REUTERS, Sunday November 25, 2001 3:20 PM
Little room for extremism in Indonesian Islam
By Dean Yates
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's tolerant brand of Islam has passed the test of U.S.
attacks on Afghanistan largely intact despite images of burning American flags,
proving the nation will not become a breeding ground for Muslim extremism.
Analysts said radical groups failed to generate support among mainstream Muslims
for their small but vocal street protests -- which fizzled even before Washington scaled
back its air strikes -- because Indonesians had little stomach for politicised Islam.
Since the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began one week ago there has barely
been a peep from the radicals.
The chance they could achieve their aim of making Indonesia an Islamic state in the
next few decades was almost nil, while a decades-old aim of imposing Islamic sharia
law across the world's fourth most populous nation was just as unlikely, analysts
said.
Radical Muslims also posed little threat to President Megawati Sukarnoputri because
most Indonesians were sick of instability and did not object to being ruled by a
woman.
"By and large I think Indonesia's Muslims as a whole have passed the test,"
Azyumardi Azra, rector of the State Institute for Islamic Studies in Jakarta,
Indonesia's most prestigious religious learning institution, told Reuters.
Analysts said while tests of tolerance would recur and Muslim radicals would again
exploit weak law enforcement, they pointed out that small hardline groups were hardly
a new phenomenon in Indonesia, popping up then fading from view.
Talk Indonesia could become a base for pan-Islamic extremists was "a gross
misinterpretation of Indonesian Islam", Azra said.
Reports the al Qaeda network of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden had trained up
to 3,000 multinational fighters in Indonesia also strained credibility, analysts said.
Washington has blamed bin Laden for the September 11 attacks on the United
States.
Asked if the world's most populous Muslim country could become an Islamic state in
the decades to come, Harold Crouch of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group
(ICG) and an Indonesian expert said: "It's not worth thinking about."
ISLAMIC SMILING FACE TO REMAIN
The noisy protests and hollow threats against foreigners did put Megawati in a bind,
but she eventually criticised U.S. action mainly in response to general Indonesian
opposition to the raids.
There are many reasons why Indonesian Islam should retain its so-called smiling
face.
Islam was not imposed here by force but melded with local customs during centuries
of contact with Arab traders -- especially on the main island of Java -- thus depriving
radicals of a cultural base to exploit for hardline political purposes.
Since independence, issues such as an Islamic identity have never really held centre
stage in national policymaking.
Despite their penchant for opportunism since the downfall of autocratic President
Suharto in 1998, politicians in Jakarta have not exploited bloody conflicts such as
those in the Moluccas islands that are now split along Muslim, Christian lines.
Indonesia's turmoil of the last four years has also created a large pool of disaffected
youth, but only small radical groups have emerged and those have failed to attract a
mass following.
About the only impact Islam has had on national policy in recent years has been on
issues such as prostitution and whether bars can serve beer during Ramadan -- hardly
major issues.
And an Islamic revival that gathered pace throughout Indonesia in the 1990s has
manifested itself mainly through lifestyle changes such as greater attendance at the
mosque.
The evidence? The three main exclusive Islamic parties won only 14 percent of the
total vote in the 1999 general election from the last democratic poll in 1955 when the
top Muslim party won 21 percent. Few expect much change at the next poll in 2004.
ACCEPTANCE OF NON-MUSLIMS
Yet some foreign commentators had talked about the "Talibanisation of Indonesian
Islam", Azra said.
Analysts blamed such fears on recent TV images of radicals on the streets. However,
Jakarta also waffled over its response to the U.S. raids while some moderate Muslim
leaders stayed mum, perhaps because they were afraid of being branded unIslamic.
While most Indonesians were against the bombing, the crux is the vast majority do
not want the nation run along Islamic lines.
"...I think there is really a conscious and sub-conscious commitment to the unity of
Indonesia and there is a fundamental acceptance by Muslims of non-Muslims here,"
said German-born Catholic priest Franz Magnis-Suseno, a philosopher who first
visited Indonesia 40 years ago and became a citizen in 1977.
Radical Indonesian Islam is mainly fed by local issues.
Even the head of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), which spearheaded the recent
anti-American protests, said their overall campaign was to mainly purify the way of life
in Indonesia.
He said the group wanted Indonesia to cut ties with Washington over its alleged
interference in the country but added this demand existed before the Afghanistan
attacks began.
"Our disappointment with America has already been significant and existed for a long
time," FPI leader Muhammad Rezieq said.
Analysts added the Moluccas conflict had to be viewed more as a product of local
political and economic injustice than a war of religion, although it had since become
drawn along those lines.
Crouch added there was no chance Muslim paramilitaries called Laskar Jihad, who
have sent fighters to the Moluccas, could expand their influence to Java for example.
"I remember writing to people in Brussels (the ICG) and said 'look if Laskar Jihad went
into Java villages doing what they are doing in the Moluccas they would get chased
out'," he said.
To Magnis-Suseno, Indonesia's religious inclusiveness was on display last week at
the opening of an Islamic cultural centre.
A Muslim intellectual at the Jakarta event who was asked impromptu to open the
venue declined. So organisers representing 200 devout Muslims asked
Magnis-Suseno to do the honours.
"Where would this happen that a Catholic priest would open an Islamic culture centre
and with great approval?" he said.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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