Should Indonesia ban Islamist parties? R. William Liddle An editorial in The Jakarta Post, published on October 18, recommends banning Islamist parties, whose goal is to make syaria the foundation of state law. Islamist parties are said, in apparent contradiction, to be both declining in popularity and an increasingly dangerous source of instability. They lack a real vision and voters have not fallen for their appeals, but the country could split along religious lines. Most dramatically, the risk of a civil war is very real and should not be underestimated. What is the real threat to Indonesia of Islamist parties and how can that threat be minimized? At the level of abstract principle, it is true that many Islamists throughout the Muslim world promote the restoration of the caliphate and the abandonment of the nation-state system. They would replace popular sovereignty, the foundation of modern democracy, with the rule of God as interpreted by clerics. More vaguely but no less determinedly, they propose an Islamic economic system to replace market capitalism, the fount of modern economic progress and prosperity. In the Indonesian case the threat is not immediate though it is real enough. From 1999 to 2004, support for Islamist parties grew from 14% to 20%, mainly because of the success of PKS (Prosperous Justice Party). The current shrinking of support, as reflected in Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) polls, may be reversed as we approach the 2009 elections and public attention again turns to politics. We also need to be mindful of a concern expressed long ago by Sukarno and other founding fathers. If at some point Islamist parties bent on replacing the Constitution of 1945 with the Quran and Hadith win a majority of seats in Parliament or elect a president, many predominantly Christian and other non-Muslim areas will attempt to secede. Though unintended by Islamists, national disintegration might well be a side-effect of their electoral success. The proposal to ban Islamist parties is an understandable response to some recent Islamist tactics, like the passage of syaria laws at the local level that has been successful so far in more than twenty districts. Banning is unlikely, however, to reduce Islamist parties support or make them less of a danger to Indonesian democracy, capitalist economy or national integration. Incorporation, allowing them to participate fully in national political life, within the framework of the constitution, is the better policy for both principled and practical reasons. In terms of principle, the right to create or join a political party of ones own choosing is basic in a democracy, where all citizens consider themselves equal members of the nation. To be sure, there may be exceptional circumstances, like the Cold War, when the defense of democracy requires that some, communists committed to the violent overthrow of democracy, be denied that right. In Indonesia, however, there is no evidence that the leaders of PPP (Unity Development Party), PKS or PBB (Moon and Star Party), the three main Islamist parties, are using or support the use of violence to overthrow democracy. In terms of practical politics, an organized movement to ban Islamist parties will ignite a strong defensive counter-reaction, not just from the Islamist minority but from tens of millions of Muslims who do not share Islamist goals but will feel that the Islamists are being treated unfairly. If the movement is successful and a ban is imposed, Islamists will be driven underground, as they were in the Suharto years, and be more likely to turn to violence. Indonesians opposed to Islamism should be looking for ways to strengthen, not weaken, the democratic commitment of the vast Muslim majority and even to convince some Islamists of the benefits of democracy. Strategically, the best way to do that is to allow Muslim and Muslim-based parties, like all other parties, to represent the interests and aspirations of their constituents to Parliament and to the government as forcefully and effectively as they can. Bargains and compromises will be the inevitable result of this process, as is true in any modern democracy. Some of these bargains will be more pleasing to Islamists, others more pleasing to their opponents. The genius of this arrangement is that it reflects, not perfectly but better than any alternative form of government, certainly better than Suhartos authoritarian New Order, the true balance of political forces in society. As such, it enables 220 million Indonesians to build together, stone by stone, policy by policy, the house in which they all must live. Instability and civil war come not from open expression and contestation but from suppression of these forces. Does acceptance of a democracy inclusive of Islamists mean that opponents of an Islamic state have no defenses against the current tactic of district-by-district imposition of syaria? On the contrary, the opponents begin with a distinct advantage. Many of the new local laws seem clearly unconstitutional or in obvious conflict with higher legislation or government regulations, which the president and his ministers have pledged to uphold. So far, however, it is the Islamists who have come up with the more creative strategy and the more effective mobilization of their supporters. Instead of calling for the banning of Islamist parties, the opponents need to design a political strategy of their own that will persuade the government to act on its own commitments. R. William Liddle, professor of political science, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
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