NU ends alliance with PKB
The Jakarta Post, Surakarta
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has enacted several important policies including revoking its order to back the National Awakening Party (PKB) it founded after the downfall of president Soeharto in 1998.
All 40 million members of the nation's largest Muslim organization are now free to support any political party in next elections according to their own wishes.
The decision was made at the NU's five-day national congress in Surakarta, Central Java, which ended on Thursday.
The previous congress held in 1999 in Kediri, East Java, recommended that the nation's largest Muslim organization vote for the PKB in the general elections.
With NU support, the PKB was ranked the third largest party in term of votes in the 1999 elections after the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party. But in term of seats in the House of Representatives, the PKB came fourth after the United Development Party (PPP).
Ahead of the 2004 elections to elect legislative members, resistance mounted inside the NU to maintain its backing for the PKB after the party's chief patron Abdurrahman Wahid picked several non-NU figures, like Alwi Shihab and Mahfud MD, to take control of the organization.
Many senior NU leaders, including newly-reelected NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi, were reportedly dissatisfied over this issue.
Through the Surakarta congress, the NU also reaffirmed its stance of rejecting all forms of Islamic extremism and fundamentalism in support of the global war on terror.
However, it opposed religious liberalism, which younger NU scholars are promoting to fight extremism and radicalism in the interpretation of Islamic teachings.
The anti-liberalism policy came amid strong protests by a number of senior ulama against the existence of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) led by a young NU scholar, Ulil Abshar Abdalla.
When seeking re-election for a second five-year term, Hasyim said that NU did not recognize religious liberalism or extremism.
"NU stands between extremism and liberalism, and embraces pluralism and moderation," he added.
Mun'im DZ, who chaired the NU's sub-commission on politics, said on Friday that his organization will continue its religious traditions in developing Islam through "deep and comprehensive understanding".
"NU does not recognize formalistic interpretations of Islamic teachings, which are expressed in tensions that could lead to violence," he said.
Mun'im said religious expressions in the form of violence were against the principles of peace (Islam).
Solahuddin Wahid, a former deputy NU leader who chaired the commission on tausiyah (recommendations), said the congress also reaffirmed its nationhood commitment based on the state ideology of Pancasila.
"The economic crisis and an excessive reform spirit have resulted in the loss of national integrity with the emergence of federalist and separatist movements, which threaten the country's unity," he said.
Efforts to strengthen the commitment to nationhood, Solahuddin added, cannot be made with force and violence, but through new cultural strategies.
The NU urged the government to reject all forms of economic imperialism and liberalism.
Solahuddin said the NU saw that the current global campaign for free trade was actually part of a new economic imperialism.
"Globalization has been used to overpower other countries because it always creates new dependencies of the weak on the strong," he added.
The congress also recommended that the NU central board set up a television station to educate the nation on moral values.
The recommendation came following the popularity of certain national TV programs in the world's largest Muslim country, which NU leaders said went against religious teachings and traditions.