Islam has no objections to big business

Islam has no objections to big business

JAKARTA (JP): The Islamic community has no objection to big
corporations in Indonesia as long as their business practices are
consistent with Islamic teachings, a noted Moslem scholar said
yesterday.

"The practices of the nation's conglomerates are not viewed as
running against Islamic teachings, if the assets are obtained and
spent in Islamic ways," M. Quraish Shihab, rector of the State
Institute of Islamic Studies in Jakarta, said at a seminar
reviewing the role of Indonesia's rising business empires in the
national economy.

Quraish said that the term "conglomerate" has come to be
widely interpreted in a negative sense in Indonesia to mean the
excessive accumulation of wealth for personal interests. If
evaluated on the basis of this interpretation, Islam would be
opposed to conglomerates, he said.

The two-day seminar, which ended yesterday, was organized by
the National University as part of the commemoration of its 45th
anniversary. The seminar reviewed the obstacles faced in bringing
Indonesia's conglomerates under control. Quraish was outlining
the religious perspective.

Quraish, who is also deputy chairman of the Indonesian Ulemas
Council (MUI), said Islam does not prohibit its followers from
accumulating wealth.

The Koran, he said, teaches people to work to earn their
living. However, the holy book emphasizes that people should not
earn their living through usury or deception.

M. Dawam Rahardjo, chairman of the Institute for Religious and
Philosophical Studies, also stressed that big business is not
necessarily un-Islamic.

But he said the practices of conglomerates must be controlled
so that they don't inflict losses on consumers or smaller
companies.

No wrong

Dawam said there is nothing wrong with a Moslem accumulating
wealth as long as he always remembers his responsibilities.
"Under Islam, a percentage of his wealth must be donated to less
fortunate people."

He said Islam also rejects business monopolies. For that
reason, he advocated that the government be empowered to
intervene by setting the prices of products and ensuring their
consistent supply.

The debate about the presence of powerful conglomerates on the
Indonesian business scene has often been linked to the fact that
most of them are owned by businessmen of Chinese descent. This
has fueled resentment against the minority ethnic group.

Noted political scholar Amir Santoso, in his presentation of a
political perspective of the role of conglomerates, asked the
participants whether the debate would have been as heated if the
big businesses were owned by pribumi, the term for indigenous
Indonesians.

Amir, the dean of the school of postgraduate studies at the
Jayabaya University in Jakarta, also said the rise of big
business is a consequence of the more liberal economic policy
Indonesia has adopted since the early 1980s.

"The government has to choose between a controlled economy and
a free market system," he said, adding that a combination of the
two would not work because it would expose loopholes in the
bureaucracy.

A.A. Baramuli, a legislator of the ruling Golkar political
group, said rather than trying to control the growth of big
businesses, Indonesia should enact laws to protect and help the
growth of small and medium scale businesses. (imn)