No future for radicalism in Indonesia: Scholar
No future for radicalism in Indonesia: Scholar
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is not immune to religious resurgence, but radicalism has never enjoyed local Moslems' support, a scholar said yesterday.
Munawir Sjadzali, keynote speaker at a conference on Islam in Southeast Asia, said most Moslems in Indonesia and Malaysia are generally happy with their political and economic standing.
"Indonesia is not immune to the influence of the religious resurgence tinged with a more radical inclination which has developed in many other parts of the Moslem world, but radicalism has never enjoyed popular support among Indonesian Moslems," the former minister of religion said.
Munawir, who is also a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, told the conference that Islamic revivalism here was not meant as a "protest against the prevailing political and social system or the establishment of the country".
Instead, there has been growing amicability between Moslems and those in power, Munawir said, echoing the opinion of many Indonesian observers over the past several years.
Munawir argued that an increasing number of Moslems, including bureaucrats, political leaders and business people, are more serious about implementing religious rituals.
The Islam resurgence in Indonesia is not a revolt by people deprived of their right to participate in political and social life, he said.
"Southeast Asian Moslems, especially those in Indonesia and Malaysia, are quite content with their political position and economic conditions," he said.
"They have no serious complaints, and if they still feel they have, the legal avenues are wide open for them to redress their grievances," he said. "It's very unlikely that people who live under such comfortable conditions can be persuaded to resort to violence by extremists."
Munawir said Indonesian Moslems, who make up 90 percent of the nation's 190 million people, had gained from development plans and were happy with the way they were governed.
"Moslems here have been well served by the government. Those services could not be given in the past by Moslem political parties which existed then," he said. "Indonesian Moslems are better served in the absence of political parties."
Held by the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation in cooperation with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, the three- day conference is being attended by Islamic experts from Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States.
Prominent Indonesia watchers such as R. William Liddle and Robert W. Hefner are also present. The opening of the conference was attended by United States Ambassador Robert L. Barry.
During the last five years or more, Indonesian Moslems, who in the past stood on the sideline, have gradually taken central positions in the social and political arena.
The long-standing question of whether Moslems need to establish political parties to articulate their aspirations, however, has never been completely resolved. Those who still want Islamic political parties or a greater say in the political arena are still standing opposite those who choose to enter, and adapt to, the current political system.
The other speakers yesterday included American scholars John R. Bowen, Richard C. Martin and Howard M. Federspiel and Indonesia's M. Alwi Dahlan.
The conference yesterday was marked with detailed discussions on theories regarding the dissemination of Islam in the region and the characters of contemporary Moslems as opposed to traditional ones.
Federspiel, a professor at the Ohio State University, explored the roles of Moslem intellectuals in Southeast Asia and found that they have the tendency to grow toward "parallel development" in the Moslem zone.
By "zone", he referred to areas spanning the peninsular area from Singapore, through western Malaysia, to the six southern- most provinces of Thailand and throughout insular Southeast Asia in Indonesia, insular Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and the southwest Philippines.
He differentiated intellectuals into four groups: the religious and often traditional scholar or ulema, the producers of revivalist literature, academic scholars, and Moslem "societal intellectuals" such as those found in major cities and who are part of wider national intellectual groups.
The first two types of intellectuals, he found, generally identify with Arabic culture, while the last two are more attuned to western culture and like the interpretation of Islam that has been filtered through it.
How the four groups close the differences and share common goals will help determine "the peacefulness or stridency of the Islamic community that will emerge in the region over the next half century and beyond," he said. (swe)