Moderate Southeast Asian Islamic Education as a Parent Culture in Deradicalization: Urgencies, Strategies, and Challenges

Abstract

Radicalization is a terminological conflation of the two meanings in the context of extreme beliefs or behaviors adopted by individuals or groups as a justification for the use of violence to achieve the objectives. Since radicalization primarily emphasises on, and departures from, the understanding and cognitive processes, the role of peaceful and moderate education in this case can be effectively utilized to serve as a considerably relevant means to prevent it. In addition, radicalization is also limited by the social, political, and economic contexts of a particular region, and combined with the degree of individual autonomy in the search for identity. Accordingly, the deradicalization efforts actually necessitate the consideration of the sociopolitical culture as the basis for policy makers. It is based on the consideration that the radicalization of Islam, even though strongly characterized by transnational movement, contains local elements leading to the radicalization as occasionally random and ununiformed violence in the Muslim world. The findings suggest some valuable strategies to deconstruct the idea of radicalization that can be implemented in several ways, including building and empowering local characterization of Indonesian education of Muslims in particular and of Southeast Asian in general, and reducing the Wahhabism extreme teachings and such highly irrational and ahistorical Arabization ideas and programs in Indonesian context.