Indonesia, democracy and the Islamic world

Indonesia, democracy and the Islamic world

Jonathan Power, London

The two big wings of Islam-Turkey in the West and Indonesia in
the East -- are reforming and changing at a lightening pace,
confounding those who only measure Islam by its seemingly
stagnant middle ground. Next week Indonesia goes to the polls for
its final round in a presidential election that so far has been
largely free, courteous and non-violent.

Turkey continues with reforms that began in Ataturk's day in
the 1920s but which have recently accelerated under its
relatively new Islamist government that is determined to meet all
the criteria for entry demanded by the European Union.

In fact the countries that contain the largest numbers of
Muslims -- Turkey (70 million), Indonesia (240 million),
Bangladesh (114 million) and India (121 million) -- are all
liberal minded and democratic.

All have populations that overwhelmingly reject the terrorist
jihad. All prefer their women uncovered. All find the rigidity of
Islamic belief as exhibited in the many smaller countries of the
Middle East as both archaic and uninformed theologically. For
them it is the ballot not the bullet that counts.

The Indonesian election tells us a lot. It is only six years
ago that Indonesia overthrew its strongman, Soeharto. Democracy
did not take root easily. The country was ripped apart by
separatist and religious violence. Two years' ago terrorists with
links to al-Qaeda set off a bomb in a Bali nightclub killing 200
people. Even last week they showed they were still around with
their blast outside the Australian embassy.

Most of Indonesia is now peaceful. The terrorists have not
gained traction, indeed the reverse. Its president, Megawati
Soekarnoputri, now fighting against a former general for re-
election, may be no great administrator or visionary but under
her the country has found both a sense of peace and a return to
economic progress.

If one is of a mind one can paint Islam as the sire of most
contemporary wars, as the repository of economic backwardness and
as antipathetic to democracy. But a more truthful picture is
quite different. When there are elections in Muslim countries
voters for the most part -- even in Pakistan -- reject parties
that sympathize with the extremists.

Countries, like Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan which
have convinced themselves that elections will bring to power
radical Islamists overlook what seems to happen in an open
electoral arena -- the softening of the edges and the
strengthening of the moderates. They are not Weimar republics
about to elect extremists.

Turkey is the best example of this process. For decades the
military establishment, which believes it has a sacred duty to
preserve the secular precepts of Ataturk, opposed the very idea
of the coming to power of an Islamist government. When one was
finally elected, as part of a coalition in 1996, it didn't take
the generals long to force it to step down.

Yet all the while Turkey's electorate has been modernizing its
outlook. As it has become more educated, as women have taken more
important jobs, including the premiership, as the interaction
with Europe has become more intense, as the media has become more
open, the electorate decided to face the generals down and elect
in 2002 a modern Islamist government, one that was avidly pro
Europe and also, even more important, that was dead set against
the corruption of the anciens regimes.

To outsiders it may seem something of a contradiction that a
vote based on these two concerns should be pro Islamist. But this
is because outsiders have an idie fixe about Islam. They overlook
the reformation that is well under way in its most populous and
best-educated countries. Being Islamist can mean being modern
whilst eschewing corruption and cheap sensuality.

Rationally speaking, by the criteria of any religion, the
over-sexualisation of Western culture is hard to defend. We
shouldn't pause to wonder why earnest young girls are drawn
towards the headscarf.

The West has overreacted by protesting so loudly about the
bill now before the Turkish parliament to outlaw adultery. Apart
from the fact it is unlikely to pass, it is very much a reaction
against a still pervasive macho culture that allows men to get
away with everything whilst women, especially in the countryside,
can be shunned for the rest of their lives if caught out in an
extramarital relationship. The important thing about Turkey is
that these sensitive issues are now out in the open to be debated
passionately.

Next Monday the most populous state in the Islamic world will
remind us that democracy is alive and strong among Muslims. There
really is no sign that the Islamists will exploit freedom to
impose a loss of freedom. Muslims desire democracy for the same
reason the West does -- the chance, if they want, to throw the
rascals out.

The writer is freelance journalist based in London.