Last-minute tricks to sway voters smack of New Order

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.