Once again questioning the Jakarta Charter

Once again questioning the Jakarta Charter

Franz Magnis-Suseno SJ, Professor of Social Philosophy,
Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta

In this newspaper (May 15) Wisnu Pramudya pleaded for a more
informed view on the question of introducing syariah, or Islamic
law, in Indonesia. This intention can only be applauded.
Nevertheless, Wisnu Pramudya's explanations leave more questions
than answers.

But first some corrections.

The Jakarta Charter was not the result of months of
preparations, but was formulated on June 22, 1945, three weeks
after Sukarno's famous "Birth of Pancasila" speech, by the
"Commission of Nine" and accepted by the Body for the Preparation
of Independence (BPUPKI) on June 14.

Nothing was missing when Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta read out
"a makeshift text" (Wisnu Pramudya means the proclamation of
Indonesia's independence) on Aug. 17, because at that time they
did not read anything from the draft of the Constitution, the
place of the Jakarta Charter.

Hatta made his famous decision to strike out the "seven words"
regarding the obligation of Muslims to practice syariah on the
morning of Aug. 18.

What really strikes me is Wisnu Pramudya's central argument
that making syariah the state law in Indonesia would be the same
as the introduction of democracy in France and Britain.

In fact, what happened in both countries, and all over Europe,
was exactly the opposite. After a century of terrible religious
wars, and against stiff resistance from the Catholic Church
(which finally made her peace with the new political ethics only
50 years ago) and the more conservative part of the population,
the new (mostly bourgeois) political elites, following the
philosophy of the Enlightenment, enacted what we now call the
secular state.

Thus in France, the French Revolution, based on its
controversial new ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood,
suppressed by bloody terror the -- then -- Catholic ideal of an
absolute (Catholic) monarchy.

In Britain, the dominant Anglican Church, as a result of a
long and peaceful development, finally lost its special position
in the first part of the 19th century.

Thus France and Britain, followed by the rest of Europe, and
of course, before them, the United States, were able to
accommodate pluralism by resolutely refusing to found modern
states on religion, ending the tutelage of religions by the
state.

What Wisnu Pramudya is proposing is precisely the opposite,
namely making one religion the basis of the state. It is, of
course, his right to propose this, but how he can base his
proposal on Europe's ending the privileges of Anglican,
Protestant and Catholic majority religions beats me.

By the way, implying, as Wisnu Pramudya does, that introducing
syariah would mean having Indonesia ordered according to the
Indonesian way needs some explaining.

Haven't most parts of Indonesia been Muslim for centuries?
Aren't Indonesian cultures, most of them Islamic -- think for
instance of the Minangkabau, the Javanese or the Buginese -- of
an impressive plurality, proving ad occulos what many Muslims
rightly stress: that Islam is an universal religion where all
people can find there place without having to shed their
identity?

Has not this cultural plurality admirably been supported by
the fact that the Indonesian state has been based on Pancasila,
giving every community, including the non-Muslim ones, the space
to live according to their identities and ideals?

Is not every Muslim community completely free to live in the
fullest way, unhampered by any adverse state pressures, according
to their understanding of syariah?

That some Muslim ideologues believe that this Islamic
plurality should be remolded into an uniform way of Muslim life
where all Muslims (especially women) would look precisely the
same, from Sabang to Savanah, is another question.

It certainly has nothing to do with Indonesian identity.

In order to debunk "the myth that Islam is no longer
relevant", Wisnu Pramudya points out "that the West's knowledge
and technological advancements of today were founded on what was
developed by Muslim scholars centuries earlier".

With the exception of Europe's technological advancements
(which only really got under way in the second half of the 18th
century, 600 years after the last scientific influences of Islam
on Europe, obviously driven by quite different forces), I agree
completely. Except that it was precisely the other way around.

Europe certainly got decisive intellectual infuse from the
Muslim world. But it got it from the great Muslim scientists and
philosophers that were able to flourish in the cultural space of
the open Islam of the first 600 years, which developed a
civilization that in intellectual daring, scientific advancement
and cultural sophistication was state of the art on the world
stage.

A point to mention is the impact of the great Muslim
philosophers Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Their thinking
was received enthusiastically in Europe.

The truly great merit of these Muslim philosophers was that
they brought Aristotle to Europe. It is generally accepted that
it was the switch from Plato to Aristotle as "the philosopher"
that put Europe on her way to modernity. The reason is that
Aristotle made it possible for European thinkers such as Thomas
Aquinas to distinguish philosophy from theology.

Thereby they opened the space for reason to take due place in
the ongoing human quest for a deeper understanding of their
situation, thus freeing Europe from a stifling myopic reliance on
religion.

A concerted attack by the sufis on the one hand and the
teachers of religious law (fiqh) on the other succeeded in
stifling philosophy in the Islamic world (some strains surviving
in Persia) in this same 13th century.

What followed was, as we know, the slow disappearance of Islam
from the map of global intellectuality.

Thus while Europe was appreciative of what the great Muslim
intellectuals brought her, developing it further on her own
accord, the Islamic world, led by pious mystics and orthodox
legal scholars, disavowed her own most brilliant sons.

It was the victory of the legalists over open-minded
intellectuals -- and the first 600 years of Islam prove that
Islam can provide a conducive environment for the highest
intellectual performance -- that confined the Muslim world for
centuries to an intellectual backyard.

The most revealing sentence of Wisnu Pramudya's whole article
sits in the middle: "Pluralism is never a hindrance to upholding
the truth. Because the truth is not the result of consensus."

In other words: Where truth is concerned, the opinions of
other people can be disregarded.

The only problem is: As political philosophers from Aristotle
to Kant and Habermas have pointed out, politics are not a
question of truth, but of valuation. The difference is crucial.

Transforming political questions into questions of truth is
the usual ploy of secular and religious ideologists to evade the
test of democratic approval.

By making politics a problem of eternal truth, ideological
high priests, claiming to have such metaphysical knowledge,
hijack the right of the citizenry to decide for themselves how
they want to live, including how they should practice their
religion.

On syariah, for example, there is a wide ranging spectrum of
opinion among knowledgeable and responsible Muslim scholars.

By giving state organs the right to enforce syariah, the whole
question of what, on the basis of the Koran and the Sunnah of the
Prophet Muhammad, is really meant and implied by syariah is
sidelined.

Indonesian Muslims and non-Muslims may end up by having to
live according to what certain state officials and their advisers
decree to be the law of God.

For me a monstrous idea.

A last remark. Non-Muslims will not be reassured by Wisnu
Pramudya's remark that apprehensions that the "implementation of
syariah will threaten human rights" are only "a myth".

Even Muslims in Indonesia are asking what syariah would mean
for women and whether we would have syariah police entering
private houses in order to check on the strict observance of the
law.

These examples may not be conclusive, but they deserve to be
addressed seriously and in honesty.