SECOND THOUGHTS? AN ASSESSMENT OF ISLAM AND STATE IN INDONESIA

LSE IDEAS, the centre for the study of diplomacy, international affairs and strategy at the London School of Economics, hosted a seminar on Islam and the State: A Southeast Asian Perspective, featuring Dr. Bahtiar Effendy, a lecturer at State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, with Prof. Gilles Kepel, Director of the Moyen/Orient/Méditerranée Programme at Sciences Po in Paris and holder of the Phillipe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs, acting as discussant, and Tan Sri Dr Munir Majid, head of the Southeast Asia International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, in the chair.

Dr Effendy's talk was largely based on his book Islam and the State in Indonesia (2003), a published verion of his PhD thesis at Ohio State University, defended in 1994. Notwithstanding the fact that Indonesia's political landscape has changed unrecognizably since the fall of Soeharto's New Order Regime, Effendy's study has only been updated with a relatively brief  'post-script' containing just a summary discussion of developments from 1999 to 2000. While earlier parts of the book contain valuable discussions of the role of a new Muslim intelligentsia in creating the 'New Islamic Intellectualism' of the 1970s and 1980s, which transformed the debate on religion and politics from a legal-formalist and exclusivist into a substantialist and inclusivist discourse, there is no mention of the rise of two ensuing generations of Muslim intellectuals, consisting of scholars from the State Islamic Universities in Jakarta and Yogyakarta (including Effendy himself) and younger intellectual-activists connected through networks such as the Jaringan Islam Liberal (JIL, Liberal Islam Network) or associated with the young cadres of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), referred to as NU Muda. Part heirs, part critics of the pioneers of this substantialist Islamic discourse they have been instrumental in the further shaping of an Indonesian variant of Islamic civil society.

Dr Bahtiar Effendy

Also from Effendy's presentation it was difficult to get a clear sense of where he sees Indonesia going. Having identified the early twentieth-century, the end of the Cold War, and post-9/11 as three key moments when the discussion of the relation between Islam and modernity and between religion and politics became particularly acute, he then restricted his discussion primarily to the domestic Indonesian context. 

Throughout the Soekarno and Soeharto years, Islamic political parties were considered as potential contenders for political power and were therefore clamped down on. Only in the 1950s, when a system that can be described as liberal and democratic was allowed to briefly flourish, were Islamic parties able to profile themselves uninhibitedly. This was reflected by their unsurpassed success in the 1955 elections, when the four Islamic parties together received 43% of the vote --- still, not a majority in a country that is 85-90% Muslim. Evidently, even then, large segments of Indonesia's Muslim intelligentsia did not want Islam as the basis for statehood.

The New Order Regime approached the Islam with the same suspicion as Soekarno had in the 1940s and during the 'Guided Democracy' of his later years. Islamic Parties were generally reduced to an outsider role in the political process  It was not until the 1970s, when this earlier mentioned new generation of intellectuals and technocrats formulated a non-formalist alternative Islamic discourse. Because it was no longer regarded as explicitly anti-state the state allowed more room for this kind of activism. In fact, the Muslim intelligentsia were not only co-opted in the government's development policies; eventually the state itself saw the usefulness of religion for driving its own objectives. and began boosting its own Islamic credentials. The power of Islamic courts was strenghtened in regards to personal and family law, the country began experimenting with Islamic banking, and the government established a kind of Islamic think tank, the 'Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals' (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim se-Indonesia, ICMI), led by Minister of Technology and later Vice-President and President B.J. Habibie.

In the democratic transformation that followed the fall of Soeharto in 1998, more than 181 new political parties emerged, of which 42 bore an Islamic or Islamist signature. It also spelled the return of the legal-formalist political and religious discourse. There was a sense of deja-vu, as it became clear that the Islamic parties still bore a historical stigma, according to Effendy. The majority of the Muslims preferred a substantialist understanding over the legalist interpretations associated with political Islam. As an explanation for this hesitation, Effendy suggests that three factors played a role: the fear it may thwart Muslim social mobility, the fragmentation of the community due to the competition between a plethora of Islamic parties, and the sense of alienation felt by younger generations of Muslims, who never experienced the struggles during the first fifty years of independence. Again, elections results reflected these sentiments. Between 1968 and 1998 support for Islamic parties oscillated between 15 and 30%. In the three free elections that have been held since then the Islamic parties received 37% (1999), 38% (2004) and 24% (2009) of the votes.

Effendy concludes that the intellectual transformation effectuated between 1970 and 1990 still dominates at the expense of the advocates of a legal-formalist Islamic model: The Jakarta Charter of 1945 (forcing Muslim citizens to abide by Islamic law) was never inserted into the constitution and only select elements of Islamic law have been implemented. As long as Muslim politicians do not disrupt the idea of a nation state they wuill be allowed some maneuvering space, but the exact place of Islamic principles in the political constellation is still not defined. Whereas Effendy expresses the hope that political and religious elites will reach an appropriate settlement, he gives no indication what such an agreement should encompass. Nor did he tell anything about the vibrant intellectual milieu in which younger scholars, intellectual-activists, and writers current discuss possible scenarios for a future civil Islam.

Prof Gilles Kepel

As the author of Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, Gilles Kepel responded by providing a wider context by drawing on examples from other parts of the Muslim world. Comparing developments in Indonesia with those in Turkey and Algeria, he sees similarities in the implicit association of Islam by its detractors as threatening to the nation-state and a step backwards, or their use of political Islam as the scapegoat hampering state-building and development. However, when political opponents of authoritarian regimes want to challenge the incumbents they often opt for employing an 'Islamic vocabulary', although this must not be automatically equated with legal-formalist aspirations. 

In the same vein, Kepel further suggests that Turkish civil society-building has more of a 'Muslim' dimension than that it envisages an Islamic -- let alone Islamist -- agenda. It is important to acknowledge the sheer diversity of Islamic discourses, with civil society movements on one end and totalitarian Islamist ideologies on the other end of the spectrum. Given this multitude of voices, the questions to ponder are: Who controls Islamic discourse?; Why do so many different groups feel the need to take recourse to rhetoric coated in Islamic idiom and symbolism?; What are the reasons for the resurgence of cultural Islam? Returning to the Indonesian situation, Kepel ventured the speculation that, notwithstanding all the criticisms, whether there is not something to Clifford Geertz's  (in)famous taxonomy  distinguishing between between Santri (pious, practicing Muslims) and Abangan (syncretic Javanese belief and practices professing nominal allegiance to Islam).

In response to a query whether aside from the legal-formalist aspirations of Islamic parties and the substantialist view of the proponents of cultural or civil Islam, there are no initiatives on the part of Muslim activists to address other 'substantial' issues such as economic developments, generic human rights, justice etc., Effendy claimed that this was not the case. According to him, those driving the Islamic agendas continue to subscribe to legal-formalist interpretations focussing on ritual practice and symbolism. The Chair Dr. Munir Majid doubted whether this is so. Invoking the distinction between the Islamic notions of  fard ayn (individual obligations) and fard kifaya (collective obligations), he admitted the former tend to be overamplified, but the later offer a vehicle for social activism and civil society building.

Yours truly was also surprised that Effendy did not recognize the remarkable parallels, rightly noted by Kepel,  between the historical trajectories in Indonesia and Turkey (apart from an anecdotal reference to the personal friendship of ex-President Habibie with former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan --dating back to their student years in Germany). Perhaps it is a lack of familiarity with developments in the latter country, that prevented Effendy from detecting the undeniable commonalities in the Indonesian and Turkisch experiences with Islam in the public sphere and the accommodation of religion and politics. 

In spite of his discussion of  the intellectual trends circulating among Indonesian Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s, Effendy's presentation missed an updated account of developments during the past turbulent decade and failed to venture beyond a narrow focus on the issue of statehood and Islamic parties role in the formal political process, and unpack the development of substantialist Islamic discourse. For an intellectual from a generation who can be considered to have inherited the legacy of 1970s New Islamic Intellectualism he almost seemed disenchanted and having doubts whether it had all been worth the effort..

A Cosmopolitan Muslim: Abdurrahman Wahid (1940-2009)

Abdurrahman Wahid, affectionately known as Gus Dur, has died at the age of 69 in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

The first freely elected head of state of the Indonesian republic after the fall of the Soeharto regime, Gus Dur's term in office (1999-2001) was troublesome and cut short by impeachment procedures which saw him replaced by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of the country's founding father, Soekarno.

His legacy as a Muslim reformist, however, will outlast the sad demise of his short-lived political career. Together with Nurcholish Madjid he was the face of the liberal and pluralist Islam which emerged in Indonesia during the last three decades of the 20th century.

Born in the East-Javanese district of Jombang, Abdurrahman Wahid was the grandson K.H. Hasjim Asj'ari (1875-1947), a prominent Muslim scholar and founder of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Now one of the largest Muslim organisations in the world (it claims a following of over 30 million), the NU has for decades represented the traditionalist Muslim establishment; the gurus or kyai whose bases of power were the Islamic boarding schools known as pesantrens found throughout rural Java. Hasjim Asj'ari's son -- and Gus Dur's father -- K.H. Wahid Hasjim served as the first Minister or Religious Affairs (1945, and again 1949-52) and succeeded as NU leader in 1947, until his untimely death in 1953.

After receiving both a secular and traditional Islamic education in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Jombang, and Magelang Gus Dur worked as a teacher at a modernist Islamic school (madrasa) affiliated with Pesantren Tambakberas and as a journalist.

In 1953, he was awarded a scholarship for study at Cairo's al-Azhar University. Forced to take remedial classes in Arabic before attending the university's Higher Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Gus Dur preferred spending his time reading world literature, watching European and American movies, and football. Bored with the curriculum at al-Azhar, Gus Dur opted for a transfer to the University of Baghdad, where he studied Arabic literature. Leaving Iraq in 1970, he made a failed bid to enter Leiden University in the Netherlands and then decided to travel home via France and Germany.

Back in Indonesia, Gus Dur joined the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education and Information, also known under the acronym LP3ES . In addition he became a journalist, working for periodicals such as Prisma, Tempo and Kompas, and returning to Pesantren Tambakberas as a teacher.

As a descendant from an elite NU family, Abdurahman Wahid also become involved in the Pesantren reform policies initiated by Minister of Religious Affairs, Abdul Mukti Ali (1971-78), which he supported enthusiastically. These Islamic schools would provide the seedbed for the new Muslim intelligentsia emerging in the course of the 1980s and 1990s, which formed the constituency for the alternative Islamic discourse referred to as Islam Kultural (Cultural Islam) or Islam Sipil (Civil Islam), and for which Gus Dur himself coined the term Islam Kosmopolitan (Cosmopolitan Islam).

More interested in working as a public intellectual and writer than an organisational and administrative career, Gus Dur was very reluctant to become involved in NU affairs and only after a third appeal from his maternal grandfather Bisri Syansuri did he accept a place on the NU religious advisory council.

From this position he began to challenge the existing NU leadership which he held responsible for the organisation's rampant stagnation. Gus Dur proposed not only drastic internal reforms but withdrew the NU also from party politics, severing its links with the United Development Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan or PPP). His successful proposals for revitalising the stale NU made him very popular and in 1984 he followed in his father and grandfather's footsteps by being elected chairman of the NU -- a post he would continue to hold until 1998.

During those fifteen years, Gus Dur groomed a new generation of NU intellectuals, which came to be known as the NU Muda or 'Young NU Members'. Educated at reformed pesantrens, many went on to study at the State Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN) found in cities such as Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Bandung. The most talented would subsequently be given the opportunity to pursue postgraduate studies at universities in North America (in particular McGill University in Canada), Europe and Australia. Combining intimate familiarity with the Islamic tradition with knowledge of the latest advances of Western scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, they are now making their own contributions to the formulation of alternative Islamic discourses through a critical engagement with the Islamic heritage, informed by the cosmopolitan outlook they have acquired through their exposure to a wide array of intellectual influences. For more on this, read the article Indonesia's New Muslim Intellectuals in Religion Compass.

After leaving office, Gus Dur concentrated his efforts on promoting his own pluralist interpretation of Islam's civilisational legacy through lectures, publications and a think tank called the Wahid Institute.




Abdurrahman al-Dakhil Wahid was buried near his father and grandfather's shrines in his hometown Tebuireng, dstrict Jombang, with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presiding at the funeral ceremony.

Southeast Asia's confident Muslims

In his introductory remarks to the launch of his most recent publication Indonesia Riding: Islam, Democracy and the Rise of Indonesia as a Major Power, author Dr. Nasir Tamara made it a point to note that the appearance of 'Islam' as the first word in the book's subtitle was not a coincidence, but rather meant to underscore the significance of Islam in the recent political history of Indonesia. Tamara, a Sorbonne-educated scholar and leading Indonesian journalist, argues that the religion factor is a key constituent element of what he considers -- in spite of its ups and downs -- the success story of Indonesia's democratization process.


Indonesia Risingis the outcome of a research project entitled Moderate Islam in Indonesia, Indonesian Presidency under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which Tamara executed as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (INSEAS) in Singapore (Cf. also the commentary in the Financial Times of 9 July published under the same title). After the rocky presidencies of Abdurrahman Wahid (a.k.a. Gus Dur) and Megawati Sukarnoputri, and in spite of the scepticism of many when taking the disrupting activities and violent attacks by Muslim radicals into account, Tamara maintains that the policies of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) are starting to sort tangible effects.

In the opening pages of his book he backs this up by invoking the comment made by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton during her visit to Indonesia earlier this year that 'if you want to know if Islam, democracy, modernity and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia'. Tamara feels further strengthened in his claim of Indonesia's rising stature on the global scene by President Obama's decision to sent Secretary Clinton to Jakarta on her first international assessment mission - not to mention his own personal interest in things Indonesian dating back to the primary school years he spent there.

Although his own study focuses on Indonesia, amplifying its role as an exemplatory Muslim state, Tamara does note that the developments in that country are part of a much broader phenomenon affecting the Muslim world, as his visits to Morocco, Turkey, and -- yes -- Iran had shown him (the same countries I have singled out for another research project on the recent intellectual history of the Muslim world).

I believe Nasir Tamara's assertive position also forms parts of another more regional phenomenon: the growing self-confidence displayed by Southeast Asian Muslims. In a 2002 interview with Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, the current Secretary General of ASEAN and former Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs, Surin Pitsuwan (interesting in itself that a Muslim can serve as the chief diplomat of a Buddhist kingdom), stated that: 'For all Islam's history, Southeast Asia was considered a backwater. But the flows of globalization now need to be reversed. Islam must learn not from the Center but rather the periphery'. Two years later, the Malaysian Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Datu Seri Rais Yatim came out against the 'Arabisation' of Malay culture in an interview in the newspaper The Star, encouraging his countrymen to 'challenge those who condemn deep-rooted practices of the Malay community as UnIslamic'.


As the main protagonist of Tamara's narrative argued himself in a speech delivered at the LSE in March 2009, Indonesia has a bridge function to play, connecting the Muslim world, Asia and the West. Also during SBY's second term in office as president of the largest Muslim nation in the world, the eyes of those interested in alternative Islamic discourses will continue to focus on developments in Indonesia.