http://www.smh.com.au/world/struggle-for-a-voice-of-tolerance-20110909-1k1ve.html
Struggle for a voice of tolerance Tom Allard Jakarta September 10, 2011 Indonesian Islamic scholar Ulil Abshar Abdalla photographed in Australia last year. Photo: Paul Rovere Ulil Abshar Abdalla is a Harvard-educated Islamic reformer, an adviser to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and one of Indonesia's most perceptive intellectuals. Ask him about what has happened to Islam in Indonesia since the September 11 attacks, and he says: ''I think there has been a trend towards intolerance … there is also a trend towards tolerance.'' It's an odd response, even nonsensical, but it captures succinctly the vexing paradox that lies within Australia's near neighbour and the nation with the world's largest Muslim population. Advertisement: Story continues below After emerging as the fulcrum of the global jihadist movement in south-east Asia in 2002 when the twin nightclub bombings in Bali killed and maimed hundreds of people, Indonesia can rightly point to impressive counterterrorism successes. Hundreds of arrests have been made and dozens of plots have been foiled. The radical cleric and former Jemaah Islamiah leader Abu Bakar Bashir, finally, has been given a long prison term while almost every other terrorist leader of note has either been killed or arrested. A tiny minority remains inspired by al-Qaeda and poses an enduring threat but, unquestionably, the campaign to spread the ideology of offensive jihad against Western infidels and their lackeys to achieve an Islamic caliphate has been comprehensively rejected. ''Islam has contributed so much to the democratisation of Indonesia. This must be emphasised,'' says Ulil, the founder of the Liberal Islam Network and himself a target of Indonesian terrorists. ''Most Muslims here understand that religion is a system of morality, an ethical system and that politics is not part of the essential teaching of religion. The popularity of this proposal of the adoption of sharia in our national law is withering away, it's fading.'' Indonesia's Islamic parties were rebuffed at the polls in 2009, and recently the country's most potent Islamist political force, the Prosperous Justice Party formally adopted pluralism as a core principle in its platform. But, while Indonesian authorities remain vigilant in pursuing terrorists, they seem incapable, if not unwilling, to address another, arguably more pernicious form of religious radicalism. Rather than explosives, these mobs of militants will use machetes, stones or tins of petrol to attack perceived deviants and destroy houses of worship. The increase in violence has been particularly pronounced against members of the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect, whose followers believe the Indian religious figure Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a messiah who followed the prophet Muhammad. In the western Javanese province of Banten, a frenzied mob attacked an Ahmadiyah house and killed three men in February. The 12 accused, including a teenager caught on film bludgeoning a man to death with a stone, got jail sentences of between three and six months. One of the Ahmadi victims, whose hand was almost severed by a machete, was also jailed for six months for refusing to follow police orders to flee the scene. His actions meant he had provoked the attack, prosecutors argued. Some argue the light sentences reflected local factors. The verdict was handed down by judges in a district court in one of Indonesia's traditional hardline Islamic heartlands. Some 2000 locals descended on the court to voice support for the accused and intimidated the judges and prosecutors throughout the trial. But the argument that the case is an anomaly is hard to square with the general and pronounced rise in communal violence - invariably attacks by Islamic fundamentalists on Ahmadis and Christians. Recent research by the Pew Research Centre, which gauges societal attitudes and trends, found Indonesia was one of two countries that recorded significant increases in religious restrictions and incidents of social hostility in the past five years. Harder still to reconcile with the notion that Indonesia remains abidingly tolerant is the overwhelmingly tepid response from Indonesia's political elites to the rise in religious violence and, in particular, the attacks and court proceedings in Banten. President Yudhoyono failed to condemn the verdicts, citing the need to respect the rule of law. If Islamists are failing to make political inroads, and Indonesian Muslims are overwhelmingly moderate, why does Indonesia's political class refuse to speak clearly and loudly for the country's secular constitution that recognises freedom of religion? Could it be they have made a political calculation that attacks on minorities are popular? ''It's because conservatives are very clever in framing the debate in black and white terms,'' says Yenny Wahid, the daughter of Indonesia's former president and moderate Islamic cleric Abdurrahman Wahid and a rare, uncompromising voice for tolerance. ''If you condemn attacks on Ahmadiyah, then you are not a good follower of the prophet Muhammad. So politicians are afraid to speak out because they don't want to appear unIslamic.'' Wahid says a steady influx of money from the Middle East that funds mosques and schools has had an impact. The new conservative clerics are not only cashed up, they are passionate, noisy and activist. When Yudhoyono speaks about maintaining harmony, he sometimes talks, quite perversely, about the need to placate militants, rather than defending diversity. Wahid counters that ''this policy of appeasement won't work. In the short term, it may create a measure of stability that the government needs. But it gives [conservatives] too much power. The greater good is sacrificed,'' she says. Tom Allard is Indonesia correspondent. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/struggle-for-a-voice-of-tolerance-20110909-1k1ve.html#ixzz1XXy8P5YN [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
