Last-minute tricks to sway voters smack of New Order

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): As if Indonesia has not disintegrated enough -- between pro and anti status-quo, between one ethnic group and another, between one Muslim group and another -- the recent fatwa from the Indonesia Ulemas Council (MUI) added another dimension to the polarization.

The fatwa, endorsed by Muhammadiyah and stating that Muslims should only vote for Muslim legislative candidates, pitted Muslims against non-Muslims, or majority against minority.

On Friday, June 4, and subsequently on Saturday and Sunday, a very popular ulema among the working class, K.H. Zainuddin MZ, appeared on a TV advertisement.

Apparently, it was specifically made to add momentum to the electoral process, calling for Muslims to really know the religion of their chosen leadership candidates and only vote for a real Muslim. It was an obvious insinuation to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle chairwoman Megawati's perceived lack of adherence to the Islamic faith.

Zainuddin formerly sat in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) as Golkar's representative. He resigned following Soeharto's downfall.

The dangerous element is that his imprudent appearance on TV could easily incite militancy among some fundamentalist Muslim groups and foster animosity toward the country's religious minorities.

To make matters worse, the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI) also jumped on the bandwagon. On Saturday June 5, they announced their support for the fatwa. During Saturday and Sunday, supposedly rest days from any political campaigning, MUI repeated its call rather vigorously through TV and radio news.

The unsolicited outside interference in the democratic process did not stop there. Flyers containing attacks on PDI Perjuangan's non-Muslim legislative candidacy were distributed among the public and big banners with similar messages were hoisted on Jl. Sudirman and Jl. Rasuna Said on Sunday.

PDI Perjuangan is an amalgam of nationalist, Christians and secularist elements.

The obvious trick to discourage nationalist, democratic party supporters, and PDI Perjuangan's in particular, is a major setback to the painstaking effort to educate Indonesian people about democracy. The dirty game designed to instill fear among Muslim supporters of PDI Perjuangan should not have been allowed to take place after all the pain the country has been through in the struggle to create a new democratic Indonesia.

This last-minute maneuver was akin to the strategy Golkar used in the past. Nicknamed the "Dawn Operation", local Golkar officials who were also the local bureaucrats would "visit" voters. The latter were threatened or bribed to vote for Golkar that day. The fatwa is a worrying development that could backfire and lead to more chaos and disintegration.

MUI, which was known as a New Order ally during Soeharto's reign, is certainly not without political motivation in manipulating Indonesian people's strong religious sentiments. This is the same institution which issued a fatwa that Muslims should not greet Christians at Christmas and suggested lethal injections for AIDS sufferers. Is this the type of leadership that Muslim Indonesians, soon to welcome the third millennium, deserve?

Strangely enough, the very people who issued and supported this fatwa also claimed in the same breath that Islam is inclusive, tolerant and protective toward the minority, probably expecting them to nod in cheerful agreement.

It is important to note that MUI also has shown its hypocrisy since it was basically the government's (Golkar's) tool to subdue Muslims in the New Order era while Golkar itself was not, and still is not, based on Islam nor did it propose only Muslim legislative candidates. Why did it not issue the same fatwa in the previous undemocratic elections? Why now, after the supporters of Megawati showed their relentless and unreserved endorsement of their leader, have MUI and ICMI made this declaration?

As for ICMI, everybody knows that it is behind Habibie or Habibie is behind ICMI, depending on one's perspective. ICMI has been accused, by Gus Dur among other people, of being merely an elitist political machine. Achmad Tirtosudiro, an ICMI director, argues that it is only natural for the Indonesian people to have Muslim leaders since Muslims make up 90 percent of the population. It would, he said, be the same everywhere in the world.

If he had done some more research before making such a hasty and bold claim, he would immediately become aware that this is not true. Sonia Gandhi, an Italian-born Catholic, is now the most prominent party leader in India. She also has been asked by her supporters to run for office in a country whose majority population is Hindu.

True, there were several strong objections to her candidacy, but this was due to her foreign origins, not her religion, and the majority wants her as their leader.

In 1991 Charles Bilal became America's first Afro-American Muslim mayor in an American city, Kountze, Texas. Texas is a conservative white majority state which is predominantly Christian. An Indonesian Islamic magazine very proudly interviewed him and published his story. There was no protest or complaint from majority Christians in Texas, nor from Muslims in Indonesia or the States as a nation, that this man might not have the capacity to represent the aspirations of his people because he did not share the majority religion.

Should the existing disproportionate and irrational suspicion and paranoia toward non-Muslims, Christians in particular, be exacerbated by Muslims' own leaders with a very narrow-minded understanding of their religion?

MUI in its statement reiterated its opposition to the secularism that is usually represented by parties that use democracy as their platform. One can only suggest to MUI to sit together with secularist democrats, set aside the incessant, tiresome dogmatism and discuss candidly and reasonably, for a change, why it thinks that secularist democrats cannot live up to Islamic moral values.

Can it answer the following questions? Is it true that non- Muslims cannot be good people and voice Muslims' concerns? Are Muslims that different from non-Muslims to the extent that only Muslims can represent and lead them?

What are we going to do with Buddhist Kwik Kian Gie, who apart from his "wrong" religion, is indisputably a valuable asset to the country and is a potential key player in extricating Indonesia, Muslims or otherwise, from this crisis? What kind of loss will we have to bear as a result of this narrow-mindedness? Is it really against Islamic justice to implement a reward system based on merit, not religion, race or gender? Has it really been carefully examined that only Muslims could lead this country to its triumph? If so, then how can we explain our pathetic economic and social conditions after decades of being governed by, predominantly, Muslims?

Is that answer that they are not "true" Muslims? Precisely, we can never truly know if one is a true Muslim only through superficial appearances we know our high-ranking officials are very good at making. We can only judge him or her on the universal and more measurable values of competence and integrity. Competence and integrity do not depend on religious belief. Incidentally, why did MUI keep quiet about those straying Muslims when Soeharto was still in power?

If MUI and ICMI were not so pigeonholed and looked objectively at a representative sample of some of the world's countries, it would see Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on one hand and Japan, Taiwan, Sweden and Australia on the other. Is MUI supportive to our aspirations of putting ourselves on the same level with the latter group of countries or does it instead expect to lead us to the type of mindlessness the former group of countries are undergoing?

Religion has its place, but life is not only about religion. Too much of one thing breeds contempt; what Indonesia desperately needs is sustained focus on the business of democratic political and economic leadership as distinct from oppressive religious dogma.

Despite their numbers, Indonesia is not only Muslims. If we want to be a democracy we have to learn to adopt democratic, egalitarian values which means rule by the majority without discriminating against the minority.

Obstructing citizen's opportunities for political participation based on religion is a form of discrimination that in any democratic country is a prosecutable offense. This offensive, tyrannical and intolerant call is akin to a movement that seeks to marginalize and stigmatize minority groups within the country which, in the end, will only create and heighten tension and clashes among members of society, particularly Muslims and non-Muslims.

When this happens, it is not only non-Muslims who will lose. If that is to be the case, then in what way is this reform era any different to the New Order era?

Muslims often voice concerns of the perceived marginalized status of the Muslim Moro in the Philippines, but that's exactly what is going to happen to Indonesia's religious minority if MUI's call is adhered to by Muslims? Is it a good and Islamic moral value to defend our own people from a certain misfortune but allow others, who are basically our own brethren, to undergo the same fate? Does this not smack of a double standard? Then, what is MUI or Muhammadiyah or ICMI going to say when Bali or Irian Jaya or Ambon prefers to be free from Indonesia in the same way the Moro is demanding freedom? It may represent a serious test of fairness and consistency.

This case can be cited as strong evidence regarding why separation of religion and state is mandatory to get rid of religious bodies, such as MUI, who wield their abstruse and questionable brand of spirituality like a sword to stifle the creativity, intellectual progress and freedom of choice of the people. If we want to lead our people from ignorance, we have to liberate their minds from the chains of fear, threats and guilt. The holier-than-thou, us-versus-them mentality exemplified by these supposedly respectable religious figures will only stupefy the masses.

Let us hope that there will be more and more Islamic leaders with open hearts and minds as we have seen in Gus Dur, Nurcholis Madjid, Amien Rais, Alwi Shihab and Sri Bintang Pamungkas, who set examples to Muslim Indonesians. These people have shown that being devoted Muslims does not necessitate being deprived from progressive and independent thoughts.

We live in the increasingly cross-cultural, cross-ideological, cross-racial and cross-border global society in which a cosmopolitan paradigm is a prerequisite of meaningful progress.

We need a secure Muslim society because only when Muslims are secure can minorities live comfortably. These leaders play a crucial role in educating the largely ill-informed Muslim masses who are easily incited by certain politically motivated religious figures who use religious status, icons and sentiments to manipulate their devotion and inhibit their freedom of choice.

The writer is director of the Satori Foundation, a center for the study and development of human excellence through training in mind programming and meditation techniques.