The four militants who mounted the Jan 14 attack in downtown Jakarta were small-town boys who mostly grew up in rural Indonesia, far away from the capital.

Some of the villages in West Java province that The Straits Times visited while tracing the roots of one of the “Jakarta Four” attackers, Sunakim alias Afif, are accessible only by mud trails, and few of the homes have piped water.

Poverty is common in these countryside areas and social mobility remains limited for the people in places like Desa Duren, a three-hour drive from Jakarta.

… Mr Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Sudiman, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, agrees.

“Instead of giving the spotlight to terrorist attacks, which only strengthens their appeal, more coverage should now be given to initiatives to build community resilience,” he said.

“This is how society will eventually become the decisive force that will defeat terrorism.”