Hardline Islam thrives in Indonesia

Hardline Islam thrives in Indonesia

Merle Ricklefs, The Straits Times, Asia News Network/Singapore

There has recently been a major upsurge in the ongoing contest
between Islamic liberals and conservatives in Indonesia. Its
course and current state may help us to judge which way the
religious wind is blowing there.

The immediate issue has been a group known as the Ahmadiyah.
This goes back to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (circa 1839-1908), who
provoked great controversy when he declared that he was the
Islamic Messiah. By some interpretations, he also claimed to be a
new prophet.

Orthodox Muslims, who accept the teaching of the Koran that
Muhammad was the last of God's Prophets, judged Ghulam Ahmad to
be a heretic. After independence, violence broke out between
Ahmadis and more orthodox Muslims in Pakistan. Ahmadiyah has been
banned in several Muslim-majority nations over the past half-
century.

Ahmadiyah arrived in Indonesia in the 1920s and attracted
criticism from mainstream Muslims from the beginning. Their
numbers are relatively small by Indonesian standards, about
200,000. Only recently has there been significant violence
against them.

Indonesia's national-level Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI, or
Indonesia Religious Scholars Council) issued a fatwa in 1980
declaring Ahmadiyah a deviant sect outside the bounds of Islam.
The Ahmadis, however, continued their low-profile activities.

Meanwhile, the public face of Indonesian Islam came
increasingly to be dominated by two conflicting trends. On one
side were liberals, represented strongly in the Islamic higher
education system, the major national-level organizations
Muhammadiyah (about 25 million members) and Nahdlatul Ulama (35-
40 million followers), and in a small group called JIL (Jaringan
Islam Liberal, or the Liberal Islamic Network).

On the other side were extremists of various hues:
fundamentalist Salafi movements that thrived in the late stages
of the Soeharto regime and in the more open political environment
after that.

These include Abu Bakar Ba'asyir's Majelis Mujahidin
Indonesia, groups like Laskar Jihad and the Islamic Defenders
Front (FPI) which were willing to engage in violence and, most
notoriously, Jamaah Islamiyah.

A third leadership group seemed to have lost control of the
agenda altogether: The conservative, literalist, not extremist
but also not liberal, religious scholars known as ulamas.

The elections of 2004 even demonstrated that however much
respect ulamas might receive from ordinary Indonesians, most
people were not prepared to take their advice about whom to vote
for.

In the middle of 2005, religious conservatives sought to
reassert authority. Their first victory was in Muhammadiyah, a
modernist organization founded in 1912. Modernism in Islam
embraces scientific and secular knowledge and modern social
styles, but it also goes back to the basic texts of Islam, the
Koran and Hadith (Prophetic traditions), unmediated by the
interpretations of the orthodox schools of law, so it also has a
literalist, puritan side.

The MUI was just then in the process of issuing new fatwas. On
July 28, it issued 11 of them, two of which are of interest to us
here. They condemned, firstly, pluralism, liberalism and
secularism as against Islam, and secondly, Ahmadiyah as heretical
and its followers as murtad (apostates, whom it is lawful to kill
according to some interpretations of Islamic law).

The authorities in West Java sealed Ahmadiyah properties in
Kuningan, the target of attack in 2002.

In Garut, Ahmadis had machetes put to their necks and were
forced to say they had returned to the true Islam. In Bogor, the
Ahmadi complex was attacked. The FPI, under its leader Habib
Rizieq Shihab, returned to prominence in the West Java anti-
Ahmadiyah actions.

The FPI has also been active in forcing the closure of over 20
Christian churches in West Java over the past year. So much for
freedom of religion in that part of Indonesia.

In Padang, West Sumatra, religious leaders told Ahmadis they
had a week to disband, but elsewhere nothing seems to have
happened.

In Jakarta, the authorities sealed an Ahmadi mosque in order
to prevent violence, but in Solo and Yogyakarta all was quiet.

In Tawangmangu, Central Java, the local MUI branch said it had
no intention of doing anything for there had never been problems
between Ahmadis and their neighbors.

So the impact of the MUI fatwa denouncing Ahmadiyah varied
from place to place. Where there was a historical background of
conflict, as in West Java, it was taken as justification for more
action. Elsewhere, it rarely had an impact.

Liberal figures rallied against the MUI fatwas. Ulil Abshar
Abdalla of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL), with his unerring
gift for infuriating conservatives, called the fatwas tolol,
plain stupid.

On Aug. 5, the FPI attempted to lead an attack on the JIL
headquarters in Jakarta. The JIL was defended by several hundred
people: students from the State Islamic University, Nahdlatul
Ulamas youth militia, Muhammadiyah's Security Command, local
residents and some 200 police. The mob backed off.

This was an ominous development for the MUI: Conservative and
reactionary ulamas might wish to regain the agenda from the
liberals and the extremists, but few would wish to see their
cause associated with extremist violence. Yet that was what
happened: the extremists in a back-handed way were assisting the
liberals to discredit the MUI.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, major Islamic leaders and
other public figures condemned the fatwas and asked why the MUI
refused to issue one condemning violence.

Newspapers lauded Indonesia's plural social heritage.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said nothing at all.

Where does this conflict stand now? Conservatives and
reactionaries dominate two important organizations, the MUI and
Muhammadiyah, to a greater extent than before. But the MUI fatwas
so far seem to have been effective only in one area, West Java,
where there was already a history of conflict.

Pluralism is a fact of life in Indonesia which the MUI can't
wish away. Liberalism is deeply embedded in the educational
system and has strong cultural roots. It is probable that the
Islamic thugs in robes have assisted the liberal cause by
associating the MUI fatwas with anarchic violence. This is a good
way to persuade Indonesians that your cause is unacceptable.

This is a perpetual story without endings, but there are
grounds for thinking that the progressive liberalism of Indonesia
has withstood the attack. With its reactionary fatwas, the MUI
may indeed have sidelined itself from the rapidly changing
society around it.

We must now wait to see what is done by Din Syamsuddin and his
colleagues in Muhammadiyah, an organization of immense importance
to Indonesia's future. Will they try to push a conservative
agenda even more vigorously?

The writer is a professor at the National University of
Singapore. He may be contacted at polrmc@nus.edu.sg.