The Role of Local Spiritualism Approach to Counter Woman Involvement in Violent Extremism

This paper aimed to explain the role of local spiritualism approach to counter woman involvement in violent extremism through Mother’s recitation clubs. Fitri Ardiana, a 21 years old woman was instantaneously notorious due to her radical movement to Wiranto’s attack on October 2019. Her contribution to the operation was not significant but her involvement and status as a woman had blown the media publication. This was not the first case of woman action in violent extremism. Religion was accused as the major reason that led to their actions. Therefore, this instrument can also be used as two-edged swords. One of the methods that was practiced by Rumah Kebangsaan was through injecting the messages through mother’s recitation club – where counter-narrative was exercised by discussing the Quran with preachers who had a good reputation and decent knowledge in understanding the Quran. The method used to support the argument of this paper was through narrative analysis approach on 3 recitation communities in Jakarta that will be used to assess how mother’s recitation clubs can act as a strategy to Counter Violent Extremism (CVE). The results of the study showed that close-personal connections within the community provided stronger trust to promote healthy alternatives as a strategy to deconstruct terrorist and violent extremist narratives. This paper will exercise the role of localizing this attempt and how it can truly contribute counter violent extremism for women.