Indonesian Government Banned 'Radical' Islamic Sites. Should They?
One of the hottest topic in national news today is Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information blocking of Islamic website that is viewed as promoting radical message. |
| Jakarta Globe, 31 Mar 2015 |
I assume this is how the Indonesian Government reacts to the increasing issue of some of Indonesian citizens secretly fly to middle east to join ISIS. There also has been evidence for ISIS-related activity inside Indonesia where ISIS activists recruit people to join their cause. All this tension has created pressure to the government to do something about it that (I think) they concluded one of the way to counteract this was to block those (assumed) radical sites.
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| They fought back, as one would expect. |
Many would think that, as a strong critic of religion and irrational thinking, I would find this as a good news and support this notion. Well, let me make it clear: I am against it. But putting it that way wouldn't correctly explain my position either. I am against the blocking of any information to the public, that would be a more correct statement of my view.
We should let the people to have access to any kind of information -- good or bad. Any form of information filtering from the government or any body whatsoever shouldn't be practiced in a democracy state.
So I think it was not wise to block those sites -- radical or not. I say, let them be. But that wouldn't be enough. In consequence of an open access of information, the government should also open door for the opposing ideas, in this case it would be secular sites, religion-criticizing sites, satire sites, left-wings, and so on. Everybody has the right to know anything from any sides. We have seen the Islamic sites supporter protesting this banning, but do we give the critics the same screen-time? Or is there any at all? Has there been any program showing the view of a secular mind? Have we given the people enough perspective so that they can form a better educated opinion? The people have the right to compose their opinion based on any source available, and limiting those sources is subtle way of brainwashing them. We should bear in mind that the people who decide to put on the suicide-bomb jacket did that because their access to alternative view was forsaken.
I get the government's intention to suppress the spreading of radical ideas, but I think they have made one big mistake. They underestimate human capability to process information. Just look at the countries throughout history which practice the strictest of information censorship: dark ages Europe, Qadaffy-regime Libya, Nazi-ruled Germany, and present North Korea. And those who let their people to have open internet and media, like many liberal countries in present Europe, turns out to score the highest in welfare and science literacy, and war free. The data speaks for itself, provided the general public has access to open unfiltered information, they always tend to make the wiser decision.
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