Islamic law will end graft, poverty

Plans to amend the 1945 Constitution have raised various suggestions, including a controversial one regarding the syariah (Islamic law). One supporter of this idea is the Majelis Mujahiddin (Mujahiddin Assembly) founded last year in Yogyakarta. It is a loose coalition of individuals and representatives of other organizations from 10 provinces and six regencies, mainly in Central and East Java.

The Jakarta Post reporter Sri Wahyuni talked to its chairman Irfan S. Awwas, who until 1993 served a nine-year jail term from a 13-year sentence on charges that his publication, the Ar- Risalah magazine, was subversive.

The following is an excerpt of the interview:

Question: Regional autonomy has inspired some regions to apply the syariah. Your comment?

Answer: The government has been half-hearted in accommodating such aspirations (which are part of) giving full autonomy to the regions. Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh stated his administration would apply the syariah, but only for non-criminal cases. Yet it is in the criminal code that the syariah has yet to be applied. Therefore he should give his people a wider chance to apply and exercise the syariah.

What the government should do is just provide infrastructure that is not against the Islamic teaching, which does not provoke people to violate the law.

Q: What about the anxiety among minorities that the application of the syariah in the country could harm them?

A: It's the government's task to explain that the application of the syariah in Indonesia will not substantially affect followers of other religions. The non-Muslim community, which is only less than 13 percent of the Indonesian's total population, will be given the right to choose either the syariah or the law of their own religions when they commit a crime.

The application of Islamic law does not bind followers of other religions -- even if this were an Islamic country. People should not to use the interests of the minority groups as a reason to ban Muslims from exercising the syariah. It's not fair.

Q: Some say the application of the syariah will only create problems, given the large diversity of Muslims here...

A: What indications do they use to make such a reckless conclusion? Our problems are precisely because of the refusal to apply the syariah. Our problems would not have been so complicated if the syariah had been applied. Now we face problems in almost every aspect of life.

Q: Would the syariah really help us get rid of all problems, including the issue of a clean government?

A: Islamic law has the answers even in the event that its application creates unexpected problems. It is completely different from today's positive law. The (criminal code) creates loopholes and does not have the answers to solve complicated cases. This explains why it has been so difficult to erase corruption.

Islam has the reference -- the Koran. And ... Muslims are allowed to make ijtihad (individual interpretation and judgment).

The most important thing is how to build people's awareness to obey God's rules. Punishment is given in this regard; it does not aim for pain. That's why not all convicted thieves would be automatically sentenced to having their hands cut off. If they do get this sentence, the government would be responsible for the post medical treatment as well as preparing proper jobs for people with such a handicap.

In many regions such as Aceh, implementing the syariah should be no problem because it has a relatively more devoted Muslim community.

Q: Women in Afghanistan are reportedly banned from working outside the home even if their husbands have died in battle, hence many resort to begging for their families' survival. Your comment?

A: It is indeed difficult to counter such cornering arguments. We haven't even started the process towards implementation of the syariah.

Now we're just making the public aware of the issue. That's why we ask the government to give us the widest chance to provide the community with an explanation regarding the matter.

I've never been in Afghanistan for long. But I've just read a report by an American female journalist who wrote that what she witnessed there was unlike that written by most Western journalists.

A friend who also just returned from Afghanistan said those woman beggars were not in the territory that was under the Afghanistan government. The people under the Afghanistan government themselves, my friend said, lived a much better life. If they were poor, it was to be expected because they had experienced wars for such a long time.

Q: The two largest Muslim organizations, the Muhammadiyah and the Nahdlatul Ulama, have signaled their rejection of inserting the Jakarta Charter into the 1945 Constitution. Is it only a small group of Muslims who want the syariah applied here?

A: Those who reject the idea mostly think that the insertion of the Jakarta Charter will automatically change Indonesia into an Islamic country. Not true. The Charter has nothing to do with the establishment of an Islamic country.

The Charter was set up by the Committee for the Preparation of Indonesia's Independence then chaired by Sukarno, the father of President Megawati. If it were Kartosuwiryo (the leader of a 1950s movement that hoped for an Islamic country, who was sentenced to death) who had drawn up the charter, we might worry that it could lead to an Islamic state.

Chairman of the Golkar Party Akbar Tandjung also once said that the Jakarta Charter would only benefit a small group of people. Yet its implementation would benefit most Indonesians, whose rights have for a quite long time been dominated by minorities.

People always use frightening reasons -- such as the establishment of an Islamic country, discrimination -- in a bid to stop the syariah from being implemented in Indonesia.

The phrase in the first principle cited in the Jakarta Charter clearly says that "Belief in One God, with the obligation to exercise the syariah for its followers (Muslims)". This means that the ones who are obliged to exercise the syariah are only Muslims, not non-Muslims. The phrase is quite clear.

Q: So is it only a small group who want the syariah in Indonesia?

A: Who's doing a census? Ask supporters of the United Development Party (PPP) or Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) whether all of them reject (the application of the syariah and the insertion of the Jakarta Charter).

That's why we ask the government to give us a chance to have national public dialogs so that people can consider which arguments are more logical, realistic and acceptable. That way people will be able to take their own decision on the sisue.

It's unfair to say that only a small group of people want the syariah just because, say, Syafii Ma'arif (Muhammadiyah chairman) or Hasyim Muzadi (NU chairman) expressed their refusal over the idea of insertion of the Jakarta Charter into the Constitution.

Q: Some say the energy over this polemic would be better spent on practical concerns to recover from the crisis...

A: What kind of more practical things do we need? Now people are talking about amendments to the Constitution and that's why we ask for the insertion of the Jakarta Charter. The decision to amend the Constitution is clearly not ours.

Again, inserting the Charter would help solve most of our problems. Indonesian Muslims would not demand more than that.

This would enable us build the country under a system in which Muslims are allowed to exercise the syariah while non-Muslims would be free to exercise the teachings of their own religions.

We would be able to solve all problems, including poverty. We would finally be able to take white-collar criminals to court.

The syariah states 12 sources of state income. If we could make intensive use of just five of them, I guarantee that people would be well provided for.

Q: How would you answer fears that implementing the syariah could lead further to the country's disintegration?

A: Even now Indonesia faces threats of separation following that of East Timor, such as from Irian Jaya and from the Republic of South Maluku (RMS in Maluku). And all this is surely not because of the syariah. Regions with a majority of Muslims could also state the same threat of separation, if the syariah is not applied in their regions.

What is more concerning is that the government has been unfair in handling threats of separation from different regions. When it comes from areas where non-Muslims are in the majority, the government handles the matter delicately. But when it comes from regions where Muslims are in the majority, such as Aceh, the government uses brute force.