Analysis of Muslim student groups

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.