Tolerance test for secular Indonesia By Tom McCawley
JAKARTA - A breakaway Islamic sect's struggle to survive has become a major
test of tolerance for Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country.
Conservative, hardline Muslims are confronting moderates over the existence of
Ahmadiyya, a 100-year-old minority sect that does not accept Mohammad as the
last prophet of Islam.
The Ahmadis, who have worshipped in their own mosques and communities here
since 1924, believe that their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, is the messiah and
last true prophet of Islam. The claim has energized and enraged Indonesia's
disparate Muslim hardliners, who in recent years have united in a campaign
to ban Ahmadiyya, labeling its followers "heretics" and "deviants".
Indonesia's mild-mannered and religiously moderate President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono and his government are caught in the middle. In a campaign season,
where conservative religious groups have electoral clout, his administration
has so far managed to please neither side.
Tensions flared into the open on June 1, when the hard-line vigilante group the
Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attacked a peaceful rally in support of both
Ahmadiyya and religious tolerance at a symbolic national monument in central
Jakarta. Stick-wielding FPI members, attacked women, the elderly and even
clerics, leaving some 70 people injured. Police later arrested the FPI's
firebrand leader, Habib Rizieq.
On June 9, Yudhoyono signed a controversial decree which failed to fully
support the sect's right to exist, though it stopped short of disbanding it
altogether, as religious conservatives have demanded. The decree explicitly
forbade Ahmadiyya from proselytizing and threatened its members with up to five
years in jail for possible charges of "tarnishing religion".
Security forces, however, are compelled to protect Ahmadiyya followers if their
actions are in accordance with relevant laws, under the decree. "We were facing
two camps, both of which were extreme," complained Indonesia's religion
minister Maftuh Basyuni to parliament, according to a quote published in Tempo
magazine. "On one hand, Ahmadiyya is a victim. However, they are also the cause
of public restlessness," he said.
Several commentators have warned that the decree puts the country's global
image as a tolerant and secular society at risk. Indonesia remains a firmly
secular state, with its 1945 constitution enshrining religious pluralism. Until
now all of Indonesia's five post-independence presidents have demonstrated a
strong commitment to upholding secular values.
Conservative clerics have countered that Ahmadiyya has violated a sacred tenet
of Islam and must be punished, shut down and brought into the mainstream
religious fold. Such debates, over whether or not Indonesia's public sphere
should be run on secular or religious values, hark back to the nation's
independence from colonial rule over 60 years ago. The discussion has become
more heated in Indonesia's new democratic climate, which has recently
transplanted over three decades of authoritarianism under former strongman
Suharto, who stepped down in 1998.
Ahmadiyya, which claims followers in 190 different countries, is no stranger to
persecution. Pakistan, where the breakaway sect was founded in the 19th
century, banned the group in 1974. In Bangladesh, Muslim groups petitioned to
have Ahmadiyya followers officially declared as "kafirs", or non-believers.
Ahmadiyya claims that its estimated 200,000 to one million members in Indonesia
have faced rising harassment with the country's transition to democracy.
Deviant or different?
This alleged discrimination included the fatwa issued against the sect in 2005
by Indonesia's powerful, semi-official Muslim Scholars Council (MUI), which
proclaimed Ahmadiyya "deviant" in its edict. Muslim mobs reacted to the fatwa
by closing down sect's mosques, attacking its prayer sessions and burning down
houses of its followers across the country.
The calls to ban Ahmadiyya later spread from fringe radicals to influential
mainstream conservative Islamic groups. As attacks against the sect have
stepped up, police have frequently watched idly as its followers have been
assaulted, complaining their forces are understaffed and under-funded.
Rights groups, on the other hand, claim that Yudhoyono's government is
pandering to militants and failing to uphold Indonesia's tradition of religious
tolerance. "You ban Ahmadiyya, then you ban the Shi'ites, Christians and
Buddhists," Indonesia's former president Abdurrahman Wahid recently told
Reuters. Wahid, also a former chairman of Indonesia's largest Muslim mass
organization, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama, said hardline groups did
not represent most Indonesians and that the government should not cave to
radical hardliners.
Other minority groups are understandably nervous in the wake of the June 1
attack and the government's controversial legal response to the violence. Some
88% of Indonesia's 230 million people declare Islam as their religion, with the
other 12% mostly Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, all of which are included among
the five religions covered by the official secular ideology, Pancasila.
Yet Islamist mobs have in recent years shut down over 90 Christian churches and
prayer groups in West Java alone. To Christian and other religious minorities,
Yudhoyono's June 9 decree is a disturbing sign that the government is willing
to prioritize hard-line Islamist demands over its constitutional commitment to
protect religious freedoms.
Following the announcement of the June 9 decree, there have been signs that
conservative religious groups feel emboldened, as witnessed in the rallies they
have staged with several thousand people in attendance to protest against the
Ahmadiyya sect. Muslim mobs have meanwhile continued to close down by force
Ahmadiyya mosques across the country.
Ahmadiyya's open challenge to mainstream Islam presents a dilemma, even for
moderate Muslims who believe in the sanctity of maintaining a secular society.
Indonesia's two largest Muslim organizations, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul
Ulama and the 30-million strong Muhammadiyah, have both said Ahmadiyya should
not be banned.
Privately, however, many clerics and moderate Muslims feel the breakaway group
is misguided. Yet in Islam's estimated 700-year history in Indonesia, the
religion has over the centuries merged with local and often animist beliefs and
customs.
In the seafaring, mainly Muslim Bugis culture of South Sulawesi, for example,
transvestite priests still perform traditional wedding ceremonies. On the most
populous island of Java, Muslim children still carry Hindu-derived names like
"Sri" (a rice goddess), or "Dharmawan" (follower of the Dharma), and their life
cycles are often marked by pre-Islamic ceremonies known locally as selamatan.
Some analysts attribute the government's hard stance against Ahmadiyya to
political timing. Yudhoyono, whose coalition maintains a slim hold over
parliament, is seen as vulnerable to interest group pressures in the lead-up to
next year's general elections. That's recently been compounded by a declining
popularity rating, which took a hit in May after his government oversaw a
dramatic fuel-price hike.
Although Yudhoyono won a landslide victory in direct presidential elections in
2004, political analysts say he can ill-afford to alienate the alliance of
Islamist parties in parliament, which currently account for around 15% of the
legislature's vote. Fears of Indonesia abandoning outright its secular
tradition are for now overblown.
But Ahmadiyya's current struggles demonstrate that in Indonesia's emerging and
raucous democracy, even voices of intolerance will be heard.
Tom McCawley is a Jakarta-based freelance journalist.
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