Bramantyo Prijosusilo – Just as he did following the Cirebon Police mosque bombing in April, after last Sunday's suicide bombing at a Solo church, the minister for communications and information technology, Tifatul Sembiring, announced his intent to block Web sites that could inspire terrorism.

Although he claims to have shut down 300 such sites, the main ones where you can monitor the development of pro-terror Islamism in Indonesia are still active and easy to access.

The most notable of these Web sites is perhaps the Arrahmah site, which is still condemning kafir (infidels, in Arabic) and salibis (a derogatory terms for Christians derived from the Arab word salib, meaning cross). It is also eloquent in cursing the government, the United States and the West in general, while bestowing praise upon the Taliban in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, the Bali bombers and others of their ilk.

In its discussion forum, you can find people who can teach visitors how to make a bomb at home, and others who attempt to egg visitors on to actually commit suicide in a martyrdom operation against the kafir. That this site still operates prompts the question – what was on the 300 closed sites that were blocked?

Still fresh in our memory is the scandal of Arifinto, the lawmaker who was caught watching pornography during a plenary session in the legislature. Arifinto, who, like Tifatul, is from the Islam-inspired Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), lied at first, saying he was only opening a link in an e-mail. Later, he said he would resign, but this proved to be a lie too. Instead, he seems to be waiting for people to forget that he was among those advocating the controversial Anti-Pornography Law.

The fact that Tifatul backed his PKS colleague's lie is a black mark against his judgement. Considering his fundamentalist views on women and HIV/AIDS patients, the minister appears to share some things in common with Islamic hard-liners.

It is worth remembering that the PKS has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood movement that began in Egypt and entered Indonesia via university campus mosques in the 1980s.

So it comes as no surprise that even though Tifatul claims to be working hard at making the Internet less of a useful tool for terrorists, Web sites like those of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), al-Muhajirun, VOA-Islam and others are still updating frequently, employing radicalizing language that foments hatred against the state, the West, Jews and Christians.

Of course all this is part of the larger movement to make Indonesia a Shariah state. They should be seen as part of the same ideological struggle that has manifested itself in the brutal murders of the Ahmadis in Cikeusik, Banten, the stabbing of a minister in Bekasi, the lame prison sentences these criminals received and the audacity of the Bogor mayor who continues to defy a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to allow the Yasmin Christian congregation to worship in its own church.

Before we blame President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's incompetence for the rise of Islamic radicalism here, we must remember that it was Suharto who, approaching the end of his rule, began to court Islamists.

At that time, analysts observed that the military was polarizing into two groups: the Islamists and the nationalists. Suharto's successor, B.J. Habibie, further emboldened the Islamists. It was during his rule that the guard-dog organization (according to WikiLeaks) FPI was formed by elements of the military and the police.

Since then, the Islamist faction of Indonesian politics has flourished. Even Hizbut Tahrir, the transnational Islamist party that rejects this republic's democracy outright and agitates for the establishment of a caliphate that will cure all our social, political, economical and cultural ills, receives support from the state.

Of course Yudhoyono, in his capacity as head of government, could do much more than merely expressing his concern, and his lack of action triggers speculation as to why he is so accommodating toward anti-state movements that carry religious banners. Waiting for this government to make an intelligent move is like waiting for Godot: it will never happen.

Many of us have been observing that often terrorist attacks occur at times when the government is under pressure over corruption cases. Most can see that there are members of the elite who profit from the attention given to these attacks.

Although this cynicism might be misplaced, it is not without reason given that not a single major corruption case has been solved during Yudhoyono's time in office. But then again, all the previous governments were just as useless on this issue, or in regards even worse.

Perhaps the more useful question should be, considering that the government is doing nothing to stem religious violence and instead often "supports" it, what should we, as citizens, do?

Perhaps the best thing we can do is to support the fight against corruption. We can also give our support to the struggle for human rights. Minorities like Christians and Ahmadis need our backing, and cases like the 2004 murder of activist Munir Said Thalib or the murders of students and the rape of the Chinese during the 1998 troubles need to be pursued so that those responsible are held accountable.

In relation to jihadi Web sites, perhaps Tifatul needs some prodding. Send the minister letters, or sue for religious defamation Web sites that use derogatory terms to describe Christians. When the government is hopeless, citizens should come to the fore and save the day.

[Bramantyo Prijosusilo is a writer, artist and broadcast journalist in East Java.]