With his glares, his shouts, his invocation of the name of God, and his waving arms, Imam Samudra didn't really startle us. He wanted to show that he wasn't afraid. Nor was he sorry. The court proved that he had committed the crime of planning the mass killing in Bali in October 2002, when a bomb exploded in a crowded club in Kuta. The judge's sentence: death. But the execution of the sentence—so Imam believes—will be the chance for martyrdom. He believes that Paradise awaits him.

Martyrdom is actually not just a story of faith and courage. As with heroism, it indicates an unhappy society. When one becomes meaningful only after death, then life must be terrible indeed. When one has to carry out and experience something brutal for a beautiful future (in the form of an ideal society or a fascinating heaven), then there has to be something wrong in the present. And so the "hereafter" has to be paid for by the "here-and-now" at enormous cost, with death and cruelty. As in these two lines in a poem by Brecht:

Oh we who tried to lay the ground for friendship
Could not ourselves be friendly

The problem, certainly, is what is imagined as that "ground for friendship" in order for one not to be "friendly", even to be cruel. To Brecht, a socialist, that "ground" was certainly no Paradise in the afterlife for the the martyrs themselves—a kind of bourgeois enjoyment for those who invested their capital in past times of risk. Generally in political ideals and struggles, the society of the future is something better than the current society in all sorts of ways—and thus, those who die, who sacrifice themselves, have a low profile, even disappear, amidst the communal marching. This is why there is special honour for the "unknown hero".

Whereas Imam Samudra wanted the death of a martyr and to enter heaven... But let's say that he was doing two things at once: grabbing Paradise full of virgins just for himself, and at the same time doing something for "the collective", which he seems to translate as the umat, or faithful. Yet there is a difference between those who carried out the Bali bombing and the kind of terrorist Albert Camus pictures in Les Justes. Neither carries out cruelty entirely for their own benefit. But whereas in Les Justes killing someone in power is part of a political action, it is not very clear whether this was the case with the Bali bomb which exploded killing nearly 200 people enjoying themselves at a nightclub.

Political actions aim for a takeover of power—and this was the agenda of the Russian revolutionaries, the characters in Les Justes. The bombs and those who exploded them were just one element of a strategy. Among those revolutionaries, there was a clearly defined enemy: the power of the Tsar and the structure of that power, which had to be finished off.

But what was Imam Samudra's strategy and what was his enemy? To take over the power of "America"?

It is not easy to answer this. The word "America" can mean many things: a country, a people, a government, a way of life, or perhaps a culture. Not every American has "an American way of life", just as the "American people" is not always identical with "the American government". The term "Zionist"is not so different from this. A "Zionist" can mean a Jew, but it can also mean someone who believes in Zionism. But not all Jews are followers of Zionism, and not all Zionists have a single political understanding. So what kind of "America" is to be defeated? And which kind of "Zionists" to be wiped out?

This confusion clearly sets the Bali terrorism apart from a political action. A political action proceeds from a shared word for enemy, but with two different senses and functions. The first sense is definitive, to give precise formulation to a target—"the Bush administration", for instance. And this formulation determines how the target will be brought down, according to the special conditions, and in appropriate ways, which are not always through violence. The second sense of the words "America" or "Zionist" is connotative, like a stigma; something imprecise, even murky, words used to seek the support of people at large so they will join in the hate, cornering the enemy.

But politics vanishes once the connotative term becomes entirely definitive in sense, and jihad appears. In a "holy war", the Devil's form is never clear. Nor does he remain in one place, in a particular time. A "holy war" has no clear criterion of how and when "this side" wins and "that side" loses. It is not a case of "the end justifies the means", because "the ends" are not defined. And so "the means" becomes the ends. War rages at any time, in any place. As though outside of space and time. Not a praxis, but a step of kosmis.

Imam Samudra wanted to further a war outside of history—and this is why it was not necessary to think about when and how America would lose. When this is the case, the priority is not "to lay the ground for friendship", as in Brecht's poem. The priority is continuous self purification. Alliance with others is not necessary. And so politics is denied; and discussion, negotiation and communication are not considered important—and life, actually, becomes ever more improbable.

Goenawan Mohamad