RADICAL ISLAMISM IN INDONESIA AND ITS MIDDLE EASTERN CONNECTIONS.

This article offers a three-prong approach to investigating the emergence of contemporary Indonesian radical Islamism in the post-Suharto era (from 1998 onward). First, it places it within the historical context of radical Islamism in Indonesia, its past connection to colonialism, as well as a more contemporary one to Middle Eastern Islamism. Second, it puts this resurgence within the larger context of global jihad movements; it traces the origins of the ideology of radicalism itself, which is the global jihad meta-narrative that dominates much of the discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Arab countries. Third, it discusses the dissemination of radicalism in society, including how the media, particularly the internet, plays an important role in spreading the jihad meta-narrative and its stylized version of contemporary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]