What do Indonesian’s Youth Say about Terrorism? – Survey Report on Terrorism Awareness

Ever since the big bomb in Bali back in 2002, terrorism act has been quite a topic in Indonesia. Even more, the terrorism act seems to never stop, not only in this country but all over the world. Youth, as the generation who holds a significant role in the country, particularly in Indonesia, shouldn’t be ignorant about this matter. Therefore, regarding to this matter, recently Jakpat has conducted a survey in order to see how Indonesian’s youth see and think of terrorism. This survey involved 1603 youngster respondents from across Indonesia. For the further notes, Jakpat’s respondents in this survey are Indonesian smart-phone users, with a range of age from 15 to 35 year-old, in which still considered as ‘youth’. Though the United Nation has defined youth as the age cohort of 15 to 24[1], we intentionally span the range of age since youth is the stage of constructing the self-concept. Hence, the self-concept of youth is influenced by several variables such as peers, lifestyle, gender, and culture.[2] For it is the time of a person’s life in which they make choices which will affect their future, therefore for this survey, we define youth as the age cohort of 15 to 35.

This survey report is divided into four chapters. First chapter is all about terrorism in a nut shell. First of all, when asked about the first thing that crosses their mind while listening to the word ‘terrorism’, the most common answer by Indonesian’s youth is “bomb” (51.97%). This finding is in accordance with the next topic about things that are defined as terrorism act. Apparently, bombing is chosen by almost all of our respondents (94.01%), while there are also genocide (60.82%), gun firing (60.39%), and assaulting people (58.39%) which chosen by many of our respondents. Henceforth, there are four things that are related to terrorism according to Indonesian’s youth: ideology (56.83%), warfare (53.84%), religion (50.90%), and politic (50.03%). These findings of the first chapter indicate that in Indonesia, apparently terrorism is seen as identical with bombing. Perhaps it’s because the history of the Bali bombing and also the next terrorism acts that has taken place in this country are in a form of bombing.

Second chapter of this survey report is about terrorism and the media. As we all know, media in Indonesia plays a significant role, not only in spreading the news regarding to terrorism, but also in shaping the public opinion regarding to this matter. We find that most of our respondents (82.10%) stay tune and keep watching when they watch the news about terrorism on television. Meanwhile most of them (75.84%) choose to read more when they read the news about terrorism online. Some of them (21.58%) also admit that they’ve ever left comment on online news or articles about terrorism. Regarding to following some update news, some of our respondents admit that they stay update to worldwide terrorism issue (45.10%), while more than half of them stay update to terrorism issue in Indonesia (58.39%). Next, regarding to their social media activity, apparently only a few of Indonesian’s youth who admit that they’ve ever shared news or article about terrorism on their social media account (24.20%) and have ever posted status about terrorism on their social media account (16.41%). These findings in this chapter indicate that Indonesian’s youth actually concerns about terrorism issue. However, only a few of them who are brave or care enough to share their thoughts and opinion regarding to terrorism issue, particularly via online channel.

Third chapter of this survey report is about terrorism and the national stability. Almost all of our respondents (95.82%) think that terrorism is dangerous for Indonesia’s national stability. Henceforth, we gather some things that could also harm the national stability and ask them to compare between those things and terrorism; which one they think is more dangerous for the national stability. This thing is important in order to see and understand youth’s point of view towards things that could harm the national stability of their country. Things that they think are more dangerous than terrorism are: corruption (71.68%), poverty (61.82%), military coup d’état (60.70%), authoritarian governance (60.26%), and ignorance (76.36%). On the other hand, separatist is the only thing that they think is less dangerous than terrorism (38.05%). This finding indicates that apparently Indonesian’s youth is aware of some things that could spark some conflicts (including terrorism), such as corruption, poverty and authoritarian governance. And most of all, ignorance is the most dangerous thing since it is the source of all acts that could harm not only people around them but also the whole country and the future of our country.

Fourth or the last chapter of this survey is about some trivia regarding to terrorism. Apparently, only less than half of our respondents (47.72%) who admit that they discuss about terrorism issue with their friends or family or other people. However, most of them (88.46%) do have awareness that there is a bigger conspiracy behind a terrorism act in Indonesia. Lastly, when asked whether they are afraid or not of terrorism, the answers are almost equally divided between afraid (51.22%) and not afraid (48.78%). This is important to make an understanding towards youth that they should not be afraid of terrorism. Therefore we also gather some opinions from those who answer that they’re not afraid, regarding to why they’re not afraid of terrorism. Some say that terrorism is a stupidity and that it is an act of cowardice. Some also say that terrorism should be eradicated instead of being feared, and that spreading fears is the purpose of terrorism, so we must not feed their ego by feeling afraid, since it’s just propaganda and a form of psycho-war. And indeed, terrorism becomes a terror when we feel afraid. To stop terrorism is to stop being afraid of it.

[1] Source: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/youth/fact-sheets/youth-definition.pdf

[2] Source: Thomas, A. (2003) “Psychology of Adolescents”, Self-Concept, Weight Issues and Body Image in Children and Adolescents, p. 88.

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below (bahasa). JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.