Islamizing Indonesia: Religion and Politics in Singapore s Giant Neighbour PUBLIC LECTURE. By Professor M. C. Ricklefs

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1 Islamizing Indonesia: Religion and Politics in Singapore s Giant Neighbour PUBLIC LECTURE By Professor M. C. Ricklefs Visiting Professor, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore Asian Civilisations Museum, 23 September 2004 Welcome to the bicentenary. What bicentenary, you say? Well this year is a bicentenary that has not been noticed or celebrated anywhere, and certainly not in Indonesia, where it would be a most unwelcome historical landmark. For this is the 200-year anniversary of attempts to reform Indonesian societies into something more Islamic using violence and bloodshed. Tonight we will look at some of that story. By doing so, I hope to persuade you that while this is a new threat to us, it is not really a new story, that Islam is not intrinsic to this terrorism, nor are violence and terrorism intrinsic to Islamic reform and, finally, that this is only one part of a complex, rapidly changing world in Indonesia. This is not an easy subject to get hold of, but we must try for a balanced perspective if we are to understand Indonesia, the world s fourth-largest nation, the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world and, for Singaporeans, a very close, very big neighbour. But back to the bicentenary. In 1803 or years ago three hajis (pilgrims) returned from Mecca to Minangkabau in West Sumatra. They had observed the conquest of Mecca early in 1803 by the Wahhabis, a puritanical Islamic sect which, over a century later, would conquer Mecca again and establish Saudi Arabia. These three hajis were also prepared to use violence at home to reform their society. A reform movement had begun in the1780s in the face of a widespread economic and social crisis not so very different from what many parts of Indonesia have faced since In both cases, some people have believed that Islamic law might provide a solution to their crisis. On the return of these hajis the reform movement became a civil war. The reformers, the padris as they were called, gained the upper hand and in 1815 they murdered most of Minangkabau royal family. They were on the verge of victory, but then Dutch colonial forces intervened and began the Padri War ( ). Eventually the Dutch won that war, but Minangkabau society had been changed by the reformers. It was and has remained strongly Islamic in identity with a strong commitment to Islamic orthodoxy, despite a matrilineal inheritance system surviving. So the Padri reformers mark the beginning of the two-century history of interest to us this evening. 1

2 Of course there is much more to this history. Let s fast-forward to the 1880s, where we can find something sounding familiar to us today. In the 1880s messianism was abroad in the Islamic world, inspired by the impending turning of the Islamic centuries, for AH 1300 began in November Many Muslims expected a renewer of the faith, or indeed a messiah, to arrive with the new century. In this fin-de-siècle atmosphere, Dutch colonial authorities in Indonesia were particularly concerned about two developments far from Indonesia s shores. The first was an anti-christian plot in Mecca in 1881 led by the famously anti-christian Sharif of Mecca Abd al-muttalib (d. 1886), a plot that supposedly involved Javanese. The second was the Mahdi movement in Sudan. In 1881 Muhammad Ahmad b. Abd Allah declared himself to be the Mahdi the Islamic messiah in Sudan and in 1883 he defeated the Egyptian army there. He died in 1885, but not until Kitchener s defeat of his army at Omdurman in 1898 was the Mahdist movement finally crushed. So the Dutch regime in Indonesia feared international Islamic conspiracies. They were different from today s. In the 1880s they feared mainly the Naqshabandiyya Sufi tarekat. In the early 21 st century, we fear al-qaidah and like-minded groups, including Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia. But much of the debate is similar: between those who see conspiracy everywhere and those who argue that they are exaggerating. In today s conspiracies, we read much about the doctrine of jihad, particularly as directed against Westerners. We are told that this motivates mujahidin (holy warriors) generally, and particularly that most terrifying, irrational and inexplicable figure of all, the suicide bomber. It is worth remembering, however, that the non-muslim Tamil Tigers were the pioneers of suicide bombing, so manifestly Islamic doctrines are not intrinsic to this phenomenon. I ve seen some of the books studied at the religious school at Ngruki, the source of so many Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) people, located south of Solo. This is the school led, until he was jailed, by Abu Bakar Baasyir. The books I ve got copies of include texts by Abdullah Azzam on creating an Islamic state. He was a Palestinian-born mobiliser of mujahidin in Afghanistan during the anti-soviet jihad, the mentor of Osama bin Laden. These books indeed have forwards by Osama bin Laden. I also have a manual on guerilla war from Ngruki by an author named al-pashtuni. These books are translated into Indonesian and published in Solo and Jakarta and, as I said, used at the school at Ngruki. Here s a chilling jihad account from a pesantren (Islamic school): The older santris were discussing jihad. A young student asked for clarification about how it is done. He was told that he must wear white and then preferably on a Friday after the subuh (daybreak) prayer he must get a good weapon, go to the city and there murder the first European he sees, shouting Sabil Allah. Then he must sit down in a praying posture, repeating Sabil Allah until he is shot dead. He would then go to the most beautiful place in heaven. Now, that s not an account of what s taught at Ngruki. Rather, it is an account of 2

3 a pesantren in West Java in the 1880s by a student there, the distinguished Indonesian Ahmad Djajadiningrat, writing in So, we can see continuities in our stories tonight. When we discuss the use of violence by Islamic extremists, we could talk about the continuities of bombings over the last 20 years or so in Indonesia almost all associated with Islamic radicals. That is a long and impressive perhaps I should say chilling list. It is marked by a few particularly dramatic events. Notably, there was the bombing campaign of Christmas Eve, December Then, 38 bombs were placed at churches and priests houses in 11 cities across Indonesia, timed to explode within 1 ½ hours of each other. Quite a few failed, but enough exploded to kill 19 people and wound over 100. This was the first really major attack by Jemaah Islamiyah, but at that stage this group was not yet identified or broken up by Indonesian authorities. The Christmas 2000 bombing campaign was followed by several others, and the story then culminated in one of the worst terrorist atrocities of modern Indonesian history: the 12 October 2002 bomb at the Sari Club and Paddy s Bar in Kuta, Bali. There Jemaah Islamiyah killed 202 people from 22 countries, most of them young tourists and local people who worked there. Eighty-eight Australians and 38 Indonesians headed the list of dead. More than 200 people were wounded. After more bombs, the next notable attack took place on 5 Aug 2003, when a suicide bomber attacked the Hotel Marriott in Jakarta. This time 13 died, all but one of them Indonesians. The attack wounded 74. The bomb-making materials used on this occasion were evidently what was left over from the Christmas Eve 2000 campaign. So again, this was the work of JI. More bombs again followed the Marriott attack. Most recently, on 9 Sept 2004 just 2 weeks ago there was another suicide bombing, this time on the Australian embassy in Jakarta. This was evidently bigger than the Marriott bomb and killed 9 (plus the bomber) and wounded about 180. Australia is of course a special target twice over for JI, despite the fact that Prime Minister John Howard seems to think that he must deny this obvious fact for domestic political purposes. Australia is a special target for two reasons: its absolute, unquestioning and uncritical support for the United States in its war in Iraq and the war on terror more widely, and the local role of Australia in particular of the Australian Federal Police in hunting down JI in collaboration with the Indonesian police. This is not, to say the least, an encouraging history. We must never trivialize or underestimate the seriousness of the terrorist threat in Indonesia. That s why I wanted to spend some time reminding you that terrorist violence is serious in Indonesia, that it is linked to extremist Islamic movements and that it has roots deep in Indonesia s past. Hence our observation of the chilling bicentenary. Nevertheless, I hope to persuade you that despite all I ve said so far Indonesia is a nation of real promise for a better age: a better age for its citizens, a better age for its neighbours, perhaps even a better age for the Islamic world in general. 3

4 First, let s try to get a bit closer to the grass roots of life in Indonesia, to get a sense of the dynamics in the society. I am aware of cases where there have been devout Catholics, devout Muslims and Javanese nominal religious adherents in the same family. In such contexts, I suggest, there is a sense of social or familial solidarity that works like a social glue in a multi-religious nation. In places of significant social violence, such as in Surakarta (Solo) in late 2000, we can find both conflict and a determination to preserve social solidarity at grass roots level. At that time, there was much street violence going on. The Islamic Defenders Front of Solo and multiple other extremist militias (lasykars) attacked what they called tempat maksiat (places of immorality), i.e. bars, gambling joints, discotheques and whore houses. These actions were resisted by nominal Muslim kejawen (abangan), who mobilising in the kampungs and tackled the Islamist militias in the streets. They even attacked Abu Bakar Baasyir s school at Ngruki. In the midst of such conflict, let us focus on experience of one Kejawen (abangan) kampung in north Solo, to get a picture of the dynamics at grass roots level. This is populated mostly by poor day-laborers, who describe themselves as kejawen (Javanist nominal adherents of a world religion). I have met some who are Islam kejawen and their friends who are Katolik kejawen. Maintaining community solidarity represents the principal shared social value. Around about early 2000, some 5-6 hard-line Muslim families moved into this kampung of some 600 families. They were followers of the Front Pembela Islam Solo. They took over the mosque and refused others admittance. They refused to take part in the communal activities of others, and refused the involvement of their kejawen neighbours in their own affairs. Some of these hard-liners were involved in the street violence of late It is interesting, however, that after that violence, when police and intelligence officers came to the kampung to identify these people, their kejawen neighbours refused to cooperate and, they say, gave no information this in the interest of maintaining communal solidarity, even though that solidarity had been consistently offended by the hard-line group. Thus, we see conflict, violence and social antagonism at grass roots but we also see a determination to maintain solidarity and a reluctance to be manipulated by outside forces. In other words, on the ground, things are more complex than may at first seem. Developments since 2000 seem to me to be very significant for getting a balanced view. These developments have taken place in a fundamental, underlying and ongoing context of increasing religiosity. We have seen that across the world since about the 1960s, in all religious traditions. We see it also in Indonesia. As a historian, I see the Indonesia case as the latest stage of an eight-century-long process of Islamization. That process has had its ups and downs, its successes and setbacks. But its general direction is clear: Indonesia is moving toward being a society more recognizably Islamic in character, but one with many local Indonesian features. There is no reason to think that this process will slow or end. 4

5 In other words, Indonesia is a country and a society becoming progressively more religious. Because Islam is the majority religion, that necessarily means for most of Indonesian society becoming progressively more Islamic. Therefore, whatever Indonesia s future may hold, it will take place in a progressively more Islamic society. This is, in general terms, how the story since c looks to me. I think that fundamentalist Islam was increasing in popularity in the post-1997 crisis. Many Indonesians were seeking solutions and amelioration and fundamentalist Islam promised them that. This attracted many Indonesians, both from the more disadvantaged and from the middle class always crucial to political developments. The main national Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, were divided by personal, organizational and doctrinal differences and were unsure how to respond to the crisis and to fundamentalism. Then came 9/11: the 11 Sept 2001 al-qaedah attacks on Washington and New York. The immediate aftermath of that was very important in Indonesia. The radicals and their followers took to the streets in Indonesia to denounce the USA and its allies, to denounce their impending invasion of Afghanistan and to gather volunteer mujahidin to go to Afghanistan. There were some quite large-scale demos and the most active leaders proved in several cases to be veterans of the Afghan anti-soviet jihad. They constituted a previously unrecognized network. The number of such veterans is unknown, but one estimate is that perhaps some 1500 South East Asian Muslims fought in the Afghan jihad. Such people had links with the Taliban, al-qaidah, extremist networks in Pakistan, Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines and fundamentalist groups in Malaysia which indeed represented a safe haven for some of these people during the Soeharto years. In response to this, the moderate organizations NU and Muhammadiyah recognized that they had to mobilize, for their leadership and their understanding of their faith were also threatened by extremists. The mutual animosities between NU and Muhammadiyah now diminished, they publicly took positions critical of extremism and they put more effort into persuading people that the extremist version of Islam was not acceptable. An extremely important element in this moderate reaction was the education network represented by the IAIN (State Islamic Institutes), STAIN (State Islamic High Schools) and UIN (State Islamic Universities). This has a network of campuses across Indonesia with some 100,000 students and represents a bastion of tolerant, liberal, pluralistic Islam. The Muhammadiyah Universities also played a role. There are about a dozen such universities and most are places of constructive, liberal thought. Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (Solo) may, however, be an exception. My impression is that it may be a significant intellectual base for radicalism. The Liberal Islam Network (JIL: Jaringan Islam Liberal), founded in 2001 by young intellectuals, was also important. This is a small group but it is the source of truly creative new thinking within Islamic context. JIL is often the target of the animosity of fundamentalists and sometimes even of moderates who think that JIL goes too far. 5

6 Thus, as of, say, mid-2002, there were significant signs of public resistance to radical claims to represent the true Islam, evident both in the alienation of ordinary villagers and the reaction of major national organizations. But I feel that there was still significant sympathy for radical groups in some quarters. There was still a national crisis, still a searching for moral solutions. And still a belief that the violent aspects of radicalism terrorism were basically a problem for the West or for minorities, such as the Christians targeted on Christmas eve We should remember that at this stage, JI had not yet been identified. Then occurred the 12 October 2002 Bali bombings. This was a tremendous shock to Indonesia with profound consequences. Now it was even more obvious that middle class sympathizers began to abandon the extremists. The military withdrew much of its support, it seems. We know that the army had used Laskar Jihad in Ambon and Papua to fight what were seen as Christian separatist movements. But now it looks like the money was cut off. At this point, Laskar Jihad was disbanded. Military and police links with these groups are not completely cut, it seems, but those from the security apparatus side who are still involved evidently claim that they are trying to domesticate the extremists. For example, just a few weeks ago, in early August 2004, the head of the national police Da i Bachtiar visited the school at Ngruki and presented carpets for the mosque and five computers. You may conclude what you will from such connections. Ordinary Indonesians were shocked by the Bali bombs. They had to recognise that terrorism was a problem for ordinary Indonesians, too. Bali was an attack on middle class interests. The subsequent investigations revealed the Jemaah Islamiyah network and led to multiple arrests, trials and convictions. There followed a significant new stage of enhanced mobilization of moderate forces, led by the IAIN network and its leading figures, by Muhammadiyah and by Nahdlatul Ulama. For example, at the end of 2002, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, Ahmad Syafii Maarif, said that Indonesians should stop calling for the implementation of Sharia law in RI: 'We should take the substance of Islamic values and implement them in Indonesia, not the symbols', he said. The chairman of NU, Hasyim Muzadi echoed these views: Struggling for Sharia to be enforced in Indonesia is not realistic', he said. 'What we need is to develop universal values for people's prosperity. Universal values are also Islamic. What we should seriously fight for is the enforcement of justice and the creation of a clean government. An Islamic state or Sharia does not guarantee [these things].' As a result, there was an increasing detachment of the middle class from the appeals of religious radicalism. Yet another significant bombing as opposed to all the on-going lesser bombings occurred on 5 Aug 2003, when a suicide bomber attacked the Hotel Marriott in Jakarta. Here was a very direct attack on Indonesia s middle class: a top-class hotel in central Jakarta had been hit. All but one of the victims were Indonesians. In my judgment, by this time, the radical, extremist Islamic movements had no prospect of winning political power in Indonesia. The institutions of the state police, military, 6

7 intelligence were mobilized against them. Information about the existence of extremist, violent terrorists in Indonesia was sufficient to persuade all but the most unreasonable observers that (1) they existed and (2) they were extremely dangerous. Thus, middle class interest in radicalism had been killed by arbitrary violence. Ordinary Indonesians the majority Muslim community also saw themselves threatened by extremism. The institutions of moderate, tolerant Islam were mobilized and firmly rooted. There are certainly observers who do not agree with that assessment. They may ask, what about the 2004 elections? Aren t there signs there of the rise of religion including fundamentalist Islam in Indonesian politics? To answer that, let s turn to Indonesia s elections briefly. In the elections of 1955, it was possible to identify Islamic and secular constituencies at least roughly. If we ignore all the smaller parties whose constituencies might reflect all sorts of ephemeral circumstances and look only at the big four parties, who together got 78.0% of the valid votes, then we see the following outcome: Party % valid votes PNI (secular) 22.3 PKI (secular) 16.4 Masyumi (Islamic) 20.9 NU (Islamic) 18.4 Thus, the seculars got 38.7 % of the votes and the Islamic parties got 39.3%.We can call that a dead heat. By the time of the 1999 elections, it was getting harder to identify secular or Islamic parties. For example, the Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN), led by Amien Rais, clearly had a Muhammadiyah constituency. But its platform was entirely secular, so was it a secular party or a religious party? In the context of ongoing Islamization, many devout Muslims supported a religiously neutral political system and therefore voted for Golkar or PDIP. Again, if we look at only the larger parties in the 1999 elections, we can account for 86.5% of the electorate, or 79.4 % if we were to exclude PAN on the grounds that we didn t know how to count it. Depending on how we play such a game, we will end up with major secular parties getting either 56% or 63% of the vote and the Islamic parties getting 30% or maybe only 23%. In other words, a far lower percentage of Indonesians voted for recognizably Islamic parties in 1999 than in By the time of last April s parliamentary general election, in my view it was no longer possible to sort out secular from Islamic parties in any meaningful way. A more Islamic society means that there are religious constituencies everywhere. For example, just before the April poll, the head of Megawati s PDIP in Kudus told me that his party wouldn t be the leading there but for the fact that it was supported by the NU community and its leaders. In the Presidential polls this year, that has been reflected in the choice of 7

8 Vice-Presidential running mates with Islamic credentials by Presidential candidates who themselves lacked religious standing. The main development that has attracted interest in this regard in 2004 is the emergence of PKS (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, Prosperous Justice Party) as a significant player. This is a truly fundamentalist Islamic party, led by Hidayat Nur Wahid, who took his bachelor s, master s and doctoral degrees in the Islamic University in Medina, Saudi Arabia. PKS won 7.3 % nationally and was the biggest in Jakarta with about one-quarter of the vote. PKS wants to see Sharia law introduced in Indonesia. When asked on one occasion whether this meant cutting off the hands of thieves, Hidayat Nur Wahid replied, There is nothing to fear in Islamic law. The fear that hands will be cut off is a conscious attempt by interests who are afraid that such a law will be introduced. If that doesn t make immediate sense to you, the rough translation would be, yes, we ll cut off hands, but only thieves need to worry about that like many government officials, of course. But in the 2004 campaign, PKS shoved Sharia law well into the background, indeed to the point of invisibility. Rather, they campaigned on a platform of fighting corruption, promoting justice and providing good, clean government. Many Indonesians genuinely respect and admire PKS figures for their integrity and commitment and therefore voted for PKS. So does the PKS outcome mean there is a push toward fundamentalist Islamic politics? I think not. Rather, I interpret it as part of Indonesians hopes for an end to corruption and for greater competence and morality in government. In many places above all in Jakarta the PKS vote was, I think, a protest vote against existing parties and leaders. It is that same protest vote and search for new faces that has propelled Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to the Presidency of Indonesia. Now, where does all of this leave us in our search for balanced judgment? There remains much room for argument and of course no one knows the future. We have to bear in mind the fundamentals: competition for political power in Indonesia is complex, fought out at multiple levels of government across a nation that is the largest archipelago on the earth, in a context of on-going democratization and on-going Islamization of the society. Within that rather daunting set of fundamental conditions, my conclusions are as follows: In a society like Indonesia, with weak rule of law, widespread criminality, low levels of administrative competence, endemic corruption and a significant presence of extremist, terrorist groups, Islam (and enhancing religiosity in general) may be the principal social glue that keeps that society together, peaceful and governable, and perhaps makes it more moral, more honest and more just. There remain significant voices of unreason and intolerance in Indonesia. But the forces of tolerant, liberal, pluralistic Islam are strongly institutionalized, well led, the source of some of the most progressive thinking in the Islamic world, able to operate free of official repression and widely supported by the 8

9 populace, and have been strengthened by the extremists use of violence which has driven the populace at large and especially the middle class away from extremist views. So perhaps Indonesia is the hope of the Islamic world. Perhaps Singapore should feel grateful for the particular character of the relationship between religion and politics in Indonesia. I will leave you with just one last thought on the relation between religion and contemporary politics: Despite the obvious essentiality of religious symbolism in Indonesia, it may be the case that religion plays a smaller part in determining political outcomes there than in the United States. If you should agree with me in that judgment, then perhaps you will feel reassured about Indonesia, but concerned about the United States and therefore worried about our world. Professor M. C. Ricklefs, BA, PhD, FAHA Professor Merle Ricklefs is Professor of Asian Studies and Director of the Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies at the University of Melbourne. He is currently on leave from that position as a Visiting Professor at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore. He gained his PhD from Cornell University and has held appointments at The School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), Monash University, and All Souls College (Oxford University), and was Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University before taking up his present appointment in Melbourne in Professor Ricklefs is a historian of Indonesia, whose recent research work has concentrated particularly on the role of Islam. He is currently writing a series of 3 volumes on the history of the Islamization of Javanese society from the 14 th century to the present, the first of which is in press. He has authored and edited several major books and many book chapters and refereed articles, as well as contributing to newspapers and radio broadcasts. He is on the editorial advisory boards of History Today and Studia Islamika, is Southeast Asia editor for the 3 rd edition of the authoritative Encyclopaedia of Islam (16 vols.), co-edits the Southeast Asia series of Handbuch der Orientalistik, is an editor of Melbourne Asia Policy Papers and a member of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Editorial Advisory Board for the publication series Documents on Australian Foreign Policy. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a member of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, and was a founding member of the Australian Foreign Affairs Council. In 2003 he was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Government of Australia for service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of Indonesia. His books include: 9

10 Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi, : A history of the division of Java. London Oriental Series, vol. 30. London: Oxford University Press, Revised Indonesian edition (co-authored with P. Voorhoeve) Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain: A catalogue of manuscripts in Indonesian languages in British public collections. London Oriental Bibliographies, vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Modern Javanese historical tradition: A study of an original Kartasura chronicle and related materials. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, A history of modern Indonesia, ca to the present. London & Basingstoke: Macmillan; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, nd edition (Palgrave and Stanford University Press) rd edition (Palgrave and Stanford University Press) Revised Indonesian edition New Indonesian edition forthcoming. War, culture and economy in Java, : Asian and European imperialism in the early Kartasura period. Sydney: Asian Studies Association of Australia in association with Allen and Unwin, (edited and translated) Pantheism and monism in Javanese suluk literature: Islamic and Indian mysticism in an Indonesian setting, by P.J. Zoetmulder, S.J. Ed. and transl. M.C. Ricklefs. Leiden: KITLV Press, The seen and unseen worlds in Java, : History, literature and Islam in the court of Pakubuwana II. St. Leonards NSW: The Asian Studies Association of Australia in association with Allen and Unwin; Honolulu: The University of Hawai i Press, (in press) Mystic synthesis in Java: A history of Islamization from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. White Plains, NY: EastBridge,