As the battle rages on in the embattled city of Marawi, a new front is emerging in the fight against extremism—this time in the hearts and minds of locals. President Rodrigo Duterte weighed in on the issue, saying in February, “They are now attempting to try to inject the IS (Islamic State), that’s bad. That is why also we must avoid extremism or even entertain it or accommodating them because it will destroy all of us. This will be a country torn apart.”
A few months later, in the wake of the May 23 Maute attack on Marawi, Duterte declared martial law on the entire region of Mindanao to preempt the movement of operatives inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group to other areas in the province.
If the reports are proven true, this opens another front in the fight against the self-declared caliphate. As the war against ISIS winds down in the Middle East—Mosul, the largest city controlled by the caliphate, was captured on July 10—an infiltration of ISIS agents in the Bangsamoro could further destabilize the region.
While it remains to be seen whether there is a genuine threat that ISIS has breached Philippine shores, any sort of development in this arena is alarming. The proliferation of radical belief systems from the Muslim heartland threatens to upend the fragile harmony in the region, and set back peace efforts for years to come.
Radical ideologies
At this point, Mindanao is already in a state of great uncertainty, when new political arrangements are set to change the structure of governance in the war-torn region.
The government has currently imposed martial law over the whole of Mindanao in response to the terrorist attack in Marawi. Increased military presence is seen as a counter to growing insurgent forces—add to this a brutal drug war being conducted by the police that has claimed the lives of thousands across the country, including the alleged drug protector Parojinogs of Ozamiz City. More violent groups might take advantage of this upheaval to promote their absolutist beliefs which are outside of the Muslim mainstream.
One of the manifestations of these ideologies is what former Justice Undersecretary Macabangkit Lanto calls “Wahhabi-Salafist extremist Islam.” Salafism is a puritanical Islamic movement that calls for the reestablishment of the old traditions of the ancestors (salaf).
Wahhabism is a more specific fundamentalist doctrine based on a literal interpretation of the Koran founded by religious activist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who allied himself with the future rulers of Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud. The political success of the Saudi state paved the way for the spread of Wahhabism across the Muslim world.
In the homefront
American geopolitical intelligence platform Stratfor published a report on the history of rebellion in Mindanao, as well as a timeline of Maute control in the region. “The southern Philippines has a long tradition of rebellions led by members of the minority Moro ethnic groups, whose main difference from the rest of Filipinos is that they’re Muslims rather than Christians,” the report says. This has resulted in the general Muslim population in the country identifying more with Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia.
Lanto explains that some local Muslim scholars who attended university in the Middle East brought radical belief systems to Philippine shores. He says that these ideas were receptive to Moros who were facing discrimination from the Philippine state: “This is almost a natural phenomenon which we witness in other parts of the world where cultural minorities are treated as second class citizens and deprived of basic attention and necessities in life, like food, shelter, health and education from government.”
It is clear that a hostility towards the Philippine state and a tendency towards more radical groups is the result of the marginalization of Moro communities. One of the ways the government has tried to bridge this gap is providing Muslim youth with an education supplemented by teachings on Muslim tradition.
As early as 2004, the Department of Education (DepEd) has been attempting to mainstream Madrasah education through the Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE) program to supplement the learning experience of Muslim students. However, DepEd has still failed to implement any semblance of a standardized educational program across Muslim Mindanao.
Traditional madaris, most of which are located in Muslim Mindanao, do not implement the standard curriculum prescribed by DepEd. Lanto says that this gave way to the “emergence of Madrasah schools which teach only Islam as a religion and culture to the exclusion of Philippine history and culture.” This may explain the strong foothold that militant groups have in Mindanao; the Muslim youth are the primary targets of this ideological campaign, developing a sense of sympathy for extremist groups early on in their lives.
Bakwit children, those who were forced to flee the conflict in Marawi City, have reportedly spoken favorably of ISIS, calling them heroes and wanting to join their ranks. After hosting an event for displaced Maranao children in Iligan City, Philippine Sports Commission Chair William Ramirez observed that the children saw Maute fighters as heroes and expressed their interest in joining ISIS. He said that his coaches heard the children say this during play time, “Pangarap po namin maging ISIS (Our dream is to become an ISIS member).”
Ramirez told reporters that terrorist groups support the families of locals, leading to their having an affinity with them. “Nagbibigay sila ng pagkain eh at saka ‘yung aming mga tatay, binibigyan ng suweldo. Eh wala man ang gobyerno (They give food to us and give our fathers salaries. The government doesn’t give us anything),” one of the children said, according to Ramirez.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Brigadier General Restituto Padilla confirmed this, saying that the military has observed Muslim youth showing interest in joining terrorist organizations since the start of the conflict in Marawi. In a press briefing on August 25, Lanao del Sur Management Committee Spokesperson Zia Alonto Adiong reported that child soldiers make up almost half of the remaining Maute fighters.
While the presence of a legitimate ISIS sect in Mindanao is yet to be determined, it is clear that they already have the ideological foundation necessary to thrive in the region.
The war of ideas
Although the discussion surrounding radical Islamic movements is only beginning to gain traction in the country, the global discourse on Islam has created a great divide in the sociopolitical sphere. While those on the political left are generally sympathetic and vehemently defensive of Muslims and Islam, those on the right tend to be more critical of Islam and supportive of hardline security efforts against Muslims.
Liberal Muslims and former Muslims who are openly critical of Islam are at times met with contempt, and are even accused of racism or Islamophobia by those on the left. For instance, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation who eventually left her home country of Somalia to escape a forced marriage, has been accused of bigotry for her criticism of the religion that she was victimized in the name of.
In an opinion article for the New York Times, Ali reflects on the necessity of an open conversation about extremism in the Muslim world: “Muslims today cannot freely debate the role of their religion in most Muslim-majority countries, where the charges of heresy or apostasy can mean a death sentence or a lynch mob.”
Muslim social activist Maajid Nawaz has not only been vocal about his religion, but the political left’s suppression of discussion on Islam. Nawaz, a former member of the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir who now uses his experience to argue against extremism, has been labelled an “anti-Muslim extremist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center for his alleged hate speech against his own religion.
Nawaz’s diagnosis of this phenomenon is something he calls “The Voldemort Effect,” named after the main antagonist in the Harry Potter series who is referred to as “He Who Must Not Be Named.” He explicates the meaning of this term in an interview on Real Time with Bill Maher: “I use that, The Voldemort Effect speak to our inability to name and shame and isolate Islamist extremism from the mainstream Muslim community.”
In a local context, the Voldemort Effect characterizes the Philippine government’s history of downplaying the threat of local terrorists groups and denying their links with IS. In 2014, AFP Intelligence Chief Eduardo Año dismissed a video of Ipsilon Hapilon, the man government troops would storm Marawi in search for years later, pledging allegiance to ISIS.
In an interview with Rappler, Singaporean terror analyst and security affairs expert Rohan Gunaratna explains that an ISIS presence in the country do not necessarily entail the migration of ISIS leaders from part of the Middle East to the Philippines. Rather, the embrace of ISIS ideology, which is centered around the idea of establishing a global caliphate as well as the adoption of ISIS practices and operations, already constitutes a local presence.
Only an open, mature discourse of Islam will lead to an informed plan of action against the potential terrorist threat the country faces. While debate should continue with regards to the role Islam plays in inspiring the likes of the Maute group, Filipinos must work towards the empowerment of the Philippine Muslim minority, and the remediation of the social, economic, and political strife that potentially set ordinary Muslims down a path towards radicalism.
