PUBLIC SPHERE AND IDENTITY POLITICS IN THE MOLUCCAN CYBERSPACE

 

Birgit Bräuchler

University of Munich

 

 

Abstract. This paper is an attempt to bring Internet, democracy, conflict, and identity research together through a case study of the Moluccan conflict in Eastern Indonesia. The Internet provides means for parties involved to present their views of the conflict and at the same time construct imagined communities and identities, thereby extending the conflict into cyberspace. The study investigates whether the Moluccan cyberspace is used as a public sphere in the Habermasian sense. After introduction of two groups – one Christian and one Muslim oriented – presenting the Moluccan conflict online through mailing lists and a Web site, the online strategies for information and identity politics are outlined. Furthermore, interaction within and between these groups is analyzed. On the basis of this study it becomes clear that the Internet has positive aspects for the Moluccan cyberactors, like the expansion of offline communities and the establishment of solidarity networks online. Nevertheless, this strengthening of offline identities may deepen the gulf between the warring parties, the Christians and the Muslims. The “ideal public sphere” is deconstructed through the identity politics of the Moluccan cyberactors.

 

Introduction

 

This paper is an attempt to bring Internet, democracy, conflict, and identity research together through a case study exploring the involvement of the Internet in the Moluccan conflict in Eastern Indonesia and the identity politics of Moluccan cyberactors. So far, little research has been done on conflicts extended into or fought out in cyberspace. [1] More and more social movements, (ethnic) minorities, but also terrorist networks use the Internet in their information and conflict strategies. Nevertheless, only phenomena like so called “cyberwars”, mostly physical attacks on strategic computers over the Internet, and “flame wars” – the exchange of diatribes online (Barry, 1991, p. 243) – have been investigated. As I will show in this article, there are also other kinds of conflict going on in cyberspace, which are attached to an offline conflict, but involve unique strategies and means online. Besides, there is a lack of research on the role of the Internet in so-called Southern countries and in the field of collective identity projects online; Internet identity studies primarily focus on individual identities. In contrast, considerable research has been conducted on the democratic potential and the democratic perspectives of the Internet and the public sphere in cyberspace (e.g., Dahlberg, 2000; Dahlberg, 2001; Hacker & Dijk, 2000; Piliang, 2000; Poster, 1997) . What is interesting for this study is how the Internet as a potential “ideal public sphere” is being used by actors involved in an offline conflict and what effects this has on the conflict.

 

 

The Moluccan Conflict & the Internet

 

The Moluccan conflict broke out in Ambon, the capital of the Moluccas, in January 1999, as the result of a minor quarrel between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim passenger. No one expected this incident to escalate into a bloody and enduring conflict. [2] Even if religion itself was not the cause of the unrest, the people involved very soon grouped around religion as their main identity marker. Christianity and Islam seem to provide the only identities left in the Moluccas, which were able to mobilize and provide cohesion. The traditional Adat system seemed to have lost in strength during the last decades; the Indonesian national identity was not convincing enough, and ethnic affiliations only seemed to be an issue during the first days of the conflict. [3] While the fighting between Christians and Muslims was quite balanced with regard to weapons and casualties during the first couple of months, this changed after mid-2000. Since the government during the whole crisis was not able to provide a solution, and after hundreds of Muslims (mainly children and women) were burned alive in a mosque in the Northern Moluccas in December 1999, the Forum Komunikasi Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’ah (Communication Forum of the Followers of the Sunnah and the Community of the Prophet, FKAWJ), an Islamite organization that was founded in 1998 in Yogyakarta (Java), took over. [4] They provided the organization, staff, influence, and means to give a voice to the Moluccan Muslims, to help them against the Christian attackers, and to restore peace and order in the Moluccas according to their own ideas and prescriptions which they claim to be appropriate for all Muslims in Indonesia. The FKAWJ became a solid foundation for the formation of the Laskar Jihad – Muslim fighters for the Holy War – that were sent to the Moluccas in May 2000 to support local Muslims in religious, social and fighting matters.

 

Most analysts agree that religion was only instrumentalized (e.g. Aditjondro, 2001; Bubandt, 2001; Feillard, 2000a; Feillard, 2000b; Joseph, Manuhutu, & Smeets, 2000; Manuhutu, Meuleman, Schulte Nordholt, & Willemse, 2000; Murdoch, 2001; Rachmat, 2001) , but opinions differ concerning the main forces behind the tragedy – the military, the former Soeharto regime, some provocateurs, ideologists, or people with economic interests. The Moluccan conflict is multidimensional and complex, fought out on both the local and national level. Another level not yet taken into account is that of cyberspace. As I will show, the Moluccan conflict is extended into cyberspace by different religiously oriented actors; the Internet provides means for the parties involved to present their views of the conflict and at the same time construct imagined communities and identities, thereby influencing the conflict. [5]

 

This article analyzes the perception of the local context by the Internet producers and how they present it to the outside world. A conclusion is drawn about the role of the Internet in the Moluccan conflict concerning its image as an “ideal public sphere”. Is the Internet used as a space for rational and egalitarian debate and communication between the groups presenting themselves online and within these groups? Does the Internet and the way it is used by the Moluccan cyberactors contribute to conflict resolutions or to the deepening of the gulf between the warring parties? To address these questions I first consider the groups that are online, their motivations and aims, whom they claim to represent, and the modes of online communication used. Further I outline the discourse conducted within and between these groups. I analyze what kind of images and identities are constructed and what kind of interaction takes place.

 

Concepts & Theories

 

Before reflecting on the Moluccan cyberspace, some general ideas about the concepts and theories used in this study are outlined.

 

Public Sphere in Cyberspace

 

Internet researchers from diverse disciplines are investigating the potential and the restrictions of the Internet as a medium providing space for an (ideal) public sphere. By the public sphere Habermas (1987; 2001) means, first of all, a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. It is a sphere of open and unconstrained communication where access is guaranteed to all citizens, independent of the government, dedicated to a rational and egalitarian debate. The discussion can be summarized briefly into two points of view: One is promotion of cyberspace as an acephalous network, the final realization of the “ideal public sphere”, where hierarchies are ignored; freedom and participative and egalitarian communication are enabled, where everyone can be author and recipient at the same time (Hicks, 1998, p. 53; Lévy, 1996; Rheingold, 1993, Introduction and Chapter 4). The other pole regards the Internet as antidemocratic, as a place where control is omnipresent and privacy violated; extremisms and cybercrime can grow, new elites emerge, and the powerful become even more powerful, since established legal, moral, and ethical procedures are not easily transferred to cyberspace (Dijk, 1999, pp. 101, 116, 125; Hamelink, 2000, p. 19; Hartmann, 1998, pp. 12, 16; Piliang, 2000; Rheingold, 2000, Chapter 10). Obviously, the former group sees a high democratizing potential connected to the Internet, while the latter fears its instrumentalization by the powerful to spread their views and opinions (mind management) and as a new tool for suppression (Castells, 2001a, pp. 350-351; Dahlberg, 2000; Kollock & Smith, 1999, p. 4; Slevin, 2000).

 

In my opinion, we should not lapse into excessive pessimistic or optimistic prognoses. Rather, we should determine how the Internet is currently used by diverse groups and people and thus develop a leveled view of what the Internet is currently contributing to the process of democratization at both the local and global levels. There are clear hints that the Internet is a mobilizing factor in several social movements, not directly responsible for providing democracy but at least offering an arena where diverse voices can be heard. An often cited example is the cyber movement of the Zapatistas in Chiapas (Castells, 2001a, pp. 72-83); another is the mobilization by Internet in the cause of East Timor (Hill, 2002, p. 25). The observation by the French philosopher Pierre Lévy (1996) seems true, that cyberspace is the product of a social movement that is not made what it is by media tycoons but by the Internet users themselves. Still, it should not be forgotten that accounts in cyberspace are not always representative for the people they claim to represent and that the democratizing effect very much depends on the motives of the people using it. In the case of the Zapatistas, Oliver Froehling (1997, p. 302) warns of a “self-congratulatory technology fetishization.” According to him, it was not the Zapatistas themselves communicating from the depth of the forest with the world, but instead “more-or-less coordinated supporters in different places with different agendas (churches, human-rights groups, leftist political groups) that have converged around the issue of the Zapatista uprising” (Froehling, 1997, p. 301). In addition, access to the Internet is by far not equally distributed among the world population. That is one of the main points of the critics of the application of the Habermasian concept of the “ideal public sphere” to cyberspace (Dahlberg, 2001; Durham & Kellner, 2001, p. 36; Slevin, 2000).

 

Religion, Identity & Community in Cyberspace

 

The presentations in the Moluccan cyberspace run along religious lines. The potential of religion as a major source of identity has frequently been emphasized (e.g., Rutledge, 1985; Schiller, 1997). Religion seems to be an ideal means for an effective identity project. Using the concept of flexible and negotiable identities [6] religion can easily become extremely important for people involved in a conflict. It has also been demonstrated that the media heavily influence the conflicts on which they report (e.g., Allen & Seaton, 1999; Carruthers, 2000; Thrall, 2000). The Internet as a medium in conflict has hardly been researched. The potential for influencing a conflict is high since the Internet is almost non-controllable [7] and its sites offer extremely selective information that is often not verifiable. The Internet facilitates the combination of traditional media like print media, radio, and TV on one platform. Furthermore, it provides other modes of communication like Web sites, newsgroups, electronic mail, file transfer, and chat.

 

The change in spatial and temporal perceptions and the potential integration of text, images, and sounds in the same system fundamentally change the character of communication (see Castells, 2001b). It makes online environments ideal playgrounds for the construction process of identities (Bahl, 1997, p. 132) and provides means for the extension and the imagination of communities, which constitute part of the Moluccan conflict – almost out of reach of the government’s control and influence. Following Mach (1993, p. 269) I define collective identity as a dynamic process of reciprocal and mutual identification between partners in a social situation. It is created symbolically through the construction of boundaries and images which define groups and relations between them. Moluccan cyberactors are concerned about the Moluccan conflict and their identities evolve in the dynamic processes of online communications and through their relation to the offline dynamics, as I will outline below. It will become clear that boundaries between “us” and “the others”, in other words inclusion and exclusion, are essential collective identity strategies.

 

The so-called “virtual communities” [8] are among the most discussed subjects in the field of Internet research and are either seen as totally separated from reality, as interconnected with it, or as simply non-existent (e.g. Dijk, 1999; Jones, 1997;  McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ellison, 1997; Miller & Slater, 2000; Slevin, 2000; Turkle, 1995). I would like to refer to Benedict Anderson (1983) and his concept of “imagined communities”, which is not at all that different from “virtual communities”. In discussing imagined communities of nations and national identity Anderson focuses on print media that serve to share common myths and knowledge, but the principle is the same. I argue that virtual communities are as real as Anderson’s imagined ones, where traditional terms of spatial proximity are put aside and a more abstract level is applied (Mitra, 1997, p. 58). Still, they are part of real life for the people concerned (e.g., Miller & Slater, 2000, p. 6; Piliang, 2000, p. 106; Rheingold, 1993). In other words, I think it does not make sense to confront “real” and “virtual”. I would rather speak of offline and online. Online communities do not replace traditional ones but they “have the potential to be just as fundamental to the identities of some people as the existing ethnic communities whose existence we have taken for granted for decades or even centuries” (Elkins, 1997, p. 141). Fernback underlines this especially for times of crisis. She suggests that “the symbolic value of virtual community (maybe) … enough to sustain us in an era when physical community building is hampered by distrust or fear” (Fernback, 1997, p. 40). The online communities, which came into existence in the Moluccan cyberspace, are nothing else but extensions of offline communities that are qualitatively altered because of the integrative and the expansive character of the Internet. Cyberspace becomes the extension for the identity politics of the religiously oriented Moluccan cyberactors.

 

Modes of Communication & Identity in Cyberspace

 

The modes of communication used for actions and presentations on the Internet already bring a lot of implications concerning the motives and objectives of these groups with them. Some of them are more conducive to an egalitarian and democratic discourse, others are not. Generally the Internet supports uni-, bi-, and multidirectional modes of communication, each one serving different purposes. Unidirectional modes, for example, prevent online discussions and might be used to impose values and constructs on the user rather than give her/him the possibility to join their negotiation. Further it has to be differentiated between private and public cyberspace (Piliang, 2000, p. 105), the former offering restricted access (for example to mailing lists), the latter open access. The modes used by the actors in the Moluccan cyberspace are unidirectional newsletters and Web sites and multidirectional mailing lists. Therefore I elaborate more on these modes and their potentials for identity and community formation.

 

Web sites give individuals as well as groups the chance to present themselves on the World Wide Web. Daniel Chandler (1998) outlines how personal homepages contribute to the construction of identities on the Web. According to Chandler (1998, p. 5) , “the Web is a medium ideally adapted to the dynamic purposes of identity maintenance”. “One constructs a home page by composing or ‘pasting’ on it words, images, and sounds, and by making connections between it and other sites on the Internet or the Web” (Turkle, 1995, p. 258) . These presentations can extend their author’s potential influence in both time and space. The aesthetics and the building blocks of a Web page are of major importance for successful identity projects: texts, graphics and sounds, access counter, guest book, forms, links, e-mail, or chat buttons (Chandler, 1998, pp. 7-9) . According to Miller (2000, p. 17) , Web pages can act as a “trap that will draw in any passing surfer but also work to elaborate the circuit (…) within which this fame can circulate”.

 

Mailing lists are e-mail discussion groups organized via a central operator which distributes contributions among its members and has the option to act as moderator. Some mailing lists accept a restricted number of members only; others are open for the public. Because of its interactive character this mode of communication is much more apt to negotiate and form solidarity online communities than for example Web pages, where the visitor is much less involved into the negotiation process (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ellison, 1997, p. 149; Rubio, 1996). Christian Stegbauer (2001, pp. 278-283) argues that Internet based communication forums, especially mailing lists, are typically structured into a periphery and a center, according to the frequency and the knowledge with which members contribute to it. In the center we find the central actors dominating the forum with frequent and/or detailed contributions. In the periphery Stegbauer differentiates between discussants, posters, and lurkers. Discussants are active as the central actors, but their activism is often restricted to certain subjects and/or a limited period of time. Posters only give hints to events or new books, or pose questions that nobody likes to answer, as Stegbauer states. The passive lurkers make no contributions but only ‘listen’ and usually constitute the majority in online mailing or news forums. Stegbauer does not explicitly mention moderators, who make decisions about the acceptance of new members and the posting of contributions into a forum or list. Thompson (2001, p. 36) compares the role of the moderator with the police, Kollock (1999, p. 5) with a mild dictatorship.

 

The role of the lurkers is also discussed. While they are often regarded as people who contribute little (Kollock & Smith, 1996, p. 116), Stegbauer (2000, pp. 127-128) claims that they are an important element in constituting the Internet as a social space. First of all, they compose the majority of the members. Their number therefore is a strong indicator for the interest in and the importance of a mailing list and its topics. Lurkers can also act as multipliers forwarding the information they get and spreading the news on other channels. Katie Argyle (1996) argues that silent members can become as (emotionally) involved as active ones.

 

Newsletters have to be differentiated from mailing lists. They only offer a unidirectional mode of communication. Information is provided by an authoritative center and distributed via e-mail among the subscribers of the newsletter.

 

Methodology

 

The descriptions and analyses of the online projects I deal with in the next sections are based on long-term participant observation online. This extensive online research, which is typical for ethnographic research, was conducted next to offline field research for my dissertation project from end of 2000 until late 2002, and proved to be an essential prerequisite for finding answers concerning the connection between public sphere and the Moluccan cyberspace. Results of my offline research are consulted for the characterization of the Moluccan cyberactors and interpretations of the online data.

 

Online Research

 

In the beginning there was hardly any information about the Moluccan conflict available on the Internet. But very soon after one was confronted with a flood of information what Shenk (1997) calls “data smog”. A lot of Web sites concerned with the Moluccan conflict emerged. I focus on the Internet contributions of people directly involved in the conflict (unlike the alleged Zapatistas’ cyberpresentations), which are rather scarce. These sites are the most interesting ones since they claim to provide first hand information, this way shaping the image of the conflict in the outside world. There are in fact only three organized groups directly involved in the conflict continuously being represented on the Internet. The Moluccan Christians are primarily represented by the Crisis Center of the Diocese Ambon (CCDA, Catholic) and Masariku Network (Protestant), the Muslims by the FKAWJ. [9] Moderate local Muslims do not seem to have a voice at all on the Internet. Since the CCDA reports are more or less a one-man-project, I will not take them into further consideration here. [10]

 

Masariku Network was the first Moluccan group regularly providing information about the conflict in the Moluccas via mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/masariku). Using Yahoo as platform the group was founded on 17 August 1999, the number of members hovers at around 200, the language chosen is Indonesian, and contributions mounted to a number larger than 9700 until August 2002. The FKAWJ maintains a mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laskarjihad) as well as a Web page (http://www.laskarjihad.or.id/, until October 2002). It uses Yahoo as the platform for the list, which was founded on 17 May 2000, at the end of 2001 there were 1351 members, more than 600 reports and the language chosen is Indonesian. [11] The FKAWJ Web site [12] was established in June 2000 in order to provide the most recent news on ongoing conflicts in Indonesia, in which the Laskar Jihad are involved, with focus on the Moluccas. The dominant language is Indonesian; only a very small part of the articles is translated into English in a separate section.

 

To analyze the Web page I chose a phenomenological and contextual approach and I conducted a content analysis of the diverse contributions, menus, and submenus. I analyzed which materials (text, images, sound, symbols, forms, citations, links, contacts) were used and the way they were presented. Since its set up I regularly visited the Web page and was therefore able to follow its dynamics. To understand the meaning of all the elements, symbols, and contributions the context always had to be taken into account: the Web page as a framework, its online context, the current situation in the Moluccas and in Indonesia, and the “imagined audience” (Hine, 2000, p. 92) of the Web page. End of 2000 I became a subscriber of all mailing lists/newsletters I mentioned above. I read the news on a daily basis and therefore was very much involved in the dynamics of these lists. I also covered the developments between the set up of these lists and the time when I officially joined them by analyzing their archives. It is very important to go back to the roots of online groups, since that is the time when the foundation-stone for the eventually emerging communities and identities was laid.

 

After introducing myself to the list owners of the groups and, in the case of Masariku, to the group members, I was a lurker most of the time. [13] Jeanette Hofmann (1998) argues that the reading of mailing lists offers a new perspective as a research method. Compared with qualitative interviews and the analysis of documents this method is much more useful to find out about the emic perspective on the Internet and the rules and regulations constituting it as a societal space. As I see it, it is essential to follow the discourse long enough to grasp the interconnections of offline and online dynamics and to get an impression of emerging collective identities or communities. I agree with Lori Kendall (1999, pp. 70-71) who argues, that the impression of anonymity in a forum often vanishes after following the discourse long enough. Besides analyzing the contributions themselves I also tried to find out how the different societal communication spaces are structured using Stegbauer’s center-periphery scheme, and how members communicate and interact with each other and how they interact with or refer to other groups involved in the Moluccan cyberspace. Instead of actively participating in the lists I exchanged (private) e-mails with the owners, the moderators, and the majority of the central actors and conducted semi-structured interviews this way. The outline of these interviews and ‘talks’ very much depended on the situational context of the specific user and developed along our e-mail exchange. The same counts for my e-mail contacts with the Webmaster of the FKAWJ site.

 

Offline Research

 

As an ethnographer it was important to gain insight into the local situation of the Moluccan conflict as well, since it provided the basis and the context for the Moluccan cyberspace. This proved to be a very difficult venture because of the chaotic and sometimes quite dangerous situation in the Moluccas since 1999. Finally, in February and March 2002 I conducted offline research mainly in Ambon, but also in Jakarta, where the public relations department of the FKAWJ is situated. I got to know the situation of the local population, conducted interviews with the cyberactors and people surrounding them, got insight into their milieu, their integration into it and their way of working, in a word, into the conditions and places of the production of the internet contributions.

 

The research being carried out on two levels, online and offline, does not imply that these levels shall be seen separated from each other (the so-called “virtuality” versus “reality”), but instead are conceived as equal parts of one reality. Only through seeing the online level in relation to the offline level does it obtain its “real” meaning and importance. Nevertheless, it is interesting to analyze the online level without immediately also taking the activities of the offline level into account, to get an impression of the image these Internet presentations create for an audience that has no other information channels and has no other contacts to the local level, and to grasp the online dynamics which are then to be related to the offline ones.

 

Moluccan Cyberactors & Their Strategies

 

Who are the Moluccan cyberactors? Who do they claim to represent? Do they enable egalitarian communication among their members and how do the groups interact in cyberspace? Are there indications of the Internet serving as an “ideal public sphere”?

 

The two groups have the same motivation in the end: they want to spread news and background information about the conflict trying to get donations and other kinds of support and invoke solidarity with the fate of their religious brothers. Through the necessarily selective information policies specific images and identities of the groups and the conflict are constructed, which influence the national and international [14] audience and thus the ongoing conflict. The Internet as a medium is selected mainly because of its speed and efficiency in reaching a lot of people at the same time. Many authors agree that online communities primarily exist as interest groups (e.g. Dijk, 1999, p. 160; Mizrach, 1995; Schwara, 1999, p. 271; Watson, 1997, p. 124) and as imaginations through “which a community … can textually produce itself, thus imagine itself–as well as present itself to the outside world, and thus produce an image” (Mitra, 1997, p. 55). But the ways the two groups presenting the Moluccan conflict on the Internet try to achieve that and the effects their policies have are quite different. The contributions of both groups are obviously religiously oriented, even if this is not a conscious process in all cases. [15] While the Muslims direct their appeals mainly to the national Muslim community and the world umma, the Christians plead mostly with international Christian associations, the United States, Western Europe, and the United Nations. To follow their interests and identity politics the cyberactors use different kinds of instruments, some of them specific to the Internet like its modes of communication, the design of Web pages and mailing lists, and strategies like cross-posting and flame wars, and others also available in traditional media like textual and visual argumentations. Only through the Internet is it possible to integrate them all on one platform.

 

Masariku Network

 

The group’s settings in Yahoo are: restricted membership, unmoderated, all members may post messages, and the archives for members only. The result is a closed group where open discussion is promoted. According to the founders, the group was set up to counterbalance the one-sided coverage of the Moluccan conflict by the Muslim dominated national press. [16] The intention of the list is described as being an information distributor on the Moluccan conflict and the trouble the churches in Indonesia experience. The organizers hope that the archive of Masariku is used as a source for campaign and study efforts concerning the Moluccan conflict. [17] To get an impression of this online group and its dynamics I outline what kind of contributions are exchanged, which image of a collective identity is produced, and what kind of interaction and communication takes place, and I briefly reflect on the case.

 

Contributions. The six kinds of contributions delivered via the Masariku mailing list mounting to a number larger than 9700 until August 2002 are: (1) Reports by the Masariku Network itself, (2) reports by other Christian organizations in Ambon (such as CCDA), (3) articles from the local, the national, and the international press and other Indonesian newsgroups like SiaR, Apakabar, and AmbonNet, (4) reports, analyses, and letters from organizations outside the Moluccas, which are apparently dominated by national and international Christian organizations, the UN, and the US, (5) requests to pray together and appeals to the community to join demonstrations in different parts of the world, and (6) comments to all the aforementioned contributions. [18] For its own reports Masariku uses local informants and local, mostly untrained journalists. Their contributions cover almost exclusively the Christians’ situation. [19] Messages are often concluded with a prayer or with an appeal to god. The regular Masariku Reports and Updates cover current news about the conflict and conflict analyses. The Masariku Testimony series provides Christian eyewitness reports by refugees, people attacked or forcibly converted, or by traumatized children and women. The Portret Maluku series frequently delivers photos of victims and damage to private and public property. The combination of these different kinds of reports creates an aura of authenticity and truth and enables the members to identify with the victims.

 

Identity. Analyzing the contributions of the first months is essential to examine the process and the backgrounds of an evolving Masariku identity. Part of the founders and the active members of Masariku are also active members of the Protestant church who are located in Ambon and other parts of Indonesia. All members are Christian. Following the mailing list one easily gets the impression that “real” identities and backgrounds of contributors are hidden. Some members use pseudonyms. Hints to the social networks, on which the Masariku online community is based, are only visible when following the discourse for a long period of time. Additionally, the founders repeatedly express their fear that materials provided by Masariku may get into the wrong hands, and emphasize that all Masariku members should take care that these are only spread internally in the Masariku circle. During the first months the intentions of Masariku were repeated several times: the provision of accurate data, thus leveling the incorrect and one-sided reporting on the unrest in the Moluccas. The perspective on the struggle of the church and the Christian community in the Moluccas shall explicitly be put in the foreground. Most of the contributions fit the line of argumentation of Masariku. Via the Yahoo archive facility all members can access messages and pictures whenever they like, the archives thus acting as a pool of information and identity symbols. Masariku does not use any other Yahoo facilities like chat, because of financial and personal restrictions according to the group owners.

 

Interaction and Communication. About 10 percent of the group members, the central actors in Stegbauer’s words, dominate the discourse either with their own contributions or by forwarding reports and articles they regard as relevant for the Masariku Network and its purposes. After getting in touch with most of the main contributors by e-mail, it became clear that the center’s inhabitants are mainly Moluccans either living in the Moluccas, somewhere else in Indonesia, or abroad (diaspora). The majority of list members (about 90 percent) are lurkers, just as I was for most of the time. Some of them once in a while become posters or discussants when an issue comes up especially precious to them, or a topic where they can contribute some knowledge depending on their professional focus, their ties to specific places in the Moluccas, their place of origin, or their current place of residence. Discussions mostly concentrate on certain issues like forced conversions, the elimination of Christian villages, and the impact of the Laskar Jihad. Besides, there are many single postings that are not or hardly discussed. This might have something to do with the fast-moving conflict and the central actors constantly trying to keep up with it. The authority of the central contributors living right in Ambon and the authenticity of their information hardly seems to be questioned by the other members. All try to contribute whatever they can, express their solidarity by calling the other members “friends” or “brothers and sisters”, by appeals to pray together or to join demonstrations in specific localities.

 

Offline context. These impressions are to be related with the results of interviews conducted online and offline. First of all it was interesting to hear that the term “unmoderated” does not really reflect reality. To become a member of Masariku it is necessary to apply, and not everyone is accepted. According to the list owners, in the beginning Muslims were also accepted as members. But soon they were blamed for posting provocative messages and committing virus attacks and were consequently excluded from the list, which then became exclusively Christian. The moderator also excludes other contributors who post what he regards as incendiary pieces. Still, there is a lot of provocation going on, which I will outline later. Through the mailing list, Moluccans living in the diaspora, national and international Christian organizations, and (non-)governmental organizations of mainly Western countries get informed and therefore also involved in the conflict and identity strategies of the active list members. However, reactions and actions taken by these organizations or by individual members do not seem to take place in the societal online space created by Masariku. Instead, these people get in contact with the owners via private e-mail or meet offline to re-check information and plan actions. While the foundations are laid online actions with effect on the local conflict, like financial support, sending investigation teams, NGOs or governmental legations to the Moluccas, and forwarding the information into the European parliament and U.S. governmental and nongovernmental organizations, mainly transpire offline.

 

Reflexion. What conclusion can be drawn concerning Masariku identity politics and the public sphere: With regard to the online level, it is possible to speak of: (1) an identity project determined by the materials used and the line of argumentation of the dominant actors, and (2) an imagined community (since not all of the Masariku members know each other), which is characterized by information exchange and the expression of solidarity. When the offline level is included in the analysis, it becomes clear that the online community is based on a densely knit offline community (the Masariku founders and their friends). The Internet provides means to integrate the Moluccan diaspora as well as Christian and other organizations worldwide. But since no open access is guaranteed and potentially disturbing members are excluded, the social space constituted by the Masariku mailing list is no public sphere in Habermasian sense. Still, several active members discuss in an egalitarian sense according to their facilities and abilities, and negotiate and shape the Masariku identity through their contributions, and even the passive lurkers, while staying silent, give the impression that they consent with the general line of argumentation. Relating the online to the offline level, it can be seen that an international network is created that plays an active role in a local conflict. Regarding Diani’s (1992, p. 7) four aspects of the dynamics of social movements – networks of informal interaction; shared beliefs and solidarity; collective action on conflictual issues; and action which displays largely outside the institutional sphere and the routine procedures of social life – we could well call the Masariku online and offline project a multi-local social movement. The movement’s vehicle and its connecting and mobilizing element is the Internet.

 

Muslim Internet Presentations

 

The FKAWJ presents itself online via a mailing list and an elaborated Web site. The introduction of the two modes is carried out in a different way then in the Masariku case, since both mailing list and Web page put more emphasis on presentation rather than on interaction and negotiation, two elements that were central to the Masariku project. After outlining the set-up of the list and site, the collective identity presented is analyzed as well as the interconnection of online and offline presence of the FKAWJ.

 

Mailing List. The group’s settings are quite different to the Masariku ones: open membership, all messages require approval, only the moderator may post, public archives. Choosing these options of the Yahoo mailing list facilitator a unidirectional newsletter is created, thus explicitly avoiding any open discussions. The Webmaster is the central and only actor in the list, nobody else is allowed to post any message. The Laskar Jihad and the Mujahidin in the Moluccas are the exclusive sources. All of them are very much influenced by the charismatic leader of the FKAWJ, Ja’far Umar Thalib. The intention of the list is to regularly provide recent information about jihad in the Moluccas and the Laskar Jihad. [20] The FKAWJ additionally uses the polls section of the Yahoo group facilitator to arouse anti-Christian sentiments, the members section, so that members can contact each other, and it also puts a link to their proper Web page under the address section.

 

FKAWJ Web site. The homepage of the FKAWJ offers the most recent news on ongoing conflicts in Indonesia, in which the Laskar Jihad are involved, with focus on the Moluccas. The daily updated news page is completed with citations of the Koran, [21] a list of solicitors and diverse bank accounts for donations. All material and information is exclusively provided by FKAWJ members. No links to other sources are given. [22] Besides news archives beginning in March 2000 general information about the Laskar Jihad is given, forms for donations and applications for becoming a Laskar Jihad in Ambon, and e-mail contact with the forum. The message of the FKAWJ is strengthened through the addition of relevant articles, press releases, authoritative treatises and fatwas about jihad, and a section including frequently asked questions. A gallery section provides pictures and maps showing the territorial captures of the Laskar Jihad in Ambon; a download section offers “fan articles” like wallpaper motives and the logo of the Laskar Jihad (crossed sabers), and sound files such as the speech given by Ja’far Umar Thalib at a religious mass meeting at the Senayan stadium, Jakarta, in April 2000 before sending Muslim fighters to the Moluccas.

 

Identity. The Laskar Jihad’s cyber presence is a religious project, which regards the Moluccan conflict as part of a struggle against a Judeo-Christian dominance worldwide. The only authorities accepted are the sources provided by Islam the way they are interpreted by Ja’far Umar Thalib: the Koran, the Sharia, and fatwas of well-known Muslim clergies. The Laskar Jihad Web site constitutes an authentic symbol of the true Islamic religion and a provider of a pure Islamic identity forestalling any negotiations. While most Christians try to avoid talking of a religious conflict, the FKAWJ explicitly does. They often use perang salib (crusade) or perang sabil (religious war) in their reports. The goal of the FKAWJ is the Islamization of the Moluccas and the application of the Muslim law (Sharia) throughout Indonesia. The Islamic community in Indonesia has to be purified by stamping out all kinds of misconduct, especially prostitution, gambling, and drunkenness. In the Moluccas several actions were taken to destroy alcoholic drinks, close down places of prostitution, and in one case even kill a man who committed adultery by stoning.

 

Offline Context. The FKAWJ Internet presence can be seen as a direct reflection of their offline identity and policies. It is a quite radical and authoritarian organization with a very strict ideology, which leaves no room for compromise, neither online nor offline. The Internet is not thought of as a means for deliberation or identity negotiations but to present the FKAWJ’s religious ideology. On the other hand, both its Internet projects are open to the public in the sense, that everybody can access the group’s archives and sites. Since FKAWJ members are absolutely convinced of their identity they don’t bother confronting the public, which has no chance to take influence anyway. The only pseudo interaction taking place online is the publication and the answering of carefully selected readers’ letters on the FKAWJ Web site, which only serves to underline the organization’s main line of argumentation. In other words, the Internet is used as a blackboard for posting theses but definitely not as a(n ideal) public sphere. Nevertheless, these theses can well initiate controversial discussions in other spaces on- or offline.

 

Reflexion. As in the Masariku case the FKAWJ online project only obtains its full meaning concerning its effects on the Moluccan conflict when it is related to the offline level. As online the FKAWJ in Ambon is a very close and rigid organization whose members live quite isolated from the local population. On the other hand, its media and information policies offline are quite open, but, as online, only in one direction. They have their own radio station in Ambon and publish their own biweekly bulletin and regular flyers and spread them in Ambon and all over Indonesia. The FKAWJ Web page provides forms for donations and for the recruitment of Laskar Jihad. Here again, foundation-stones are laid online, but for the final recruitment the applicants have to go physically to the FKAWJ office. [23] Also Muslims from abroad were attracted by the Web site and came to Indonesia to join the Laskar Jihad. Mainly addressing the national Muslim community, but also trying to integrate the international one through the publication of fatwas from well-known Muslim clergies from the Middle East, the FKAWJ Internet presentations try to reach out for a national/international imagined Muslim community, or for something Bunt (2000) calls a “global electronic umma”. Therefore the “imagined audience”, as Hine (2000, p. 92) calls it, has played a major role in the construction process of the Web page. This imagined community is based on a very close offline community.

 

Interaction between Internet Performers

 

Other useful instruments for the Moluccan cybergroups to express their ideas and feelings and to continue their identity politics are particular strategies only the Internet provides. I will sketch the phenomenon of (inverse) cross-posting and flame wars. “Posting” means putting a message into a mailing list or newsgroup one is either member of or regularly attends. “Cross-posting” means putting the same message additionally in a list where it does not fit in, usually for provocation and inciting a discourse or conflict (Mitra, 1997, p. 67) . The Internet performers in the Moluccan context use cross-posting in an inverse way. They forward messages from other mailing lists or newsgroups into their list in order to effectively comment, criticize, or mutilate them while remaining in a safe position (at home) or to get a reaction and support from the other members. [24] Masariku is the group mainly using the (inverse) cross-posting strategy. It frequently cross-posts news reports from the Laskar Jihad into its own list. The contents of the messages are left unchanged but their headings (subject field) are mutilated. Popular headings are Laskar Jahat (Bad Warriors) or Laskar Jahanam (Damned Warriors), Provokasi (Provocation) or Propaganda Laskar Jahat (Propaganda of the Bad Warriors), Berita Dongeng (Fairy-tale) or Berita Bohong (Story of Lies). Another strategy is to cross-post parts of the Laskar Jihad Web site, for example the list of donors of the FKAWJ, and let them speak for themselves. Recently one of the Masariku members started cross-posting contributions of Muslim mailing lists to Masariku in order to provoke discussion or to show that not all Muslims are the same, that there are moderate Muslims as well.

 

The anonymity provided by the Internet to everybody who wants it is one of the main problems in Internet research and an important strategy for Internet users at the same time. It can be advantageous to cross-posters but problematic for the conflict itself. “Real” identities can be hidden from the public. People can also pretend to be somebody else and thus try to ridicule or harm an opponent. Mailing lists (or Web sites) which exist for a longer period of time and whose membership is quite stable offer a way around this problem. Following the discourse conducted on the list long enough, identities and motives – “the politics of identity” (Kendall, 1999, p. 71) – of the diverse avatars become visible to the observer. The use of pseudonyms and anonymity is also common in the Moluccan cyberspace. Some people use the identities of others either in order to discredit the identity they pretend to be or to add comments and insults without fearing prosecution. Masariku and the FKAWJ, both for example warned about somebody using an e-mail address very similar to the one used by the FKAWJ (laskar-jihad@yahoogroups.com instead of laskarjihad@yahoogroups.com), which was used to spread insults against the Christians. Other Internet users supposedly used pseudonyms to sneak into Masariku to spread provocative messages and even viruses.

 

The groups in cyberspace also directly refer to each other’s Internet contributions, Web pages, and mailing lists, or even personally to its authors, trying to discredit them. The Laskar Jihad Web page for example very often refers to a well-known Christian homepage Ambon Berdarah Online (Bloody Ambon Online) which gets most of its information from Masariku. Officially the owner is known neither to the Muslims nor to most of the Christians. He is suspected to be a Moluccan who lives outside the Moluccas. He obviously struggles on the side of the Christians. The Laskar Jihad argue that this is one more proof of the Muslims’ suppression and inferiority. Muslim reports also directly attack persons of “real life” like the owners of the Masariku mailing list. The language used for commenting on “the other side” is sometimes quite rude. The way the Laskar Jihad write about the Christians is an outstanding example: they are called kutu busuk (bed bug), anjing (dog), or babi (pig), they are purported to be dirty and smelly. The reporting by the Christians (CCDA and Masariku) is far less emotional and insulting. [25] The contributions and comments using rude and insulting language follow the cyberspace tradition of so-called flame wars. As Turkle (1995, p. 13) explains, “a flame war is computer culture jargon for an incendiary expression of differences of opinion. In flame wars, participants give themselves permission to state their positions in strong, even outrageous terms with little room for compromise”. Mitra (1997, p. 74) argues that “power is exercised through the process of ‘flaming’, where the errant voices are ‘burnt out’ and subdued and quieted”. This seems to be a particular online phenomenon since several Internet researchers noticed that “many people who are perfectly polite in everyday life seem to forget their manners in their e-mail” (Hamelink, 2000, p. 42). [26]

 

 

Conclusion: Public Sphere & Moluccan Cyberspace

 

In the preceding sections two quite different online projects and their interconnectedness were presented. Against this background I want to draw a conclusion concerning the questions mentioned at the beginning of this article: Is the Internet used as a space for rational and egalitarian debate and is there communication between the groups presenting themselves online and within these groups? Does the Internet and the way it is used by the Moluccan cyberactors contribute to conflict resolutions or to the deepening of the gulf between the warring parties?

 

Theoretically, the Internet could provide an ideal space for resolving conflicts. In cyberspace the conflicting parties could meet, which might not be possible offline because of tense and warlike situations, where – as is the case in the Moluccas – daily life is separated along religious lines. They could talk to each other openly without the restrictions of offline situations, without being physically threatened or influenced by other interest groups, and try to find an acceptable solution for peace. What happens instead in the Moluccan case is that both parties, the Christians and the Muslims, use the Internet for their own purposes, each side claiming that this is the only means to counterbalance one-sided reporting in the national (Muslim-dominated) or international (Christian-dominated) media, and in search for help and support. If this remains the only motive to enter cyberspace, the Internet will not help in securing a sustainable solution for the conflict, but will rather broaden the gulf between the two warring parties.

 

In this final section I outline, first, what involvement of the Internet in the Moluccan conflict generally means and, second, what the Moluccan cyberactors made out of cyberspace – the potentially “ideal public sphere”. These two sections are interspersed with theoretical and methodological reflections concerning the public sphere.

 

Internet & the Moluccan Conflict

 

A positive aspect of the integration of the Internet into the information strategies of specific actors is that local incidents and discourses the world otherwise hardly would have known of are elevated on a global level. The Internet also brings together different levels of conflict and authority on the same virtual stage, thus contributing to the establishment of discourse between formerly separated levels. This means that local rumors and the voices of people the world never heard of before might now have the same effect as an article of a renowned online magazine or author. The globalized local information is seen as first hand information and is enthusiastically accepted by the international press.

 

Since restrictions of time and space are partly lifted online, the Internet also provides an expansive potential which both sides, Christians as well as Muslims, use for their identity politics and the formation of solidarity networks. Masariku pleas with the international Christian community, international organizations, and the Moluccan diaspora, and its members can share ideas, thoughts, and sorrows online and can build up a collective Moluccan identity and community. Mailing list archives constitute a group’s history and a fund of identity symbols, both of which enable the enculturation process of newcomers – on the Christian as well as on the Muslim side. References to other cases where Christians are persecuted by Muslim radicals, like in Poso, Central Sulawesi, and calls for common prayers also help to build up and strengthen the solidarity of the group. The Muslims try to reach out for a global or at least national electronic umma. As Bunt (2000, p. 102) shows, it is a general trend among politically active Muslim organizations to now regard the Web as an integral part of their information strategies. The FKAWJ also seeks and shows solidarity by reporting for example about their suppressed fellow-sufferers in Palestine.

 

According to Appadurai (1996, p. 195-196) the “virtual neighborhoods of international electronic communication … are able to mobilize ideas, opinions, moneys, and social linkages that often directly flow back into lived neighborhoods in the form of currency flows, arms for local nationalisms, and support for various positions in highly localized public spheres”. This way action networks evolve in the Moluccan case which usually refer themselves either to the Christian or the Muslim side. However, especially on the Christian side, in the framework of the Masariku based international network of (non-)governmental organizations, there are also attempts to try to bring the conflicting parties together offline and to promote peace making measures. Unfortunately this has hardly any repercussions upon cyberspace. Only recently one of the Masariku founders, a very engaged protestant reverend, discovered peace journalism. He claims that he tried to integrate Muslims in the Masariku Network from the very first beginning but had to give up because the situation made border transgressions impossible and even the Internet did not seem to be save enough (I mentioned the virus attacks above). Since mid-2002 he posts more and more reports about the attempts of Christians and Muslims to come closer together again and he also starts to accept Muslim list members again. [27] Unfortunately there is no similar effort on the Muslims’ side, at least not online.

 

Public Sphere & Moluccan Cyberspace

 

Theoretically, everybody should have access to the Internet and an egalitarian discourse should be possible, but practically, only a minority has access and the discourse in cyberspace is dominated by certain elites, leading personalities, and outstanding spokespersons. In this respect, cyberspace is not any better than other public spheres, according to Yasraf Piliang (2000, p. 116).

 

On the one hand, the Internet gives Moluccan actors a voice and spreads the news about the Moluccan conflict. The Internet and the Moluccan cyberspace constitute a public sphere in the sense that people and groups having access to the Internet and to the groups can freely express themselves and compete with each other, and the audience can freely decide which places to visit and which ones to ignore. The groups presenting the Moluccan conflict online have the biggest potential to influence the perception of the conflict mainly in the international, but also in the national and the local context. They have the power over the flows of information. On the other hand, there is always a risk that these prominent figures “may have agenda of their own and do not necessarily represent the group as a whole any more faithfully” (Benthall, 1995, p. 207). As Jim Jordan (1999, p. 115) argues, some of the fundamental patterns of information flows in cyberspace need to be outlined to explore social power in cyberspace. In between these groups online hierarchies can emerge by certain people dominating the discourse through the sheer amount of messages sent, through providing news very quickly, detailed and in an authentic way, by provocating other members and by initiating discussions, or by moderators reviewing articles before they are posted or throwing members out of the subscribers list.

 

What happens in the Moluccan cyberspace? In the FKAWJ case there is indeed not much left of the ideal public sphere. The FKAWJ uses a patriarchal way by imposing an idealized Islamic identity on its visitors, this way providing an important supporting pillar in times of identity crisis. Negotiations are neither permitted nor required since the sources for this identity are seen to be out of reach for all humans anyway: the Koran, the Sunnah, and the Sharia. The Masariku project on the contrary is much more open allowing discussions for members of the mailing list. Masariku does not provide stringent identity guidelines as the FKAWJ but nonetheless it becomes evident that few highly active contributors dominate the discourse negotiating the group’s identity. Still, it is the silent members own choice to stay silent. That is different for the list’s applicants, who are not allowed to “enter”.

 

Each of the Moluccan groups uses the Internet as a tool to create a more or less public online sphere for a specific audience in order to shape their knowledge and their opinion about the Moluccan conflict: on the Christian side the international community and the Christian community worldwide, on the Muslim side the Indonesian nation and the umma. On the Internet a competition takes place between these different spheres concerning the authenticity of their discourses and the attractiveness for the audiences who can choose which sphere they want to enter. Craig Calhoun (1995, p. 242) suggests to think of the public sphere not as the realm of a single public, but as a sphere of publics (see also Keane, 2000; Sassi, 2000). He argues that in each of such publics certain topics can be addressed, while others are repressed, and each space has its dominant voices (245). He continues though that it means no progress what concerns democratic practices if each identity group only creates its own public without taking the interaction between and with other groups into account and without promoting them. Democracy is only possible if exchange takes place across the borders of these different publics (242).

 

In the Moluccan cyberspace this crossing of borders does not take place in a positive sense (only cross-posting and flame wars). The deficiencies what concerns egalitarian communication and interaction online within the groups were already discussed above. The Moluccan cyberspace is dominated by certain religiously oriented groups and people and their motives, who are influenced by the dramatic situation offline, who extend their offline identities into cyberspace, and expand and idealize existing offline communities, which are not that coherent at all. This way they strengthen offline identities – Christianity and Islam – which might further deepen the gulf between the warring parties. The identity projects of the Moluccan cyberactors were characterized for a very long period of time through their exclusivity, which was expressed in the textual and visual argumentations or in the set-up of the groups as well as in the kind of interaction that took place between these groups online. The “ideal public sphere” was deconstructed through the identity politics of the Moluccan cyberactors.

 

What I want to emphasize here is, that the public sphere should not be seen as one monolithic public space each individual should ideally have access to. Instead the public sphere consists of several public spheres built up in different places and spaces and through different kinds of geographies and media, the reach and the audience of which can differ tremendously. When talking of the public sphere, we do not only have to take the diverse public spheres into account and their characteristics. What is just as important is to analyze the interconnectedness of those diverse public spheres, like, for example, the Masariku mailing list, the FKAWJ Web page, and public offline spaces in the Moluccas and elsewhere, where the Moluccan conflict is discussed.

 

As presented above, it is important to think of public sphere as a potpourri of spheres that can overlap as well as interact with each other. The different public spheres concerned with the Moluccan case, for example, are located online as well as offline. To draw conclusions concerning the role of the Internet in the Moluccan conflict and its impacts it is necessary to take the interconnectedness of the diverse public spheres and of the online and the offline level into account. Such an integrative approach implies that researchers should regard the investigated public spheres as interconnected and combine online with offline research.

 

 

Endnotes

Acknowledgments:

This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Euricom Colloquium “Electronic Networks and Democracy”, Nijmegen, 9-12 October 2002.

 

[1] Throughout this paper the Internet is regarded as the main factor constituting the social space called “cyberspace” (compare Hicks, 1998, p. 52; Lévy, 1996) . The prefix “cyber-” refers to phenomenon that take place in this space, refer to it or are active there, like cyber presentations or cyberactors.

 

[2] The settings and the parties involved in the conflict differ a lot in the three major subdivisions of the Moluccas (Northern, Central and South-eastern Moluccas) all of which have been touched by the outbreaks of violence during certain periods between 1999 and 2002. So I should rather speak of different conflicts than of the Moluccan conflict. In my research I am mainly concerned with the Central Moluccas.

 

[3] Religion is an issue in the Moluccas since the colonial powers introduced Christendom to the archipelago in the 16th century. Islam arrived a short while before that. While the Indonesian population is almost 90% Muslim, the Central Moluccan population is half Christian, half Muslim, which does not always please the Muslim majority in Indonesia. With the government’s Islamization policies in the 1990s and many Muslims transmigrating to the Moluccas, the religious balance in the Central Moluccas started to crumble.

 

[4] For the religious philosophy and the background of the FKAWJ and its leader Ja’far Umar Thalib see Aditjondro, 2000; Hasan, 2000; Hasan, 2001; Hasan, 2002.

 

[5] Even if only a small percentage of the Indonesian population has access to the Internet, its role and influence on the current struggle for democratization and stability in Indonesia, especially since the attack on the Headquarter of the Democratic Party of Indonesia (PDI) on 27 July 1996, has been outlined by several authors (Basuki, 1998; Hill & Sen, 1997; Marcus, 1999; Sen & Hill, 2000).

 

[6] This goes back to the situational approach of Fredrik Barth (1969) to define “identity”.

[7] Of course, this is only true for nations where free access to the Internet is guaranteed, like it is the situation in Indonesia right now. One of the biggest exceptions is China, where Internet access is very restricted and strictly controlled by the government.

 

[8] Howard Rheingold is the ideological father of the virtual communities since he initiated the debate with his book The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier in 1993.

 

[9] All three groups are called “Moluccan cyberactors” in this paper since they all inhabit the Moluccan cyberspace, even if they do not originally come from the Moluccas.

 

[10] This does not imply that the reports are of no significance as a source of information. To the contrary, since the language used is English it is very much internationally oriented and the author is often commented on as somebody who tries to report in a neutral way (see for example http://www.maluku.org/portal/ and http://www.websitesrcg.com/ambon/links.htm, April 2003). But since his informants are mainly on the Christian side this proves to be a very difficult venture.

 

[11] The distribution of the newsletters via e-mail was halted on October 4, 2001. According to the Webmaster of the FKAWJ, this happened because of the adverts of women only dressed in bikinis often attached to their news by Yahoo (personal e-mail communication, November 28, 2001).

 

[12] The Web site was restructured in May 2002. According to the Webmaster this new Web site is not in its final shape yet. Principally it has got the same contents as the former one, just the technical part is different because of the increasing amount of data to manage. This article refers to the former version – still accessible via the archive section of the new Web site (http://www.laskarjihad.or.id/old.htm), which was closed itself a couple of days before the Bali bombings in October 2002.

 

[13] “Lurking” is described as unannounced observation of online interactions between discussion group participants (Thompson, 2001, p. 35). Still, I was a legitimized observer since the mailing lists and newsletters are not generally open to the public. I had to apply for subscription first and the moderators decided whether to accept me as a new member or not.

 

[14] The Internet is the main information provider for the international community, even for most of the Moluccans in the Netherlands, this way directly shaping their perception of the conflict.

 

[15] Especially when people simply have no access to information from the “other side”. In fact, there is no neutral information in a conflict, even if the parties claim or at least try to be neutral (e.g., Carruthers, 2000, p. 17) . What is said in the next paragraphs is not representative of all Christians and Muslims in the Moluccas but rather shows what specific actors claim to be “Christian” or “Muslim”. With the presentation running along religious lines, differences within the Christian and the Muslim bloc are blurred for the audience that is not directly involved. Dozens, if not hundreds of small localized battles, by far not exclusively fought out between Christians and Muslims, become part of one major fight between Islam and Christianity.

 

[16] Personal communication with the founders in February-March 2002.

 

[17] Original version: “Masariku mailing list adalah sarana distribusi informasi seputar kerusuhan di Maluku dan kerusuhan yang menimpa gereja-gereja di Indonesia. Mailing list ini disupport oleh Masariku Network, salah satu jaringan informasi dan kerja untuk Maluku. Harapan kami, arsip Masariku mailing list yang tersimpan dalam Web egroups dapat dijadikan nara sumber berbagai upaya kampanye dan studi kerusuhan di Maluku” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/masariku).

 

[18] All "local" contributions are in Indonesian. Only a very small amount of them is translated into English. Contributions from international organizations and newspapers are mostly in English, only very sporadically translated into Indonesian.

 

[19] Nevertheless, Masariku people emphasize that it is their goal to include Muslim views and experiences. But in most cases these projects fail because of the tenseness of the situation where Muslims are either too frightened to talk frankly to Christians or where it is just not possible to contact each other.

 

[20] Original version: “Milis Resmi Laskar Jihad Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. Berisi berita terbaru jihad di Maluku dan Laskar Jihad Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. Sumber berita langsung dari Laskar Jihad dan Mujahidin Maluku yang disampaikan ke DPP Forum Komunikasi Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. Berita akan di-update hampir tiap hari, Insya Allah” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laskarjihad).

 

[21] Al-Baqarah 120 and 190; verse 120 accuses the Christians and Jews of consistently trying to convert others and 190 encloses an appeal to all Muslims to fight against the ones who are fighting them.

 

[22] In the beginning the FKAWJ site provided a frame with links to other sites concerned with the Muslims in the Moluccas and other Muslim and Jihad Web sites. The links were deleted because Western visitors of the Web page claimed that these virtual links exist in reality as well, which is denied by the FKAWJ (personal communication with the Webmaster of the FKAWJ, February 13, 2002).

 

[23] Personal communication with FKAWJ members in Jakarta, February 2002.

 

[24] This way the poser strives for a united response in his “home-list” to communally perceived threats, which further strengthens the metaphor of community as a descriptor for what occurs online (Watson, 1997, p. 119) .

 

[25] The CCDA reports analyzed never used any swearwords for characterizing the Muslims. The same counts for most of the Masariku contributions. Internet contributions like the Ambon Berdarah Web site are not taken into account at this point.

 

[26] Cees Hamelink refers to Arlene Rinaldi (http://www.fau.edu/rinaldi/net/dis.html, not available any more).

 

[27] Personal e-mail communication, November 2002.

 

References

 

Aditjondro, G. J. (2000). Notes on the Jihad forces in Maluku. Retrieved October 3, 2000, from http://www.malra.org/posko/malra.php3?oid=234885

Aditjondro, G. J. (2001). Guns, pamphlets and handie-talkies: How the military exploited local ethno-religious tensions in Maluku to preserve their political and economic privileges. In I. Wessel & G. Wimhöfer (Eds.), Violence in Indonesia (pp. 100-128). Hamburg: Abera-Verlag.

Allen, T., & Seaton, J. (Eds.). (1999). The media of conflict: War reporting and representations of ethnic violence. London: Zed Books.

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Argyle, K. (1996). Life after death. In R. Shields (Ed.), Cultures of Internet: Virtual spaces, real histories, living bodies (pp. 133-142). London: Sage.

Bahl, A. (1997). Zwischen On- und Offline. Identität und Selbstdarstellung im Internet. München: KoPäd Verlag.

Barry, J. A. (1991). Technobabble. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Barth, F. (1969). Introduction. In F. Barth (Ed.), Ethnic groups and boundaries. The social organization of culture difference (pp. 9-38). Bergen-Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Basuki, T. (1998). Indonesia: The Web as a weapon. Development Dialogue, 2: The Southeast Asian Media in a Time of Crisis, 96-103.

Benthall, J. (1995). Disaster, relief and the media. London: I.B. Tauris.

Bubandt, N. (2001). Malukan apocalypse: Themes in the dynamics of violence in Eastern Indonesia. In I. Wessel & G. Wimhöfer (Eds.), Violence in Indonesia (pp. 228-253). Hamburg: Abera-Verlag.

Bunt, G. R. (2000). Virtually Islamic. Computer-mediated communication and cyber Islamic environments. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Calhoun, C. (1995). Critical social theory: Culture, history, and the challenge of difference. Oxford: Blackwell.

Carruthers, S. L. (2000). The media at war: Communication and conflict in the Twentieth Century. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Castells, M. (2001a). The power of identity. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Castells, M. (2001b). The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Chandler, D. (1998). Personal home pages and the construction of identities on the Web.  Retrieved August 15, 2001, from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/webident.html

Dahlberg, L. (2000). Democratic participation through the Internet: a brief survey. M/C Reviews, 12 April 2000.

Dahlberg, L. (2001). Computer-mediated communication and the public sphere: A critical analysis. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication (JCMC), 7(1).

Diani, M. (1992). The concept of social movement. The Sociological Review, 40(1), 1-25.

Dijk, J. v. (1999). The network society; Social aspects of new media. London: Sage

Durham, M. G., & Kellner, D. M. (2001). (Eds.), Media and cultural studies: Keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Elkins, D. J. (1997). Globalization, telecommunication, and virtual ethnic communities. International Political Science Review, 18(2), 139-152.

Feillard, A. (2000a). Religious factor in recent clashes I. The Jakarta Post 25.05.2000.

Feillard, A. (2000b). Religious factor in recent clashes II. The Jakarta Post 26.05.2000.

Fernback, J. (1997). The Individual within the collective: Virtual ideology and the realization of collective principles. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Virtual culture. identity and communication in cybersociety (pp. 36-54). London: Sage.

Froehling, O. (1997). The cyberspace “war of ink and Internet” in Ciapas, Mexico. The Geographical Review, 87(2), 291-302.

Habermas, J. (1987). Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (originally published in 1962; 17. ed.). Darmstadt/Neuwied: Luchterhand.

Habermas, J. (2001). The public sphere: An encyclopedia article. In M. G. Durham & D. M. Kellner (Eds.), Media and cultural studies: Keyworks (pp. 102-107). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Hacker, K. L., & Dijk, J. v. (Eds.). (2000). Digital democracy. London: Sage.

Hamelink, C. J. (2000). The ethics of cyberspace. London: Sage.

Hartmann, F. (1998). Annäherung an eine Metapher. In F. Hartmann (Ed.), Informationsgesellschaft. Sozialwissenschaftliche Aspekte (Vol. 3, pp. 9-22). Wien: Forum Sozialforschung.

Hasan, N. (2000). In search of identity: The contemporary Islamic communities in Southeast Asia. Studia Islamika, 7(3), 67-110.

Hasan, N. (2001). Islamic radicalism and the crisis of the nation-state. ISIM Newsletter, 7, 12.

Hasan, N. (2002). Faith and politics: The rise of the Laskar Jihad in the era of transition in Indonesia. Indonesia, 73, 145-169.

Hicks, C. R. (1998). Places in the net. Experiencing cyberspace. Cultural Dynamics, 10(1), 49-70.

Hill, D. T. (2002). East Timor and the Internet: Global political leverage in/on Indonesia. Indonesia, 73, 25-51.

Hill, D. T., & Sen, K. (1997). Wiring the Warung to global gateways: The Internet in Indonesia. Indonesia, 63, 67-89.

Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: Sage.

Hofmann, J. (1998). ‘Let a thousand proposals bloom’ - Mailinglisten als Forschungsquelle. In B. Batinic & L. Graef & A. Werner & W. Bandilla (Eds.), Online research. Goettingen: Hogrefe. Retrieved October 2, 2000, from http://duplox.wz-berlin.de/texte/gortex/

Jones, S. G. (1997). The Internet and its social landscape. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Virtual culture. identity and communication in cybersociety (pp. 7-35). London: Sage.

Jordan, T. (1999). Cyberpower. The culture and politics of cyberspace and the Internet. London: Routledge.

Joseph, V., Manuhutu, W., & Smeets, H. (Eds.). (2000). De Molukken in crisis. Actuele Onderwerpen. Lelystad.

Keane, J. (2000). Structural transformations of the public sphere. In K. L. Hacker & J. v. Dijk (Eds.), Digital democracy (pp. 70-89). London: Sage.

Kendall, L. (1999). Recontextualizing ‘cyberspace’: Methodological considerations for on-line research. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Doing Internet research. Critical issues and methods for examining the net (pp. 57-74). London: Sage.

Kollock, P., & Smith, M. A. (1996). Managing the virtual commons: Cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 109-128). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Kollock, P., & Smith, M. A. (1999). Communities in cyberspace. In M. A. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 3-25). London: Routledge.

Lévy, P. (1996). Cyberkultur. Retrieved August 27, 2001, from http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/2044/

Mach, Z. (1993). Symbols, conflict, and identity. Essays in political anthropology. New York: State University of New York Press.

Manuhutu, W., Meuleman, J., Schulte Nordholt, N., & Willemse, J. (Eds.). (2000). Maluku Manis, Maluku Menangis. De Molukken in crisis. Een poging tot de verklaring van de geweldsexplosie op de Molukken. Utrecht: Moluks Historisch Museum / Moluccan Information and Documentation Center.

Marcus, D. L. (1999). Indonesia revolt was Net driven. In E. Aspinall & G. v. Klinken & H. Feith (Eds.), The last days of President Suharto  (pp. 73-75). Australia: Monash Asia Institute.

McLaughlin, M. L., Osborne, K. K., & Ellison, N. B. (1997). Virtual community in a telepresence environment. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Virtual culture. identity and communication in cybersociety (pp. 145-168). London: Sage.

Miller, D. (2000). The fame of Trinis: Websites as traps. Journal of Material Culture, 5(1), 5-24.

Miller, D., & Slater, D. (2000). The Internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford: Berg.

Mitra, A. (1997). Virtual commonality: Looking for India on the Internet. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Virtual culture. identity and communication in cybersociety (pp. 55-79). London: Sage.

Mizrach, S. (1995). CyberAnthropology. Retrieved Sept. 27, 2001, from http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/CyberAnthropology.html.

Murdoch, L. (2001). Terror attack in the name of religion. Sydney Morning Herald 27.01.2001.

Piliang, Y. A. (2000). ‘Public sphere’ dan ‘cyber-democracy’: Media Internet Sebagai Kekuatan Alternatif [‘Public sphere’ und ‘cyberdemocracy’: Das Medium Internet als Alternative Kraft]. Demokrasi & HAM, 1(2), 101-123.

Poster, M. (1997). Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the public sphere. In D. Porter (Ed.), Internet culture (pp. 201-217). London: Routledge.

Rachmat, A. W. (2001). Interreligious conflict and reconciliation in Indonesia. Retrieved March 20, 2001, from http://www.paxchristi.nl/indointerreligious.html

Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. New York: Addison Wesley.

Rheingold, H. (2000). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier (originally published in 1993 by Addison Wesley, revised ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rubio, S. (1996). Home Page. Bad subjects. Retrieved June 10, 2002, from http://eserver.org/bs/24/rubio.html.

Rutledge, P. (1985). The role of religion in ethnic self-identity. New York: University Press of America.

Sassi, S. (2000). The controversies of the Internet and the revitalization of local political life. In K. L. Hacker & J. v. Dijk (Eds.), Digital democracy (pp. 90-104). London: Sage.

Schiller, A. (1997). Religion and identity in Central Kalimantan: The Case of the Ngaju Dayaks. In R. L. Winzeler (Ed.), Indigenous peoples and the state: Politics, land, and ethnicity in the Malayan peninsula and Borneo (pp. 180-200). New Haven: Monograph 46/Yale Southeast Asia Studies.

Schwara, S. A. (1999). Ethnologie im Zeichen von Globalisierung und Cyberspace. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien (MAGW), 129, 259-273.

Sen, K., & Hill, D. T. (2000). Media, culture and politics in Indonesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shenk, D. (1997). Data smog. Surviving the information glut. New York: HarperEdge.

Slevin, J. (2000). The Internet and society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Stegbauer, C. (2000). Die Rolle der Lurker in Mailinglisten. In H. P. Ohly & G. Rahmstorf & A. Sigel (Eds.), Globalisierung und Wissensorganisation: Neue Aspekte für Wissen, Wissenschaft und Informationssysteme (pp. 119-129). Würzburg: Ergon Verlag.

Stegbauer, C. (2001). Grenzen virtueller Gemeinschaft. Strukturen internetbasierter Kommunikationsforen. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Thompson, K. C. (2001). Watching the stormfront: White nationalists and the building of community in cyberspace. Social Analysis Journal of Cultural and Social Practice 45(1), pp. 32-52.

Thrall, A. T. (2000). War in the media age. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Watson, N. (1997). Why we argue about virtual community: A case study of the phish.net fan community. In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Virtual culture. Identity and communication in cybersociety (pp. 102-132). London: Sage.

---

Copyright 2004 Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, Inc.

This file may not be publicly distributed or reproduced without written permission of the Communication Institute for Online Scholarship,

P.O. Box 57, Rotterdam Jct., NY 12150 USA (phone: 518-887-2443).

---