2.5 New opportunities for Islamist movements
President Habibie, who was appointed after Soeharto’s fall in 1998, announced the liberalisation of Indonesia’s political system (Mietzner, 2009:252).70 This represented a new change in direction from the New Order government that had run a very tightly controlled and centralised political system. This new political liberalisation partially resulted from the fact that Habibie was a civilian president who lacked strong support from the military, and thus needed support from the Muslim population and its various interest groups to retain his power (Mietzner, 2009). His policy created a political atmosphere conducive towards a free and democratic political system. The Habibie regime allowed all political and ideological groups to participate and compete in open political processes. As a result, numerous political parties with varying ideologies and objectives sprang up between June and August in 1998, only a month after the fall of the Soeharto regime in May (Hilmy, 2010).
69 The relation between Soeharto, the military and Islamists can also be found in Mietzner (2009) and Sidel (2006).
70 Habibie was the Vice President of the New Order government in 1997-1998. He replaced Soeharto as President when the latter resigned from his position in 1998 due to the severe economic and political crisis that had gripped Indonesia.
Islamist groups saw this new political system as a great opportunity to establish a variety of dakwah organisations and political parties with Islamism as their main ideology. These social organisations and political parties played a role in implementing their religious and political programmes and thus, in this era, the Islamist presence within the public sphere was much more obvious than it had been in the final period of the New Order. Their emergence indicated that they already had the agenda to be involved in public affairs and politics in either direct or indirect ways (Meitzner, 2009). Some of these Islamists engaged in political struggles through Islamic political parties such as the Star Crescent Party (PBB) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), while others did so through Islamic organisations such as FPI, HTI, MMI, the Communication Forum of Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’ah (FKAWJ), and the Indonesian Committee for Solidarity of the Islamic World (KISDI) (see Hilmy, 2010; Platzdasch, 2009; Latif, 2008).
The afore-mentioned Islamic non-government organisations were very active in developing their dakwah programmes, primarily in campaigning for the formalisation of shari’ah in the state. For instance, the main aim of the establishment of the FPI soon after the collapse of the regime in 1998 was to conduct dakwah. They claim to seek ‘to command the truth and prevent sin or al-amr bi al-ma’ruf wa an-nahy ‘an al-munkar’ (Bamualim, 2011:272). The founder of the FPI–Habib Rizieq Syihab – stated that ‘it was primarily founded for the purpose of supporting the implementation of shari’ah’ (Bamualim, 2011:273). The FPI approached members of parliament and Islamic political parties to implement shari’ah and other Islamic teachings in public life, and their dakwah movements within Indonesia’s public sphere became highly visible, being frequently covered by the national media. They attracted the media and people’s attention because public
places that were considered as being against shari’ah (such as cafes and night clubs) were attacked and destroyed by the violent and puritanical FPI (Bamualim, 2011). In addition, other Islamic groups – such as the Ahmadiyah, Syi’ah, and the Islam Liberal Network71 – also became the targets of their public, disciplinary form of dakwah, as these groups were regarded as being ‘deviants’ and ‘non-Islamic’. The FPI believe that all Muslims are obliged to implement shari’ah in every aspect of their lives.
Like the FPI, the Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) was re-launched publicly in this transitional era.72 The spokesperson of HTI – Ismail Yusanto – reported that the HTI has conducted dakwah activities and programmes since the 1980s, but because of the limitations and regulations that the New Order regime imposed during the 1980s, this revolutionary but non-violent organisation arranged their programmes secretly for their loyal members during this period (see Section 2.4), only beginning public activities after the fall of the authoritarian regime (Jamhari and Jahroni, 2004). The core idea behind the establishment of the Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia was the same as that behind Hizb ut-Tahrir per se – to re-build the Islamic caliphate (khilafah Islamiyah) (see Taji-Farouki, 1996). Masdar Hilmy --who focuses his study on three Islamic organizations in Indonesia, namely (1) MMI; (2) HTI; and (3) PKS --, categorises the HTI as utopian Islamism because “they are obsessed with establishing an ideal state of being and an ideal community based on religion. Yet utopia is more than mere imagination”. (2010:7-8). The HTI believes that Islam, as practiced by the Prophet and his companions (sahabat), is the system that should be
71The Islam Liberal Network (JIL) represents the most outspoken critical opposition to a literalist interpretation of Islam. Research on this organization has been conducted by Ali Nurdin (2005).
72 HTI is a political movement founded in 1982. It connected to the international Hizbut Tahrir founded by Taqiuddin al-Nabhani (1909-1977) (see Hilmy, 2010).
implemented by all Muslims in the world, including in Indonesia (Hilmy, 2010).
Another Islamic organisation that was founded after Soeharto’s fall was the Communication Forum of Ahl Sunnah wa Al Jama’ah (FKAWJ). FKAWJ was founded by Ja’far Umar Talib in February 1999, and its creation was motivated by the political and economic crisis in 1998. The forum promoted Islamic doctrines, in particular shari’ah, as the solution for this multi-layered crisis. FKAWJ was also concerned with supporting Muslims who were engaged in conflict with Christians in areas like Ambon (Hilmy, 2010; Jamhari and Jahroni, 2004).
In August 1999 Abu Bakar Ba’asyir (b. 1938) launched MMI, which was based on his ideology. He was widely known in Indonesia for actively opposing the government for being secular and anti-Islam, and he was banned from forming any political organisations by the Soeharto government because of his criticisms of them (Hilmy, 2010). After this, he left for Malaysia, claiming that Indonesia was no longer conducive to his dakwah movement. Soon after the fall of the Soeharto regime, Ba’asyir returned to Indonesia and established a new organisation for continuing his dakwah movement, and he criticises the government for its ‘secular’
status to this day (Hilmy, 2010). The previous government, led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004-2014), considered Ba’asyir to be involved in many radical Islam movements,73 and maintained that they had enough evidence to prove his involvement in terrorist actions.
Although these organisations have different characters, they share the dakwah
73 On 6 June 2011, Ba’asyir was re-sentenced to 15 years in prison, being convicted of supporting a Jihadi training camp was actively involved in al-Qaeda activities in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia. (www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/08/09, accessed on 5 January 2013).
tendency to Islamise the state, from promoting the formalisation of shari’ah to adopting a literal understanding of Islam. They believe that Muslims should practise only the pure and pristine form of Islam implemented by the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions (Salaf), and thus use Islam in the Indonesian public sphere to promote this end.
As Meuleman (2011) has pointed out, a variety of dakwah movements and dakwah activities performed by Islamic organisations address different groups of Muslims.74 Nevertheless, according to Azyumardi Azra (2010), these organisations exert only a limited influence among Indonesian Muslims. The new type of dakwah movement which is more active and aggressive has attracted only small numbers of Muslims, who are generally young and from urban and secular educational backgrounds.
Older organisations, such as the Muhammadiyah, PERSIS (Persatuan Islam) and the NU, have very strong ties with their large numbers of followers.
The new Islamic organisations above are only some examples of institutions, organisations and political parties that were established in Indonesia after the fall of the Soeharto regime. These groups have sought to create a better climate for their political, social and religious expressions based on their religious interpretations.
They thus came to regard the Habibie period as the time for them to speak up for their rights and freedoms, and did so through their organisations and political parties. These organisations competed, not only with each other in spreading their dakwah messages and influence in the public sphere, but also with old dakwah organisations such as the Muhammadiyah, PERSIS, and the NU. Moreover, they not
74 See Johan Meuleman’s article “Dakwah, Competition for Authority and Development” (2011).
only competed in seeking sympathetic ears from Indonesian Muslims in general, but also from the international Muslim community (Meuleman, 2011).
The Tarbiyah movement, to which we turn our attention in Chapter 4, was one of the organisations that took advantage of the 1998 change of power as a political opportunity to build an Islamist party, which it named the Prosperous Party (PK). (It then changed its name to the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in 2004.) This more democratic political setting provided the movement and many others with an enlarged public space in which to advance its religious and political views and communicate its dakwah messages to Indonesian audiences.
2.6 Conclusion
The idea of Islamism arose among revivalist Muslims in a period in which Indonesian leaders were competing to establish a nation-state. The rising voices of those campaigning for ‘secular’ nation-states in the pre-independence period caused the crystallisation of Islamist ideas. Islamic leaders were concerned with the place of shari’ah and Islamic identity in the state, and inevitably there were contests between secularist and Islamic groups over the appropriate form that the state should take.
The emergence of Islamism in Indonesia had a similar pattern to that which it showed within other parts of the Islamic world. In Turkey and Egypt, for instance, Islamism appeared as a response that revivalist groups took to the modernisation programmes of the government, which they perceived to be replacing shari’ah with Western political, legal and economic systems.
The relationship between Islam and the state has continued to be the most important of issues contested by Islamists, from the Old Order through to the New Order government. The Islamists remain committed to the necessity of applying shari’ah as state law and this, indeed, has become their main dakwah message. For Islamists, the formalisation of shari’ah is regarded as a Muslim political right in Indonesia.
According to Islamists, this is because Muslims represent the majority of the Indonesian population and, as such, have made the most significant contributions to the development of the country since its early history. Islamists believe that in the colonial period, Islam became the main symbol of resistance to the oppressors.
Many experts, such as Noer (1978), have asserted that the pivotal dakwah message of the Islamic movement in the colonial period was the call for Indonesian Muslims to be united under the concept of Islamic nationhood and to fight against the colonial state.
Islamist figures preferred to use a cultural approach to deliver their dakwah messages under the repressive New Order government as they were forbidden to conduct their dakwah in the political domain. The government was suspicious of them, regarding Islamism in any form as a threat to the Indonesian modern nation-state. For this reason, many Islamist figures not only changed their political approaches, but also transformed the dakwah message to individual piety in place of the formalisation of shari’ah. However, the Islamic social organisations established by these Islamic figures received more space within the public sphere when the New Order government needed their political support to counter the threats from military figures that they faced at the end of the 1980s.
Islamist ideologies were developed and implemented more thoroughly within the
more democratic political system that emerged after the downfall of the New Order in Indonesia in 1998, with the ‘reform era’75 marking the beginning of the democratisation process in Indonesia. In this period, many significant changes in Indonesia’s social and political systems were brought about through the introduction of political policies that supported the emergence of new organisations and political parties.
Democracy provided people with freedom of expression, and Islamists saw it as an opportunity to play a more significant role in public life. As a result, many Islamic organisations and parties emerged in this period, including the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). The PKS was established by the Tarbiyah community, which had existed since the beginning of the 1980s, and believed that Islam should govern both individuals’ ways of lives and behaviours and the running of the state. The PKS wanted to implement shari’ah, not only in relation to the social and cultural aspects of lives, but also within the political arena of Indonesia. They thus decided to pursue the Islamisation of Indonesia from the individual, family, and societal level through to the state level.
75 In the history of Indonesia, ‘the reform era’ (Indonesian: reformasi) is the term widely used for the post 1998 era. It was called the ‘reform’ era due to the more liberal social and political conditions that it introduced into Indonesia.