Tackling Islamic Terrorism and Radicalism in Indonesia by Increasing the Sense of Humanity and Friendship

Abstract

In regard to the rise of Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism, this paper aims to (1) explore the ways in changing jihadists' mind and behavior; that is, by guiding them away from “war situation” and by persuading them to conduct good deeds and to relate Islam to daily life such as by giving sermons on peace or helping others. To the convicted terrorists, the authors present the project findings showing that developing dialogs about humanity and peace could increase the level of cognitive complexity through which it can lead them to be more positive to others. (2) The authors also discuss religious fundamentalism and how to deal with it. Two studies revealed that although eliminating religious fundamentalism is almost not possible, there are still ways to lead them to have positive perceptions toward other religious groups. One of them is to make the fundamentalists believe that Muslims and Islam perceive non-Muslims in a positive way, instead of in a negative way.