NU, Muhammadiyah to tackle extremism

NU, Muhammadiyah to tackle extremism

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia's two largest Muslim organizations -- Nahdlatul Ulama
(NU) and Muhammadyah -- urged the country's Muslims on Wednesday
to promote peace and brotherhood with people of other religions.

Hasyim Muzadi and Syafi'i Ma'arif, chairmen of NU and
Muhammadyah respectively, said that the Muslim people must place
the country's integrity before all else and respect religious
plurality.

They also said that the two organizations would keep their
distance from involvement in political disputes and become
independent and nonpartisan Islamic groups.

"When we meet nationalist groups, or socialists, or even
foreigners, they express concern that the face of Islam here will
become increasingly brutal," Syafi'i told a press conference held
at NU headquarters on Jl. Kramat Raya in Central Jakarta.

"They want us, as the two biggest organizations (in
Indonesia), to project a calm image of Islam that protects people
of other religions," he said.

Prior to the press conference, executives of two organizations
held a closed-door meeting to discuss various problems the
country faces, including the threat of disintegration that has
been triggered by religious conflict.

Hasyim disclosed that the image of Islam has long been
politicized by certain groups for vested interests. He also
stressed that such radicalism demonstrated by the groups
represents the political influences and not the Islamic way of
thinking.

Indonesia is the world's biggest Muslim country with more than
90 percent of its 220-million people professing to be Muslims.
Many have tried to promote the imposition of Islamic law over the
last few years.

Following the downfall of former president Soeharto in 1998,
many political parties have used Islamic principles as their base
and used Islam as a political vehicle to achieve power.

One of their maneuvers was to insert the seven words of the
1945 Jakarta Charter into Article 29 of the 1945 Constitution.
The words enjoin Muslims to uphold Islamic law.

The country has also been hit by prolonged sectarian
conflicts, such as the ones in Maluku and Poso in Central
Sulawesi. Many also believe that the bomb blasts on Christmas Eve
in and around churches in several cities throughout the country
in 2000 were part of plans of radical groups to terrorize non-
Muslim people.

Two groups of Muslim hard-liners, Laskar Jihad and Islam
Defenders Front (FPI) frequently took the law into their own
hands, while police and other security personnel were powerless
to stop them for fear of fierce retaliation.

The image of Islam has worsened, following the accusation by
the U.S. government that Indonesian hard-liners have accommodated
international terrorists who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.

Syafi'i further said that should the law enforcers be afraid
to take stern measures against radical groups, they would pave
the way for the birth of what he called another Taliban nation.

"My Christian friends once asked me whether they could still
live here should the politicians insert the seven words of the
Jakarta Charter into the 1945 Constitution. I replied that if the
state threatens your lives, we will be the first to protect you.

"The right to follow one's religion is the basic right of
every citizen. The state or other groups must not interfere with
that," Syafi'i said.

Commenting on the people's assumption that Laskar Jihad and
FPI held a prominent role in determining the image of Islam,
Hasyim said: "They are our (NU and Muhammadyah) children, too.
But, unfortunately we failed to give attention to them."

Both Hasyim and Syafi'i further said that the organizations
were establishing a team to formulate future programs expected to
give guidelines to the Muslim people from the grassroots up to
the elite.

They also believed that reconciliation between the two big
groups would be ongoing, as they realized that in the past, their
competition in many aspects, including politics, has overtaken
their concern for minority religions.

Competition between NU and Muhammadyah sharpened during the
1999 general election as the former NU chairman Abdurrahman "Gus
Dur" Wahid established the political party called the National
Awakening Party (PKB), while Amien Rais, speaker of the People's
Consultative Assembly and former Muhammadyah chairman,
established the National Mandate Party (PAN).

The relationship between the two broke into an open conflict
as Amien, along with other politicians, ousted Gus Dur from the
presidency last year.