Page 37 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

26 Benjamin Cole
to intimidate public opinion or to give the impression that the government does not
have the situation under control. It also works to distance militant activity within
Malaysia from the wider ‘war on terror’, contrary to US perceptions.
The government is able to manage the majority of the communication flows
through the mainstream media, and the KMM is not being proactive in trying to set
the media agenda or its media outputs. It is possible that the KMM has been so dam-
aged by the arrest of many of its members that it chooses not to communicate
through the mainstream media at this time, and it certainly has no leader with a pub-
lic profile, or a political wing, to speak for it. It seems to be avoiding public attention
in order to be left in the shadows to rebuild its strength – which would be hindered
by a high media profile and the likely government backlash that it would provoke.
When the media reports on the KMM it is predominantly to report police
manhunts or the arrest and detention of KMM members. In the Malay Mail this
reporting is primarily factual in nature, with little analysis. There is some mention of
the KMM objective to create an Islamic nation called ‘Darul Islam’in Southeast Asia
through a holy war, but such reports are rare, or tend to downplay the issue. One arti-
cle in Malaysiakini for instance, argued that the pan Islamist vision for Southeast
Asia has crumbled during the course of the ‘war on terror’ (Malaysiakini 2003c).
There is little reporting of why the KMM exists or why some Malaysians have
joined militant groups. The few stories that have reported the motivations of indi-
vidual militants, identify international issues rather than domestic issues. In 2002 it
was reported that two KMM members, who had been arrested, had undergone mili-
tary training in Afghanistan because they wanted to help their Muslim comrades in
Ambon (a region of Indonesia) and the Philippines (New Straits Times 2002d).
Similarly, a Colonel in the Malaysian Airforce became involved with JI because of
his experiences in Bosnia (Malay Mail 2003c). It was also reported that three
Indonesian preachers had been identified as being responsible for religious and mil-
itant indoctrination within the KMM (Harakah Daily 2004a). This fits with the gen-
eral government line, as publicized by the mainstream media, that the KMM
originated from ‘influences brought into the country by foreigners’ (New Straits
Times 2002c). Overall, the KMM receives a significant amount of media exposure,
but it shows the KMM to be weak and on the defensive (Malay Mail 2002a, 2003a,f).
Rather than generating their own communications through the media, the
KMM relies instead on the communication flows from conflicts in other states to
achieve its purposes. The majority of the reporting of sub-state violence is of con-
flicts in other countries, particularly Indonesia and the Philippines. Events such
as 9/11, and JI bombings in Indonesia are widely reported, but the coverage is
largely factual with little analysis.
The role of Malaysian citizens within JI is widely reported by the media, and
statements made by JI suspects in Indonesian custody justifying militant and ter-
rorist activities are reported. This has included a number of statements made by
Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, the alleged spiritual head of JI, which have included com-
ments that the Bali bombers were misguided but praiseworthy, that attacking
US government targets in Indonesia was acceptable, and accusing the US, Christians
and Jews of destroying Islam (Malay Mail 2003i,e). Similarly, all of Osama bin