RADICAL ISLAM AS A FACTOR OF THE DESTABILIZATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Proroković Dr Dušan (Dušan Proroković, Institut za međunarodnu politiku i privredu, Beograd), dusan@diplomacy.bg.ac.rs

Southeast Asia is one of the world\'s (macro) regions with a noticeable strengthening of the influence of radical Islam. this primarily relates to its maritime part and especially the regions of Aceh and Sulawesi in Indonesia, South Philippines and Southern Thailand. In the continental part, the potential zone for the strengthening of the influence of radical Islam is the ethno-space of the people of Rohingya in the northeast of Myanmar. Frequent terrorist attacks and the cooperation of extremist groups from different countries have been one of the main characteristics of this region for the last 10 years. the article consists of four parts. the first part describes in detail what is meant by the term Southeast Asia and explains the classification of the maritime and continental part. the second chapter presents the historical process of spreading Islam in Southeast Asia, as well as the creation of a specific \"traditional Islam\" as the amalgam of local traditions and Muslim learning. the third part analyzes the causes of changes in the Muslim corpus and the growing activism of radical Islamic groups in the 21st century, while the fourth part is dedicated to concluding observations.

Keywords: Southeast Asia, radical Islam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, terrorism, Wahabism, Islamic state