Ulma Haryanto – Eddy Prayitno has a unique perspective on the Indonesian Islamic State movement, the group alleged to be behind the foiled Good Friday bombing in Tangerang.
The blogger and author is a former member of the fundamentalist movement, known as NII, which he says took away 10 years of his life.
According to Eddy, the roots of NII date back to the 1940s, when the Islamist militia known as Darul Islam, led by Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwiryo, fought for the establishment of an Islamic state. Kartosuwiryo was captured and executed in 1962, but his teachings live on, Eddy says, in the hearts of millions of people across Indonesia.
Eddy himself was once a fervent promoter of the doctrine of Kartosuwiryo. He served as an active member of the NII for 10 years, before he left the group in 1998, just weeks before the fall of President Suharto.
"The NII's recruitment system is similar to multilevel marketing," Eddy said. "Members are encouraged to recruit more members. I myself recruited about 200 members."
Eddy estimated the group to have a current membership reaching into the millions nationwide. "It was viral," he said. "We would hold weekly meetings to convert even more people."
As a committed member to the cause, Eddy quickly climbed the ranks and entered the inner circles of the NII elite. That was the time, he said, when he began to realize that the NII leaders were more concerned about gathering donations than establishing an Islamic state.
Disillusioned, Eddy began to openly voice his concerns about the leadership of the group. "I began to write critically in our internal magazine about the leaders, along with several others who shared my view," he said.
"We did it for three years before the leaders shut down our publication," he said, adding that he consequently began to receive death threats from NII leaders, who said to spill his blood would be "halal," or permitted under Islam.
After leaving the group, Eddy struggled to find a new purpose for his life. "There were periods when everything seemed meaningless to me. I started writing when I got depressed," he said. "I got paranoid – working underground has this effect on you. You hate the government and at the same time you don't want to be noticed."
In 2004, Eddy started blogging about his experiences with the NII under the alias Mataharitimoer, and was approached by a publisher a year later.
His first book, "Jihad Terlarang" ("Forbidden Jihad"), was released in 2007. He said that writing a book on his journey in NII, and the reasons why he chose to leave, gave him closure.
Drawing confidence from the experience of having his voice heard, Eddy gathered together a group of former NII members and established the Indonesian Center for Deradicalization and Wisdom in 2008.
The ICDW collaborates with the Darul Ulum Islamic boarding school in Bogor to provide scholarships for children whose parents are active or former members of the NII.
"Since the parents have detached themselves from worldly livelihoods, they have no income or occupation. The children are left uncared for," Eddy said.
According to research by the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, the NII is linked to radical movements in Indonesian politics and even the Al Qaeda-linked terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah.
Dharmawan Ronodipuro, former special assistant to the head of the National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT), said the NII ideology lived on in many forms in various organizations. "This is a test for the BNPT's deradicalization program," Dharmawan said.
Terrorism analyst Noor Huda Ismail said he suspected the NII was being used by outside parties to further their own interests and agendas. During the Suharto era, he said, the NII was used by the New Order regime to help quash communism.
"Today, it is curious that book bombs and a sudden hysteria surrounding the NII are occurring, particularly since deliberations over the intelligence bill are ongoing at the House of Representatives," he said.