Analysis of Muslim student groups

By Andi Rahmat

JAKARTA (JP): Fears have been expressed that the current Islamic student groups could be turned into a force to support remnants of the New Order. Such fears were clear in a recent article in this newspaper by Mohammad Qodari.

Islamic student movements have never been born out of some historical coincidences. They rise as a conscious response to the challenges of life and strive to direct changes.

This is why Islamic student groups such as the Indonesian Islamic Students Association (KAMMI), do not usually turn into a movement laden with religious symbols while incapable of dealing with real life.

Also, an Islamic student movement does not become a mere mouthpiece for groups that offer concepts of reform, democratization, community development and social political changes while making use of terms that are ill-understood and uttered without thorough study.

There are at least two reasons why the Islamic student movement is not a mouthpiece. First, as Qodari wrote, the rapid growth of campus-based Islamic student movements over the past decade or two decades could only have taken place in response to an extraordinary force.

The movement is cultivated with full consciousness and has a clearly defined, well-understood paradigm that can encourage equally substantial changes in society.

The movement can shape its own approach toward developments in society, including the ongoing push for reform and democracy. KAMMI, for instance, took a strong position against Soeharto's New Order since the early stage of its existence.

It did not compromise itself during the B.J. Habibie administration and it does not compromise itself in relation to the neo-New Order regime of Abdurrahman Wahid.

A special note on Habibie's regime: The Muslim student groups that dominated formal university student councils decided to scrutinize the 1999 general election and see whether it proceeded democratically for the sake a systematic transition in the country.

The students found they could not support Habibie and could appraise his political defeat as something that did not merit their emotional response.

It is in this context that we can comprehend the Islamic student groups' strong position against President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid's administration.

It would be simplistic to say that our strong stance is an expression of Islamic student groups' dislike of Gus Dur, whom Qodari said was never an idol of KAMMI activists.

Such a simplistic assessment of the Islamic student movement ignores the processes that shape the students' consciousness of the meaning of their movement.

Even more ignorant is the opinion that the movement's opposition to Gus Dur is related to the students' position against Nahdlatul Ulama because in Islam, relations among Muslims are ideological in nature and known as ukhuwah (brotherhood).

This implies that what is seen as, sociologically speaking, friction among Muslim groups, is true in only some cases.

In many other cases, this ideological relation or Muslim brotherhood will surface and become a common bond when pressure against Muslims in general increases. In this case, KAMMI and the Association of Indonesian Muslim Students may have similar outlooks even if they have different ways of expressing their stances.

Muslim students oppose Gus Dur because he has failed to ensure continued reform and democratization in Indonesia. He has now been identified as the leader of a new regime that has the appearance and smell of the old regime. He has maintained the New Order's characteristics of a corrupt, controversial and feudalistic regime.

The students' six-point vision of reform -- which includes an anticorruption campaign -- is the translation of Islamic concepts of reform and democratization.

Second, even though Islamic student groups such as KAMMI have taken a strong position against secularism, it does not mean it can tolerate the New Order as some people would have it.

Equally off mark is the much-stated opinion that the New Order, through a series of policies to accommodate Islam that Soeharto made during his last decade in power, had succeeded in controlling and turning Muslims into Soeharto's power base.

Those who think this have ignored the fact that the Islamic student movement that grew on many campuses during the 1980s and 1990s did so together with a strengthening of their opposition of Soeharto.

Islam has a concept of resistance that the Muslim students adopted and applied in their stance on Soeharto. This doctrine is known as bara', a declaration to sever any ties or loyalty, the opposite of wala', rendering one's loyalty and willingness to be led.

This particular doctrine prevented us from giving any concessions toward any of the New Order's political maneuvers, while keeping us aware that Soeharto's so-called accommodative policies were no more than any other power holders' classical ploy to control the Muslims' opposition.

This stance has been proven time and again. In 1992 and 1997, the majority of Muslim students silently boycotted the New Order "un-Islamic" elections.

Not many people realize the Muslim students' position; maybe because it has been expressed in ways that are not always easily understood. This is why many think that the religious symbols upheld in the movement are not an expression of support for democratization, but merely an expression of sectarian sentiment.

This misunderstanding would not have occurred if some people had not simplified matters and lumped Islamic groups together as one movement of antisecularism (and therefore antidemocratization).

In their 1996 book titled Islam and Democracy, J. Esposito and J. O Voll illuminated this discourse clearly.

The current student movement intersects quite heavily with Islamic student groups, for the two reasons cited above. Their messages of reform and democratization are not merely camouflage to the revival of the New Order as some have cynically stated.

The students' messages, instead, portray the original outlook of the Muslim students regarding democratization; those messages are not a mask to cover their fundamentalist face, as some have accused.

Their messages are manifestations of their awareness of the need to develop a better, democratic Indonesia.

The writer chairs the Jakarta-based KAMMI student organization.