| dc.description.abstract | Based on the thinking of “constructivist turn” by Alexander Spencer and Rainer Hülsse in the critical terrorism study, the thesis treats terrorism as a cultural construction and tries to interpret the meaning webs behind its constructed process. Through the representations of terrorism in different forms of culture such as the news media, the governmental policy, the legal framework, and the cultural representations, the thesis gradually elaborates how the terrorism has been constructed, how the terrorists have been defined and how the terror has been made.
With the Islamic cultural and multiple ethnic context, Indonesia is a hybrid text of terrorism, having contradictory values and illustrating the complex meaning webs of power and violence. Through the parallel reading of two documentary films, I explore comparative ideas of two cities (Bali/ Aceh), two characters (Noor Huda Ismai/ William Nessen), and two symbolic events (2002 Bali Bombings/ Free Aceh Movement). From these ideas, I aim to show the inner contradictoriness of terrorism construction and tear down the complexity meaning web of violence and power.
From discussing the U.S. leading War on Terror after 9/11, the Southeast Asia regional anti-terrorism conventions, and the Indonesia domestic anti-terrorism policy and the legal framework, the making of the enemy is built by the binary imagination of good and bad. The anti-terrorism discourse might simplify the context how people understand what is terrorism. The political-driven dynamic and the unequal power relation behind these constructions of terrorism should also be seen as a terrorist act, being a part of terrorism.
Southeast Asia, to be regarded as “the second front” of war against terrorism by the Washington, plays a special role in the global anti-terrorism structure. The multiple contexts of religion and ethnic of the area bring the different cultural construction of terrorism. The local socio-political context must be integrated within the global one and be treated mutually by the field of terrorism studies. Under the globalization, the regional and local reflective point of view on terrorism might provide a novel thinking of the previous terrorism researches. This thesis aims to open up a new possibility to think about terrorism with the critical approach and to inspire more interdisciplinary researches in the field of terrorism study of the area. | en_US |