Islamic student groups must be alert

Islamic student groups must be alert

By Muhammad Qodari

JAKARTA (JP): An article I wrote on Islamic groups and the
student movement published on Feb. 15 in this newspaper, has
prompted a response from a friend of mine, Andi Rahmat, chairman
of the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Front (KAMMI).

In his article on Feb. 20, Rahmat grasped the most important
point; that there is a danger that New Order remnants, in
pursuing their own goals, may be manipulating Islamic sentiment
among students in opposition to President Abdurrahman Wahid, or
Gus Dur.

Rahmat, however, has also shown some misunderstanding. I never
intended to simplify matters to say that the chief motive behind
the movement in opposition to Gus Dur is the Muslim student
groups' dislike for Gus Dur and for Nahdlatul Ulama.

I only wanted to disclose that the discourse among the
students movement in opposition to Gus Dur is not as simple or as
neutral as their rhetoric of the six-point reform vision.

The students' movement is now dominated by a network
affiliated with KAMMI, a students' organization with great
concerns on the Islamic political agenda. This domination has
found expression at the level of discourse and also in the number
of its active participants in rallies; this has influenced, to a
considerable degree, public opinion particularly on the issue of
whether Gus Dur will survive.

Nowadays, when transparency is regarded a prerequisite for
democracy, broad segments of the community must enjoy the right
to know as much as possible about political figureheads and their
respective agendas.

They must be informed that, unlike the multireligious, multi-
ideological and multiorganizational 1998 students' movement, the
students' movement of 2001 is dominated by one based on Islamic
ideology.

This ideological basis is important to take into account not
only because Indonesia is a multireligious, multiethnic and
multicultural state, but also because it is associated with the
essence of democracy, which, as Andi Rahmat has put it, is the
agenda of today's Islamic students' groups.

KAMMI and its network now control a number of formal students'
organizations across Indonesia.

Rahmat may be right when saying that KAMMI and its network
opposed former presidents Soeharto and B.J. Habibie -- though
compared to other students' action fronts KAMMI tended to be more
passive.

He may also be right in saying that the above network silently
boycotted the 1992 and 1997 elections as a manifestation of their
disagreement with the New Order.

However it is obvious that KAMMI and its network were not, in
their original format, students' groups taking up a frontline
position in resisting Soeharto and the New Order regime.

If only the paradigm of democratization prevailing among
Muslim students' movement had been as solid as Rahmat had put it,
their firm stance towards Soeharto would have surfaced much
earlier.

A survey conducted by a team from the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences on the 1998 students' movement discloses that in the
late 1980s until shortly before Soeharto's fall in 1998, KAMMI
and its networks were not on the list of student groups openly
opposing Soeharto.

During my student years, elements associated with KAMMI only
responded to matters with specific Islamic interests like the
national lottery or issues of Bosnia and Chechnya.

The reason is crystal clear: KAMMI avoided direct
confrontation with Soeharto. KAMMI itself was not officially
established until April 10, 1998, only shortly before the wave of
student action peaked.

Rahmat stated that "the students' message portrays the
original outlook of Muslim students regarding democratization,
and not a mask to cover their fundamentalist face, as some have
accused". This statement should not stop at mere rhetoric.

KAMMI activists are known to have, either secretly or openly,
campaigned that their candidates for student bodies were purely
Islamic, while rival candidates, although also Muslims, were
secular or non-practitioners.

Instructions were issued prohibiting followers to elect a non-
Islamic leader. This practice went on for years, at least at the
University of Indonesia.

This practice is against the principle of democracy, which
brings into question their performance in the political arena
outside campus.

Rahmat mentioned Islam and Democracy, a book by John L.
Esposito and John O. Voll. It is not clear which argument Rahmat
wished to defend by quoting from a book on Islamic discourse and
practices of democracy in Iran, the Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia,
Algiers and Egypt.

The writers reached the following conclusion,"Both the
government and sociopolitical movements in these countries have
often made use of religious symbols and jargons in their own
interest; they have cashed in on, abused, applied and manipulated
religion and politics."

I do not hate KAMMI and its network. I actually admire the
activists who are known to be honest and devout. However, any
group with an agenda of religious interest and sentiment will
always be vulnerable to the political manipulation of religion by
such groups as the remnants of the New Order.

The study by Esposito and Voll has only confirmed these fears.

The writer works with the Institute for Studies on the Free-
flow of Information, Jakarta.