Arif Maftuhin

As most parts of the world now are moving toward democratic path, it is interesting to read again Barrington Moore’s work on the origin of democracy and dictatorship. In his book, he explained roles played by the landed upper classes and the peasantry in the transformation from agrarian societies to modern industrial one. He discovered various historical conditions under which both or either rural groups have become important forces behind the emergence of Western parliamentary versions of democracy and dictatorship. His thesis is, to put it shortly, those classes had a role in the bourgeois revolution leading to democracy, in the abortive bourgeois revolutions leading to fascism, and the peasant revolutions leading to communism.[1] The question is “What is the case in the contemporary world?” There remain, if not many, non-democratic and non-industrial countries in the world. Will we witness the same role played by landed upper class and the peasantry in the contemporary transformatio...

The Jakarta Post, December 09, 2005 In his book, Dying to Win, Robert A. Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and a columnist with the New York Times, presents interesting and useful facts to explain the phenomenon of suicide terrorism. Collecting data from around the world from 1980 through 2003, he found these surprising facts: First, suicide terrorism is not just the product of Islamic fundamentalism. Second, the world's number one practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka -- a secular, Marxist-Leninist group. Third, most suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of political-secular objectives. Many Islamic leaders and intellectuals in Indonesia share the assumption of a direct link between terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. They believe a misinterpretation of jihad has brought about terrorism. After watching a video of three terrorists' last testament before committing suicide bombings in Bali in October, a senior ...