Excessive fear on fundamentalism harmful: Scholar
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Needlessly excessive fear over Islamic fundamentalism will only deepen political cleavages within Indonesia's pluralistic society, scholars warned on Wednesday.
The factional rifts were susceptible to sectarian and political conflicts which could, eventually, pose danger to the consolidation of democracy in this country, according to noted Indonesian political expert R. William Liddle.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an international conference here, Liddle offered convincing arguments to the Indonesian public that imminent threats of Islamic fundamentalism were merely widespread pseudo-beliefs.
"It is astonishing that the Indonesian public, the majority of whom are Muslims, and even moderate Muslims at that, do not appreciate the high degree of moderation within their own Muslim communities," said Liddle, a political professor at Ohio State University.
In the conference, entitled "The Challenge of Democracy in the Muslim World," Liddle and his Indonesian counterpart, Saiful Mujani, presented a paper discussing the Islamic challenge to democratic consolidation in Indonesia.
According to Liddle, there is powerful evidence to suggest that Indonesians are moderate in terms of religion.
"In the last 1999 election, the secular and nationalist parties garnered the most votes, compared with the Muslim conservative parties, such as the Justice Party," he said.
The nationalist parties, such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), Golkar Party and the National Awakening Party obtained the most votes with 34, 22, and 12 percent of the vote, respectively.
The Justice Party and the Crescent Star Party, both Muslim conservative parties, each grabbed just one and two percent of the overall vote, respectively.
Based on these figures, Liddle concluded that fears of Muslim fundamentalists taking control here are manifestly false.
Liddle characterized perceptions that society was highly divided between the conservative and the marginal Muslims -- in which the latter included the nationalists -- as misguided.
It is a "reckless categorization ... among the nationalists, there are many devout Muslims, while otherwise, the devout Muslims do not necessarily intend to create an Islamic state," said Liddle.
According to Liddle, this false, clear-cut categorization could divide and, perhaps, later intensify tensions in the country's heterogeneous and plural society.
The evidence that the pseudo-beliefs had tarnished consolidation of democracy have taken place here, as the followers of Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP) and the nationalist PDI Perjuangan were involved in a bitter conflict in Yogyakarta last month.
Brawls between dozens of respective party supporters occurred after a rally by PPP supporters left several people wounded, and several vehicles damaged.
Liddle said that this was ridiculous, since some 63 percent of PDI Perjuangan voters in the last election were also Muslims, including those who were devout Muslims.
The clash occurred since each camp perceived that they were "truly different ideologically" from each other, he said.
Despite the gloomy assessment, Liddle said that he believed the tools of democracy would later be a medicine to dim the excessive fears for Islamic fundamentalism.
"The repeated elections -- in 2004, 2009, and so forth -- will eventually convince mainstream Indonesians of all religious persuasions that Indonesia will not be an Islamic state," he said.
Besides, Liddle urged the political elite to show themselves to be front-runners to create pluralistic states.
"The conservative Muslims might follow Amien Rais, who has chosen to seek the ideological center, by establishing the National Mandate Party," he said.