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)