippines and Thailand where the minority Muslim populations have preserved their distinct cultural identities and continue to suffer from political and economic neglect,
this militancy has historically found expression in armed secessionist movements. In countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia with majority Muslim populations and traditions of moderate Islamic practices, militancy has oftentimes been expressed in a tougher assertion of Islamic primacy in shaping the country’s political and social life and its various institutions. Since we now live in an increasingly interconnected world, we need to understand what is arguably the most compelling development in the Islamic world today, the rise of Islamic militancy.