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Nationalism, Minority Rights and Citizenship in Indonesia
Written by Lauren Gumbs
Monday, 06 May 2013
The faithful at prayer
Unity in Diversity or Unity in Similarity?
As many as 170,000 Indonesians were forced to flee their homes in 2012
because of ethnic and religious tensions, according to a Global Overview of
forced migration published by authors with the US Department of State, the
UNHCR and the Research Institute Without Walls.
That is an indication of how Indonesia's dynamism means that while it is
growing into a major economic power, it is also struggling to deal effectively
with issues such as ethnic conflict, religious intolerance, corruption, and
inequality.
The country's diversity, including at least 14 major and minor ethnic
groups spread across 17,000 islands, has been and still is being squeezed into
something that is recognizable and manageable across all corners of the
republic.
Ethnic and religious conflict remain a significant hindrance to nation
building. State responses to minority claims on rights and mass homogenization
have swung between military repression, accommodation, coercion and even
transmigration.
Some of these strains stem from nationalist projects of the late
strongman Suharto's New Order regime (1966-1998), when aggressive nation
building was a key theme and often involved violent military force against
non-conformist subjects.
Citizenship has changed meaning over time and is no longer as rigid as in
the New Order era, yet at this point Indonesia is neither convincingly plural
nor multicultural.
The legacy of forced homogeneity is difficult to shake off, as are the
pressures that manufacture conformity. Contemporary nationalist projects adopt
differing approaches toward diverse ethnic and religious groups. Some
approaches are constructive, others are not.
The social and political situation for minorities continues; particularly
as recent events illustrate that the capacity for violent conflict in Indonesia
has not been restrained.
Nationalism remains a persistent theme but it is an artificial solidarity
that masks divisions and hinders solutions.
The state philosophy, Pancasila is meant to capture the principle of
'unity in diversity'. It is a euphemistic mantra for an explosive environment
of inclusion and exclusion that often results in human rights abuses and a
contingent notion of citizenship that entails highly unequal social contracts.
East Timor is a comparative success story, having gained
self-determination, but only after a protracted and bloody civil war. Acehnese
and Papuan autonomy has been accommodated to a certain extent.
However Aceh can now subject the Indonesian citizens that live in the
province to controversial Shariah governance that elsewhere in Indonesia would
undermine basic human rights as well as cause democratic backpedalling.
Papua is still swarming with Indonesian military due to sustained
movements for sovereignty. Deadly clashes in the restive provinces between pro-
independence members and military are commonplace.
Unresolved issues lead to disputes even though Aceh for example is far
more comfortable with its current situation than Papua is. A fracas this week
over whether the Aceh regional flag is unlawful because it too closely
resembles the former GAM (Free Aceh Movement) flag, showed that Indonesia will
not easily relinquish control over its territory or its citizens' ideological
beliefs. Remembering the decades-long armed insurgency that nearly lost
Indonesia the resource-rich area, Jakarta is probably concerned that GAM
symbols reference lingering sentiment for independence. On the other hand,
Jakarta is right to be wary. Conservative Islamists adopt competing nationalist
ideologies that impose even more polarization into mainstream norms. Majority
rights still trump minority ones and even non-conformists in the majority are
quickly shut down.
This year an attempt by a 75 year old grandfather in Aceh, who sought a
court order for a mosque to turn the volume down on the call to prayer, was
interpreted as a challenge to Islamic dominance. His attempt failed and he
became the subject of death threats.
Indonesians reconcile Islamic belief with democracy in their own way,
which is arguably either good for democracy or good for Islam. This week a Pew
report stated that seven in 10 Indonesians want Shariah law implemented in the
legal code, even though many social scientists and Islamic scholars have found
that most Indonesians are moderate and secular.
In this bipolar environment of democratization and Islamization, the
pressure of competing forces is contradictory. Conservative Islamic aspirations
are broadly accommodated, through bylaws (new Shariah based bylaws are added
each year, not removed) and legislation. This mainstreams such things as bans
on homosexuality and outside faiths needing permits.
Such norms produce indifference to intolerant activities as these
activities are seen as protecting the status quo and contributing to the
nationalist project of unifying citizens. It also over emphasises the
ethno-cultural-nationalist focus.
Christians in some parts of Indonesia, particularly West Java, suffer
under discriminatory laws and by-laws that suppress their religious identity or
reduce it to specific limits of acceptance. Other areas such as Malang city in
East Java are comparably tolerant. Christian and ethnic communities such as
Chinese and Hindus are undisturbed.
However, the fact that arbitrary conditions can be mandated for Christian
places of worship and to restrict proselytising, signifies insecurity and a
lack of enforcement of minority rights. It is testament to state apathy and
consent that in particularly tense regions, sites of worship are policed by
thug-like Islamist groups with little police objection.
Many churches find that they cannot secure necessary permits due to an
impasse with residents, local leaders, and regional heads of government.
Churches that are accused of operating without a permit become the targets of
harassment and intimidation from Islamists or are shut down by authorities.
Diversity does not apply to just anyone. Some identities are completely
unrecognized. Last year Alexander Ang was beaten up at work by colleagues for
his atheist beliefs (discovered on Facebook) and subsequently jailed under the
blasphemy law.
Even unity in diversity cannot override blasphemy, and yet neither
Pancasila nor the state establishes a defence for such injustice. Atheist
identities are anonymous, both in the national ideology of Pancasila, whose
first article is belief in the one and only God, and when individuals are
systematically categorised by the many identification documents that require
them to list a religion.
The state approves just six acceptable religions?not including atheism,
Judaism, Animism and polytheistic beliefs. Sim cards, cable television, even
hairdressers and beauty salons, request an individual's religion on their
registration lists. Supposedly secular schools contain mission statements
acknowledging devotion to God as first priority, assuming unanimous belief in a
monotheistic God.
Students are taught a deity-neutral prayer that they parrot before
classes and meals. What is worse than adults having to constantly decide who
and what they are, is children being categorized before they even understand
what it means to own a hereditary identity. Systematic categorisation and
documentation of potentially discriminatory aspects of identity reinforces
social and political margins of belonging.
The tug of war between diversity and homogeneity has rarely conferred
legally certain equal minority rights. Religious groups such as the Ahmadiyah
and Shia, who live among mainstream Muslims, have been attacked, oppressed and
exiled from their communities. Such is their stigma that West Lombok regional
heads have even suggested Ahmadis be relocated to an island for their own
protection.
At this time, for instance, 20 Ahmadiyah followers are waiting in their
mosque, sealed by local government, for the West Java Bekasi administration to
allow them to practice their religion freely, without having to remove 'Islam'
and their connection to it from all references or from having their Imams
chosen for them.
A 2008 joint ministerial decree and West Java gubernatorial decree banned
Ahmadis from propagating their beliefs, in spite of the 1945 Constitution
guaranteeing freedom of religious belief to minorities.
Civil society organisations (CSOs) can strengthen social solidarity by
employing the language of human rights rhetoric to push for ethnic and cultural
minority rights.
Indonesia's strengthening civil society can work against homogenizing
pressures to solidify elements of civic nationalism into the prevailing but
unworkable ethno-cultural nationalism, to empower an equal, participative
political community rather than marginalising and suppressing difference.
For example, in reaction to the Bekasi Ahmadis' plight, groups for
pluralism and religious freedom marched in Jakarta to decry the government's
inaction in addressing religious intolerance. The government's apathetic
approach to certain minority groups, and unwillingness to monitor police and
local government bias, is now backfiring as civil organisations have become
more vocal and politicised.
Protests might not yet have forced President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's
hand, or resulted in secure legislation, however ongoing mobilisation and
politicisation of rights issues and citizenship through the lens of civic
nationalism, will have a better chance of success, especially if civil society
organisations operate in a conducive environment.
Civic engagement faces many challenges, not least a pending Bill on Mass
Organisations (ORMAS) that would place authoritarian restrictions on civil
society organisations.
Indonesia today is thus both a minefield of conflict and tension as well
as a reservoir of patience and forbearance whose people have to put up with a
lot. Their leaders perpetuate extractive political and economic systems,
poverty affects more than half the population, and a history of violence and
disorder has embedded a culture of police and military impunity.
Corruption is a way of life. Graft scandals involving elites are a weekly
spectacle in the news. The abundance of natural resources and their subsequent
exploitation, has not translated into a better quality of life for most,
despite the buzz around the expanding middle class.
Social justice in society is improving slowly with excruciating steps
from democratizing elements and civil society. A civic approach to nationalism
alternatively adopts the view that minorities are equal rights bearing
citizens, making human rights language-recognition of claims holders and
obligations of duty bearers-more explicit.
The tension of consolidating the national identity of such a vast expanse
of island habitats and their inhabitants is portrayed in the struggle for the
power to control, limit, express and define legitimate patriotic identities
through narrow nationalist ethnic and cultural terms.
'Unity in diversity' conceals a hegemony that interprets diversity
inflexibly. Instead of pluralism and diversity, it is in fact homogeneity that
is employed to glue together the diverse regional ethnic and religious
identities of 242 million people.
In the midst of conflict and intolerance, it seems like the nationalist
focus leads to a self perception that defines individuals only in relation to
what they are not, therefore continually creating an 'Other'. Indonesia is
large and there are multitudes of examples of tolerance and pluralism, however
ethnic and cultural diversity continues to challenge the mainstream
sufficiently enough to incite conflict, intolerance, and discrimination and to
render citizenship status insecure.
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