Once again questioning the Jakarta Charter<\/p>\n
Franz Magnis-Suseno SJ, Professor of Social Philosophy,
\nDriyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta<\/p>\n
In this newspaper (May 15) Wisnu Pramudya pleaded for a more
\ninformed view on the question of introducing syariah, or Islamic
\nlaw, in Indonesia. This intention can only be applauded.
\nNevertheless, Wisnu Pramudya's explanations leave more questions
\nthan answers.<\/p>\n
But first some corrections.<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Charter was not the result of months of
\npreparations, but was formulated on June 22, 1945, three weeks
\nafter Sukarno's famous \"Birth of Pancasila\" speech, by the
\n\"Commission of Nine\" and accepted by the Body for the Preparation
\nof Independence (BPUPKI) on June 14.<\/p>\n
Nothing was missing when Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta read out
\n\"a makeshift text\" (Wisnu Pramudya means the proclamation of
\nIndonesia's independence) on Aug. 17, because at that time they
\ndid not read anything from the draft of the Constitution, the
\nplace of the Jakarta Charter.<\/p>\n
Hatta made his famous decision to strike out the \"seven words\"
\nregarding the obligation of Muslims to practice syariah on the
\nmorning of Aug. 18.<\/p>\n
What really strikes me is Wisnu Pramudya's central argument
\nthat making syariah the state law in Indonesia would be the same
\nas the introduction of democracy in France and Britain.<\/p>\n
In fact, what happened in both countries, and all over Europe,
\nwas exactly the opposite. After a century of terrible religious
\nwars, and against stiff resistance from the Catholic Church
\n(which finally made her peace with the new political ethics only
\n50 years ago) and the more conservative part of the population,
\nthe new (mostly bourgeois) political elites, following the
\nphilosophy of the Enlightenment, enacted what we now call the
\nsecular state.<\/p>\n
Thus in France, the French Revolution, based on its
\ncontroversial new ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood,
\nsuppressed by bloody terror the -- then -- Catholic ideal of an
\nabsolute (Catholic) monarchy.<\/p>\n
In Britain, the dominant Anglican Church, as a result of a
\nlong and peaceful development, finally lost its special position
\nin the first part of the 19th century.<\/p>\n
Thus France and Britain, followed by the rest of Europe, and
\nof course, before them, the United States, were able to
\naccommodate pluralism by resolutely refusing to found modern
\nstates on religion, ending the tutelage of religions by the
\nstate.<\/p>\n
What Wisnu Pramudya is proposing is precisely the opposite,
\nnamely making one religion the basis of the state. It is, of
\ncourse, his right to propose this, but how he can base his
\nproposal on Europe's ending the privileges of Anglican,
\nProtestant and Catholic majority religions beats me.<\/p>\n
By the way, implying, as Wisnu Pramudya does, that introducing
\nsyariah would mean having Indonesia ordered according to the
\nIndonesian way needs some explaining.<\/p>\n
Haven't most parts of Indonesia been Muslim for centuries?
\nAren't Indonesian cultures, most of them Islamic -- think for
\ninstance of the Minangkabau, the Javanese or the Buginese -- of
\nan impressive plurality, proving ad occulos what many Muslims
\nrightly stress: that Islam is an universal religion where all
\npeople can find there place without having to shed their
\nidentity?<\/p>\n
Has not this cultural plurality admirably been supported by
\nthe fact that the Indonesian state has been based on Pancasila,
\ngiving every community, including the non-Muslim ones, the space
\nto live according to their identities and ideals?<\/p>\n
Is not every Muslim community completely free to live in the
\nfullest way, unhampered by any adverse state pressures, according
\nto their understanding of syariah?<\/p>\n
That some Muslim ideologues believe that this Islamic
\nplurality should be remolded into an uniform way of Muslim life
\nwhere all Muslims (especially women) would look precisely the
\nsame, from Sabang to Savanah, is another question.<\/p>\n
It certainly has nothing to do with Indonesian identity.<\/p>\n
In order to debunk \"the myth that Islam is no longer
\nrelevant\", Wisnu Pramudya points out \"that the West's knowledge
\nand technological advancements of today were founded on what was
\ndeveloped by Muslim scholars centuries earlier\".<\/p>\n
With the exception of Europe's technological advancements
\n(which only really got under way in the second half of the 18th
\ncentury, 600 years after the last scientific influences of Islam
\non Europe, obviously driven by quite different forces), I agree
\ncompletely. Except that it was precisely the other way around.<\/p>\n
Europe certainly got decisive intellectual infuse from the
\nMuslim world. But it got it from the great Muslim scientists and
\nphilosophers that were able to flourish in the cultural space of
\nthe open Islam of the first 600 years, which developed a
\ncivilization that in intellectual daring, scientific advancement
\nand cultural sophistication was state of the art on the world
\nstage.<\/p>\n
A point to mention is the impact of the great Muslim
\nphilosophers Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Their thinking
\nwas received enthusiastically in Europe.<\/p>\n
The truly great merit of these Muslim philosophers was that
\nthey brought Aristotle to Europe. It is generally accepted that
\nit was the switch from Plato to Aristotle as \"the philosopher\"
\nthat put Europe on her way to modernity. The reason is that
\nAristotle made it possible for European thinkers such as Thomas
\nAquinas to distinguish philosophy from theology.<\/p>\n
Thereby they opened the space for reason to take due place in
\nthe ongoing human quest for a deeper understanding of their
\nsituation, thus freeing Europe from a stifling myopic reliance on
\nreligion.<\/p>\n
A concerted attack by the sufis on the one hand and the
\nteachers of religious law (fiqh) on the other succeeded in
\nstifling philosophy in the Islamic world (some strains surviving
\nin Persia) in this same 13th century.<\/p>\n
What followed was, as we know, the slow disappearance of Islam
\nfrom the map of global intellectuality.<\/p>\n
Thus while Europe was appreciative of what the great Muslim
\nintellectuals brought her, developing it further on her own
\naccord, the Islamic world, led by pious mystics and orthodox
\nlegal scholars, disavowed her own most brilliant sons.<\/p>\n
It was the victory of the legalists over open-minded
\nintellectuals -- and the first 600 years of Islam prove that
\nIslam can provide a conducive environment for the highest
\nintellectual performance -- that confined the Muslim world for
\ncenturies to an intellectual backyard.<\/p>\n
The most revealing sentence of Wisnu Pramudya's whole article
\nsits in the middle: \"Pluralism is never a hindrance to upholding
\nthe truth. Because the truth is not the result of consensus.\"<\/p>\n
In other words: Where truth is concerned, the opinions of
\nother people can be disregarded.<\/p>\n
The only problem is: As political philosophers from Aristotle
\nto Kant and Habermas have pointed out, politics are not a
\nquestion of truth, but of valuation. The difference is crucial.<\/p>\n
Transforming political questions into questions of truth is
\nthe usual ploy of secular and religious ideologists to evade the
\ntest of democratic approval.<\/p>\n
By making politics a problem of eternal truth, ideological
\nhigh priests, claiming to have such metaphysical knowledge,
\nhijack the right of the citizenry to decide for themselves how
\nthey want to live, including how they should practice their
\nreligion.<\/p>\n
On syariah, for example, there is a wide ranging spectrum of
\nopinion among knowledgeable and responsible Muslim scholars.<\/p>\n
By giving state organs the right to enforce syariah, the whole
\nquestion of what, on the basis of the Koran and the Sunnah of the
\nProphet Muhammad, is really meant and implied by syariah is
\nsidelined.<\/p>\n
Indonesian Muslims and non-Muslims may end up by having to
\nlive according to what certain state officials and their advisers
\ndecree to be the law of God.<\/p>\n
For me a monstrous idea.<\/p>\n
A last remark. Non-Muslims will not be reassured by Wisnu
\nPramudya's remark that apprehensions that the \"implementation of
\nsyariah will threaten human rights\" are only \"a myth\".<\/p>\n
Even Muslims in Indonesia are asking what syariah would mean
\nfor women and whether we would have syariah police entering
\nprivate houses in order to check on the strict observance of the
\nlaw.<\/p>\n
These examples may not be conclusive, but they deserve to be
\naddressed seriously and in honesty.<\/p>",
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