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The Islamic factor
in Indonesian politics
After
months of street turmoil and parliamentary drama, Indonesia
returned to relative calm with the removal of Abdurrahman
Wahid from the presidency last month. His tumultuous
21-month rule was marked by moves to open up political
freedom in the world’s fourth most populous Muslim country.
But Gus Dur, as he is popularly known, proved increasingly
unreliable, alienating the cabinet and even his former
supporters.
When Wahid
was elected president in 1999, he was greeted by the
western media as an unknown quantity, but an acceptable
one, particularly as he was known to be friendly towards
Israel. Now that he has fallen, he has become a ‘Muslim
cleric’. Few Islamic activists were taken in by his
Islamic facade; many remembered his fondness for nightclubs
and western music. Other Muslims were less discerning,
however, and Wahid’s Islamic credentials were a considerable
factor in his popularity. This popular support may have
been misguided, but it reflected an important reality
of modern Indonesian politics: the failure of Pancasila,
the pagan state ideology introduced by the late Ahmad
Sukarno, to secularise or even de-Islamise Indonesia’s
public life.
The reason
that Wahid was elected to the presidency instead of
Megawati Sukarnoputri in 1999, despite Megawati leading
the largest party in parliament, was not that Indonesia
could not accept a woman president. Far more important
was public awareness of her preference for Christian
advisors, whose scorched-earth policy in Aceh, and numerous
other policies offensive to Muslims, were unacceptable
to the vast majority of Indonesians. Despite the secularising
attempts of Indonesia’s rulers, Islamic awareness has
always been a key factor in Indonesia’s politics. By
the end of the Suharto era, even his own party, Golkar,
had realized the stupidity of trying to make Pancasila
the basis for public life in the country, and Suharto
was forced to appoint B. J. Habibie, a well-known Muslim
intellectual, his vice president. When Wahid could not
deliver, Megawati’s succession became inevitable. But
parliament could not ignore the potential Muslim backlash,
hence the election of Hamzah Haz, a prominent Islamist,
as vice president.
In Indonesia,
as elsewhere, Muslims are committed to seeking solutions
to their problems in Islam. This, however, is unacceptable
to the West, which is not, and never has been, interested
in democratic reform in the Muslim world, only in economic
exploitation. It also knows that these aims can only
be achieved by marginalising Islam. Although the history
of the Christian missionary agenda in Indonesia goes
back to its Dutch colonial era, the west long ago realized
that it was impossible to uproot Islam from Indonesia.
They resorted to the next best thing: de-Islamisation
of the Indonesian polity and the promotion of Pancasila,
even though Islam is the only common factor binding
Indonesia’s various ethnic groups, who speak different
languages and have different customs. The weakening
of this common bond has been a major contributory factor
to Indonesia’s many problems today.
Much of
Indonesia’s misery has also stemmed from the role of
Christians, encouraged and promoted by rulers since
Suharto. The role of the Christian missionaries and
their foreign supporters is well documented, not least
by Tapol, the London-based Indonesian human rights organization.
So too are the roles that Christians in senior positions
in Indonesia’s government and military have played in
Aceh and other areas. The butchery by then-army chief
Benny Murdani, a committed Christian, at Tanjung Priok
in September 1984 is just one example.
Pancasila
is effectively dead, although its ghost will continue
to drift around Indonesian public life for some time.
The rise of Megawati, however, surrounded by Christian
advisors, is cause for concern, not least that the army
may increase its political power. She has been welcomed
by the west, confident that its interests will be promoted.
Whatever else one may say about Wahid’s reign, however,
Indonesia has undoubtedly gained in terms of political
freedoms. This may ease the emergence of an Islamic
movement with the potential to offer genuine Islamic
solutions to Indonesia’s problems, and provide the country’s
Muslims with the leadership and guidance they expect
from Islam and deserve for their commitment to it. Until
such a movement emerges, the Muslims of Indonesia, like
those in many other parts of the Muslim world, will
search in vain for Islamic answers to problems of others’
making.
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