Anita Rachman – Muhammadiyah, the country's second-biggest Islamic organization, says it will remain involved in politics as long as public aspirations require a voice.

Speaking to the Jakarta Globe on Monday on the sidelines of the group's caucus in Yogyakarta, Muhammadiyah leaders said it played an important role in bridging government policies and public demands, as well as in helping in the fight against terrorism, and vowed to continue those roles well into the future.

Chairman Din Syamsuddin said outside calls for the group to withdraw from politics, including from the government, missed the essence of Islamic teaching.

"Our definition of politics is that of a medium in which to fight for the adoption of [Islamic] values in our lives," he said. "Thus politics for us is more about the allocation of values than of power. As people and as an organization, we should not refrain from getting into politics.

"Muhammadiyah as a missionary organization must fight for [Islamic] values."

He said the group sought to serve the public through its political platform. "Muhammadiyah is a movement for humanity, so we serve not just Muhammadiyah followers or Muslims, but humanity as a whole, which in this context is the nation," he said.

Din called homegrown terrorism a blight on civilization and religion. "Terrorists take human lives indiscriminately, so we should take a stand against them together," he said. "However, it must be said that terrorism is not just perpetrated by isolated individuals or groups, but can also be carried out by the state."

Muhammadiyah, which marks its centenary in 2012, has long advocated a peaceful and tolerant form of Islam among its estimated 28 million members.

"I believe the philosophy that we espouse has had a tremendous impact in shoring up society's defenses against the rise of radicalism," Din said. "However, the terrorist threat remains a challenge for both the government and society."

Former Muhammadiyah chairman Syafii Maarif agreed that the organization was a crucial part of the national counterterrorism campaign.

"I'm not going to come out and say it, but if you ask Detachment 88, they'll tell you that I'm one of their godfathers," he told the Globe, referring to the National Police's elite counterterrorism unit.

He said the campaign involved more than security operations, extending to the underlying social forces causing people to turn to radicalism.

"It all probably stems from a sense of injustice over outside problems, such as the Palestine issue," Syafii said. "However, I have long said that the issue could be addressed by reviving the fifth principle of Pancasila, which espouses social justice for all."

He also blamed the current mushrooming of hard-line Islamic groups across the country on unfettered democratic freedoms ushered in by the reform era in 1998. Syafii said such groups believed they were entitled by the newly endowed freedom of expression to act as they pleased, often illegally.

Muhammadiyah has notably failed to censure such groups, and instead called for engagement to bring them back into the Islamic fold.