Part 2 of 2 : The west and Islam in RI

Juwono Sudarsono, Indonesian Ambassador, United Kingdom, London

Indonesia has had its share of Islamic extremist movements in the 1950s and early 1960s who demanded immediate application of the sharia in our constitution. More recently, several Indonesian Muslims were implicated in act of violence and terror in Southeast Asia, some of whom have been linked ideologically to al-Qaeda through the Jamaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian grouping which envisages a region-based caliphate encompassing Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

The Indonesian authorities have brought many of them to justice largely through our own legal processes, however slow and flawed some of them may have been . I believe that it is best that the Indonesian authorities quietly initiate and effectively deal with the terrorists on our own terms rather than blaring through the media the arrests of suspected leaders of these terrorist groups at the insistence of Western governments.

On the constitutional front, the three Islamic parties which presented claims for the application of sharia were defeated in the proceedings in the annual sessions of our Assembly . Only 15 percent of our parties in parliament advocated adoption of the sharia. Despite the bombings in Bali in October last year and the Marriott hotel in Jakarta last August, radical Islamist are actually losing ground in the battle for the hearts and minds of most Muslims in Indonesia.

We have always believed strongly in the notion that Islam in Indonesia and Indonesian Muslims can be enriched by our encounter with globalization and through the embrace of a more liberal, tolerant and inclusive interpretation of the Book.

Indonesian Islam remains proud and confident of its syncretic blend with national and local traditions as well as healthy eclecticism with the liberating values of foreign influences, including fast-paced financial and technological globalization. There will be the occasional crashing of gears in our social system as people move up or down the volatility scale. But equally important are the growing number of young Muslim cultural brokers who act as circuit breakers so that the social fabric is energized and not pulverized.

For most Muslims in Indonesia, blaming Jewish bankers, Chinese cronies, moronic financiers in New York or gnomes in Zurich for Indonesia's political and economic crises can only discredit the true nature of jihad: Improve the standing of the ummat through hard work and benefit from the dynamism and liberating creativity of robust inter-action with the West. Often the only way to overturn entrenched norms and structures that suffocate creative impulses is through the release of the elixir of freedom and innovation. Only then can we create a more just and prosperous society.

We distinctly do not share the view of some Muslim leaders in Indonesia as well as abroad who claim that all Islam and Muslims all over the world are deliberately being humiliated by the West, that Jews rule the world by proxy or that Western corporations are steered by a cabal of Zionist financiers. We see no need to grandstand to the nationalist or ethnic gallery in order hide our own internal failings: Rampant corruption, shameful injustice and ostentatious living.

The vast majority of the Islamic community of Indonesia remain convinced that robust and self-confident dialogs with the economies and cultures of the West as well as of the great traditions of China, Japan and India enriches Indonesian Islam in coming to terms with globalization. Exchange visits of Indonesian Muslim leaders to Europe and North America enhances the scope of understanding and commitment to mutual respect and appreciation. Changing the curricula of madrasahs and pesantrens can help plant seeds of tolerance and inclusiveness.

But Muslims in Indonesia realize that much more has to be done on the ground and in the grassroots to achieve meaningful economic and political reforms in our cities, towns and villages across Indonesia. We are determined to undertake stronger efforts to provide sustenance to the vast majority of our poor by delivering basic human needs: Food, health-care, education and employment.

Only if we consistently deliver and reinforce social justice can our Indonesian Islamic scholars, academics, ulemas and members of our civic societies ensure that post-Sept. 11, 2001, mainstream Islam in Indonesia will never be hijacked nor tempted by a perverted ideology that refuses to come to terms with the need to reshape and rebuild a world vastly different from the time of Islam's birth centuries ago.