JIL vs. FPI

JIL vs. FPI

It is midday Friday and some friends at my office in
Pejompongan are preparing to go to the mosque for congregational
prayers. Here at Komunitas Utan Kayu (KUK), there are people with
cameras and others with video cameras. The bookshop is closed. A
tall, solidly built man in a red shirt is being interviewed. Men
and women sit at wooden green tables while smoking, drinking
coffee and finishing their lunch. Some are writing in notebooks;
some are watching footage on the screens of their video cameras.

I ask someone nearby: "Is the gallery closed today?" "Yes."
Then, "is there some kind of event on today?" He tells me, the
Islam Defenders Front (FPI) are planning to come here. They want
to destroy the Liberal Islam Network (JIL)." The former is a
"hard-line" Islamic movement; the latter is an Islamic liberalist
movement.

The crowd gathered at KUK consists of academics, writers,
students, journalists. Ulil, a co-founder of JIL is being
interviewed; he seems relaxed and positively happy. He is among
his friends, colleagues and supporters. Soon the FPI will arrive
and they are the opposition, "the enemy". A sign lies on the
ground near the steps to the cafe area: "UUD 1945 (1945
Constitution): Respect religious pluralism.

I talk with Munif, a student at the State Islamic University
of Jakarta, located in Ciputat, South Jakarta. He told me, "FPI
wants to apply the system of which is in Saudi Arabia to
Indonesia. Now, that is impossible. It is not contextual."

"Religious plurality is enshrined in the founding principles
of the Indonesian state. It is not possible for them to force all
Indonesian Muslims to follow one kind of Islam.

Indonesia consists of so many different cultures, ethnicities.
The Koran was revealed as a way of solving problems in a certain
time and place. Different verses, containing concepts about
ethics, were conveyed over various stages. The Koran as such was
a response to the circumstances it was revealed in.

Polygamy, for example, was not revealed outright, but
limitations were placed on the number of wives a man could take.
Alcohol was only banned after it had been discouraged with
increasing severity in earlier verses. Now, for example, we must
view issues such as polygamy from the viewpoint of their
contemporary relevance.

Out the front of KUK, the members of the Nahdlatul Ulama's
Banser security force are waiting for the arrival of the FPI.
They are dressed in black and have been ordered to protect the
KUK from any action taken by the FPI. It is common knowledge that
they have magical powers and are accomplished in the art of ilmu
kebal (invulnerability).

It is aman (safe) by all reports, but I leave early, not
wanting to be involved in something that is potentially tense,
angry and which is not my business.

ANDY FULLER, Jakarta