Fundamentalism growing in Indonesia

Updated August 24, 2010 12:45:23

Human rights groups in Indonesia have voiced concern over recent incidents of intolerance and increased violence against minority faiths.

Several hundred Indonesians of various faiths rallied in Jakarta earlier this month, demanding the president do more to protect freedom of worship and to punish hardline groups who turn to violence. They condemned the government's lack of action in handling the matter, after a fifth incident, this time, an attack on a church in West Java. It said there were 28 violations of religious freedom up to July this year, up from 18 for the whole of 2009 .. pointing to a rising trend of religious intolerance in recent years.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Ulil Abshar-Abdallah, deputy director of the Freedom Institute in Jakarta and co-founder of the Liberal Islam Network. He is in Australia as a guest of the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University

LAM: Ulil Abshar, first of all, welcome to Radio Australia.

ABSHAR: Thank you.

LAM: In your view, are incidents of religious intolerance on the rise in Indonesia?

ABSHAR: It is, it is on the rise recently and when I left Jakarta there was a debate in Jakarta about the closure of church in Bekasi. And the closure was provoked and initiated by members of Islamic radical organisations that take a name of Forum Umat Islam - the Umat Islam Forum. So yes, it is on the rise and it's our concern today about the lack of the decisive step by the government to stop these people from doing violence.

LAM: So on the ground level do you find that people are becoming a bit more intolerant or are these vocal groups do they have a higher profile and therefore, you see more reports?

ABSHAR: I think the thing is that in general we are witnessing in our country the rise of conservatism in religious life in general. So that's I think what is behind this …

LAM: This is rising conservatism across the faiths, not just in Islam?

ABSHAR: Across the faiths but in Islam it is more visible than in other faiths, and it's manifest in various forms. Hostility and animosity towards Christian and Muslim people for example. And I think should cite here a very interesting illustration - in 2005, the Council of Indonesian Ulamas issued a fatwa or religious edict in which the Council said that the ideas of pluralism that underpins the inter-faith dialogue in Indonesia is not Islamic. So I think this is an indication where we can see the conservatism that is backed by the Council of Ulama.

LAM: And the government has not come out with a statement to counter that?

ABSHAR: I think since we are in democracy today we can see that politicians are afraid of running against ….

LAM: So there are political considerations here?

ABSHAR: Yeah.

LAM: For instance, I understand that groups like Nahdlatul Ulama N-U .. they've stood up against recent incidents by Islamic extremists. Do you think that the state is maintaining a silence towards these radical groups?

ABSHAR: Yeah I think Sen, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah have stood very clearly against this kind of violence. But I think what is lacking here is a more aggressive initiative by the Islamic mainline organisation to stop those people from doing this violence.

LAM: You're listening to Connect Asia on Radio Australia, our guest this morning is Ulil Abshar-Abdallah, co-founder of the liberal Islam Network, and currently, deputy director of the Freedom Institute in Jakarta. Ulil would you then say that this newfound democracy in Indonesia, which is just about ten years old, that it's a two-edge sword, that on the one hand you have greater freedom of speech and you have a much freer media, but on the other hand, you also have radical groups becoming more vocal and politicians politicising these issues?

ABSHAR: Those are two faces of democracy that we've having in Indonesia today but don't forget that there are also some good news in Indonesia. For example, the PKS, the Prosperous and Justice Party, this is one of the Islamist parties that is now becoming more inclusive. So I think democracy also has a good effect in moderating some Islamist organisations and political parties. There are still some radical groups on the fringe, yeah.

LAM: What about Islam itself? Indonesia of course is the world's biggest Islamic country, with the largest Islamic population, and Indonesia has always been a beacon of Islamic moderation. Do you see signs of that changing, even say, along the fringes, or are you fairly optimistic and fairly confident that the moderate, the voice of moderation will prevail?

ABSHAR: I think I'm very confident that democracy will bring in more moderate Islam in the future. And although still we have some fringe of Islamic radicalism in the margins, but the main line politics is moving toward more inclusivism and moderation in general. So I'm very confident about a good future for Indonesia.

LAM: What about radical groups like the Islamic Defenders Front, and they see themselves as the guardians of public morality and shutting down nightclubs and secular activities and things like that? Do you find Islamic Indonesians, or Indonesian Muslims standing up to these groups and saying, this is not real Islam?

ABSHAR: I think the general public, the Muslim society are not in agreement with the ideology of the FPI, of this radical group.

LAM: There's a conspiracy of silence though, they don't speak out against it?

ABSHAR: The problem is that the majority are silent, that's the problem. So the challenge for people like us, the progressive and the liberal Indonesia is to stimulate and provoke people to speak out against this kind of ideology and movement.

LAM: Well Indonesia's pesantrens and religious schools, the Madrassas, they hit the headlines almost ten years ago now, with Abu Bakar Bashir, the prominent Islamic cleric and the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiah. Have the nature of the pesantrens changed do you think since Abu Bakar Bashir, that they no longer just provide education to children from poor families, that they're now increasingly radicalised? Or do you think it's reversed somewhat?

ABSHAR: If you look at the public opinion of Muslim society today pesantran, Bashir is like a joke. So Bashir looks large outside Indonesia but if you look at the Muslim society in Indonesia I mean, I mean Bashir is like a joke and...

LAM: But the pesantrens still serve a very real purpose?

ABSHAR: The pesantrens are still operating but Ngruki (Bashir's school) it's just a... it doesn't …umm...

LAM: It's just one school?

ABSHAR: Yeah, it doesn't represent the pesantren in general, yeah.