The struggle for a nation's soul
Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Each weekend Adrian cringes. In the adjoining street to his house sits a large church. The space between it and his house does not shield his family from the echo of the choir praising the Holy Trinity.
Born out of a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) education in Central Java, Adrian remains a devout Muslim while enjoying the luxuries of urban living. Religion is more than a force of habit. His wife wears a head scarf, their seven year old son is enrolled in an Islamic school in South Jakarta. Two kids, two cars, two maids, a doting wife and enough disposable income for family vacations. It's a picture-perfect life, almost.
His head is calm, but his heart is ill at ease at being exposed to the weekly church homage to a God he cannot recognize and a prophet he does not believe is Christ.
Adrian is religious, but he is neither zealous nor intolerant. He would not "confront" the church and demand it shut down, not the way groups of people have forced the closure of several churches in Bandung regency, West Java.
Like many Muslims, Adrian faces many personal shades of gray in applying his beliefs. Ambiguities that conflict his heart with his mind. But his gut feeling tells him that angst toward Christian proselytizing cannot justify anarchy in the name of an "Allah" whom Muslims regard as "the compassionate and merciful".
There is loathing for the Ahmadiyah sect for discounting Muhammad as Islam's last prophet. Yet he feels separated from the mob that attacked the sect's offices in Bogor, West Java.
He strictly instills the conventional disciplines of sholat (daily prayers) to his son, but feels empathy for cleric Yusman Roy who faces incarceration for conducting sholat in Indonesian instead of solely in Arabic, the liturgical language of Islam.
His pesantren upbringing taught him to respect Islamic teachers. However, he feels something is amiss when a high council of clerics issues edicts damning the tolerant notions of pluralism.
He is clear on what he believes is appropriate for Muslim women and proud that his wife wears a head scarf. Touches of annoyance arise though when he considers the prospect of a bureaucrat compelling his daughter to cede to ritualistic formalities the way the Padang mayor in West Sumatra has done by advocating that female Muslim students wear head scarfs.
The "greening" of Indonesia has left many like Adrian in an emotional flux. They cannot outright disagree with those reckless actions -- demanding head scarfs be worn, prayers in Arabic only and recognition of Muhammad as God's last prophet -- because it represents a fundamental part of their belief system.
But neither can they pardon the manner in which the issues were addressed.
Despite their common belief, they worry that the propagation of Islam is taking undertones of religious slavery, which undermines every tenet of the religion.
We must accept religious conservatism as a natural evolution given the absolute majority of the Muslim population in Indonesia. In developing societies, religion has been a psychological anchor to face the drastic sociopolitical transformations brought about by globalization and democracy.
For most here it is not a throwback to the past, but a catharsis for adjusting to modernity's ills arising from climatic changes in the Indonesia polity. Hence the growing popularity of Islamic parties -- like the Prosperous Justice Party -- which stand on issues of social justice, rather than a blatant Islamist ideology.
For a small minority, it is all about the past. Like an old man's last erection, stoking the fires of religious conservatism rekindles the dying hegemony of clerics and institutionalized (organized) religion. Moral authorities who would have no role in the new Indonesia.
Yet, when confronted with uncertainty and perceptions of social injustice, these two elements instinctively unite. Both gripped by a sense of annihilation. The instincts of survival replace the values of tolerance with resentment.
The secular state which has so far only produced injustice and, until 1998, banished political Islam, becomes the enemy.
Slowly the Muslim majority have begun to question the syncretism of Pancasila, reject economic egotism of the market system, and revolt against those who would separate organized religion from the state. They forget that the separation of "mosque and state" is not to eliminate the role of religious moralism from state life, but to avoid state holders abusing religion as a tool for manipulation.
Indonesia has rarely had such a frank debate about its ideological precepts at the grass roots. The golden age of free political association of the 1950s has been dormant for the last half century. Only now is the nation again vying for its soul. In essence, the furious polemic and tribulations presently raging determines whether common sense in the future will be based on exegesis and ijtihad (independent reasoning), or dogma and doctrine.
It is a battle of ideas in which moderates cannot be won by employing extremists' tactics of intimidation. Neither is it a simple case of saying one is right while the other is wrong. Everyone believes themselves to be on the path of righteousness.
The neurosis of extreme religious conservatism can only be cured through enlightenment.
To prevail is to win the hearts and minds of millions like Adrian. His political consciousness, and that of others like him, represent the soul of the nation.
That ultimately requires proof that secularism does not diminish religious sanctity, that pluralism reveres both traditional and modern ways of life, and that liberalism can bring about forms of social justice.