Religion, culture and terrorism in Asia, 1980–2005
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Question
What was Pancasila?
Answer
Indonesia's founding state ideology under Suharto, requiring belief in one God while favouring no single religion, aimed at containing sectarian politics.
Question
Why did religious/communal violence erupt in Indonesia after 1998?
Answer
Suharto's fall removed decades of authoritarian control, letting long-suppressed sectarian tensions surface, e.g. Muslim-Christian violence in Ambon and Poso.
Question
How did religion reinforce Sri Lanka's ethnic civil war?
Answer
Most Sinhalese are Buddhist and most Tamils are Hindu; Buddhist nationalist groups framed Sri Lanka as a sacred Buddhist island, hardening resistance to Tamil autonomy.
Question
What was the Indonesian media timeline, 1980s to 2000s?
Answer
1980s: state-run TVRI only. 1989: private TV allowed (e.g. RCTI). Post-1998: press censorship largely ended, media exploded in number and reach.
Question
What was Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)?
Answer
An Indonesian militant Islamist network formed in the 1990s, linked to al-Qaeda, seeking a pan-regional Islamic state across South-East Asia.
Question
What happened in the Bali bombings of 2002?
Answer
On 12 October 2002, Jemaah Islamiyah bombed nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 people (mostly foreign tourists), badly damaging Indonesia's tourist industry.
Question
What was the LTTE and who founded it?
Answer
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, founded by Velupillai Prabhakaran in 1976, fought for an independent Tamil homeland (Tamil Eelam) in Sri Lanka.
Question
Name two assassinations carried out by the LTTE.
Answer
President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka (1993) and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1991).
Question
Compare Jemaah Islamiyah and the LTTE's core goals.
Answer
JI: pan-regional Islamic state, transnational religious ideology. LTTE: independent Tamil homeland, ethnic-nationalist and territorial, not religious.
Question
How did cultural change differ between urban and war-affected Sri Lanka?
Answer
Colombo and Sinhalese areas saw growing access to satellite TV and consumer goods from the 1990s economic opening, while Tamil north/east areas remained isolated by war, widening the cultural gap.
Question
What is the shared underlying cause linking religious/cultural tension to terrorism in both case studies?
Answer
The weakening or absence of legitimate political channels — Suharto's sudden fall in Indonesia, and decades of ethnic exclusion in Sri Lanka — turned grievance into organised terrorist violence.
Question
Why must students not conflate JI and the LTTE on the exam?
Answer
JI's violence was driven by transnational religious ideology (Islamist), while the LTTE's was driven by ethnic nationalism and territorial demands — conflating them loses precision marks.
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Full study notes for Religion, culture and terrorism in Asia, 1980–2005
Topic 20.18 hub
Social, cultural and economic developments in Asia (excluding China, Japan and India) (1980–2005)
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