Islam and process of democratization in Southeast Asia

Hassan Wirajuda, Jakarta

There are two realities that dominate national life in Indonesia today -- realities that also define the positive image Indonesia enjoys in the eyes of the world at large.

The first of these two realities is the fact that Indonesia is home to the world's largest Muslim population -- 90 percent of a total population of 220 million, or some 198 million people. It is a Muslim population that is by and large moderate.

Most of the Muslims of Southeast Asia are, of course, moderate and there are moderate Muslims everywhere else. It just happens that international observers take a special view of this huge concentration of moderate Muslims in Indonesia. Perhaps it reassures them that the largest part of Islam is not a threat but a friend and contributor to civilization. At any rate, we are happy and proud that our country is considered the home of moderate Islam.

The second of the two dominant realities in our national life is the fact that Indonesia today is considered the world's third largest democracy.

It is important to note that following last year's successful direct presidential election, the first in our history, local direct elections have started to take place this year for governors, regents and mayors.

We are acutely aware of the fact that democracy in Indonesia is still very much in need of further consolidation.

In this process of transition, Islam, as a moral force in support of reform, has played a strong and positive role, although it must also be said that there have been times when Muslim militants and extremists loomed as part of the problems we were grappling with.

This is not a new role for Islam. Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders have always participated in the political dynamics of Indonesia since our struggle for freedom and sovereignty. The debate about the relationship between Islam and the state was already taking place before we became an independent country, especially when our Founding Fathers drafted our Constitution. However, when we finally won our independence in August 1945, our Founding Fathers reached a consensus that Indonesia should not be an Islamic state based on sharia, and Islam should not be the religion of the state.

But this is not the secularism that the West is well known for, in the sense of a constitutional separation between the state and religion. Instead, by constitutional mandate, the state has the obligation to promote the religious life of the people.

It is important to note, however, that there has also been a convergence between "Islamist" and "nationalist" political orientations. For example, a good number of significant Muslim leaders have formed political parties with nationalist platforms -- such as the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN).

Political Islam by itself did not make any headway in the country's transition to a more fully democratic system. In the 1999 general election, all 40 of the Islamic parties combined got no more than 17.8 percent of the votes cast. Subsequently, the proposal for the adoption of sharia, initially planned to be tabled by two parties, was graciously withdrawn in the legislature.

In the elections last year, only one Islamic party performed well, i.e. the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

To be sure, not every Indonesian Muslim is a moderate. There are a small number of extremists in Indonesian society -- and they are not all Muslims -- who have resorted to violence to advance their respective agendas.

Thus, for many years, Indonesia has grappled with terrorist activities -- some of motivated by religious intolerance, others by separatist ambitions. These terrorist activities were at the outset purely homegrown but eventually acquired regional and international links in the early 1990s.

In October 2002, Indonesia itself suffered a massive terrorist attack in Bali, which killed 202 people. Since then, terrorists have struck with murderous effect, twice in Jakarta -- at the Marriott Hotel in August 2003 and in the vicinity of the Australian Embassy in September 2004 -- and once again in Bali last October.

In the wake of each of these attacks, Indonesia responded in the way a democracy should: balancing security needs, the democratic process and respect for human rights. Our police authorities brought the perpetrators to justice through patient investigation and without any violation of human rights. We could not have done less than that, as it was demanded by our people. Because of past experiences, the Indonesian people are very sensitive to the way our police and the rest of the security apparatus work.

While the police are bringing terrorists to justice -- or killing them if they resist lawful arrest -- the government and Muslim leaders are working together to kill terrorist ideas through peaceful and democratic debate.

This, then, is the sum of Indonesia's experience with Islam and democracy: True Islam is moderate and enlightened. Not only can it flourish side by side with democracy, it can also work together with a democratic government to defend society from its attackers and to reform society. There is no debate about that any more -- not in Indonesia and not in various other Muslim countries.

The Indonesian experience confirms that democracy is not an exclusively Western value that may sometimes be transplanted to the Orient -- it is universal. It belongs to all civilizations. It belongs as much to Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists as to Christians.

The debate on the merits of democracy and its compatibility with Islam is over. The challenge in Indonesia today is how to make Islam and all other religions an even more effective force for reform and democratization. It is a pragmatic challenge that demands a pragmatic response.

Democracy, too, has its pragmatic challenge: How can we make our democracy an effective one? To my mind, the answer to that challenge lies in an earnest effort at capacity building -- such as the capacity for free and fair elections, the capacity to pass just and wise laws, the capacity to mete out justice. In sum, we have to make democracy work for the welfare of our people.

It is our hope that in the course of this endeavor, Indonesia and all the other participating countries will come out with practical ideas and plans on how to translate the democratic impulse in their own cultures into durable institutions and wise processes in which their citizens can fully participate.

To be sure, those ideas and plans will vary from country to country, since democracy has no prescribed template.

But even after such capacity building, there are no guarantees that a country's attempt at democracy will succeed. The infrastructure of democracy is not unlike physical infrastructure: It is useful and indispensable but it does not work by itself. It takes human beings to make the infrastructure work.

It takes good citizens -- good men and women -- to make democracy work. Decent men and women who are imbued with civic discipline and high values -- such as the discipline and values of Islam.

This article was condensed from a speech given by Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirajuda in Jakarta on Dec. 6 at the second international roundtable on Islam and Democratization in Southeast Asia: Challenges and Opportunities.