The struggle for a nation's soul

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.