“Moreover, I came to realize that the idea of an Islamic state was completely historically fabricated. There is no authentic sharia basis for that claim [of Islamic state]”. By Syafii Maarif Chairman, Muhammadiyah movement 1998-2005.
Abstract
Several faith-based Muslim organizations in the world have been transforming into more progressive socio-religious movements. What are the factors that explain these progressive changes? I will attempt here to discuss these changes through a comparative historical analysis of the two of the Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations: the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU founded in 1926) and the Muhammadiyah (founded in 1912) with commonalities to each other and very briefly to hizmet social movement that had originated (1966) in Turkey. It concludes that the NU was able to successfully reconcile its socio-religious positions due to the presence of a strong charismatic moral authority leader, and the tolerant institutional culture within the organization. However, socio-religious reforms within the Muhammadiya were not all fully reconciled. Even if Muhammadiyah movement too has, in my view, transformed in numerous ways with constructive contributions, it failed to bring about an entire organizational consolidation despite its Rational-legal authoritative/ centralized/ hierarchical leadership, intellectual talents, and many achievements but missing a strong charismatic moral leader, tolerant institutional culture and reconciling opposition. The analysis here does make theoretical contributions on the role of socio-religious-intellectual leadership within Islamic movements and the likelihood of Islamic groups to adopt inclusive political norms such as democracy, religion-state separation, and tolerance towards all religious minorities.
While discussions on the relationship of Islam and Democracy have been ongoing in the Muslim countries around the world over the decades, Indonesia has naturally attracted world’s attention given its close to 90 percent of 250 million people being Muslim, making it by far the world’s largest Muslim population and greater than Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries combined.
Terrorism is generally seen as an exception in Indonesia despite the sporadic attacks by Muslim extremes, the worst one occurring in 2002 that had claimed close to 200 lives on the island of Bali. There have been harassments of Indonesia’s Ahmadi Muslims and other minority communities by some extremist Mullahs. Freedom of religion for all (Muslims and non-Muslims) has to be ensured in all Muslim countries as required by true Islam and even the Ahmadiyya and other minority community leaders in Indonesia have not lost hopes in that country and have admired the Indonesian political leadership.
Religious tolerance has been the norm historically in Indonesia from the time of Sukarno (1901-70) and Indonesian independence since 1945. For many people, Southeast Asian Islam has served as an open-minded, gentler version of Islam that has existed since the independence. The country is at this time gradually progressing (like Turkey) as a role model for the radically changing other Muslim societies of the Arab Spring and South Asia. Many Muslim majority nations could learn a lot from Indonesia’s “spirit of tolerance,” as the US President Barack Obama, had put it during his 2010 visit to Indonesia.
Exceptional and individual servant leadership type of Joko Widodo widely known as “Jokowi,” (a very popular governor of the regional megalopolis district of Jakarta), and the like can and do make a difference given political opportunities to serve as heads of Muslim Nations. Such a leadership would positively impact the mindset of fanatic Muslims in Indonesia and in other Muslim nations not uniformly but sporadically only.
Islamic radicalism has been on the decline in Indonesia if we look at the relationship of Islam and politics in Indonesia historically over the decades. It has been so actually due to faith-based social and transformative Indonesian movements named above that are like hizmet (Gulen) Turkish movement that after transforming Turkish civil society for several decades has now become a global social movement.
Indonesia has had public and intellectual founding leadership and non-political two very large social movements discussed here. These movements have been reforming Indonesian civil society for decades but have not yet globalized. These trends and efforts have been successful in keeping the Indonesian state affairs separate from religion along with a broader common good.
The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the Muhammadiyah movements are the most important and influential socio-religious movements involved in this process of liberation and transformation in Indonesia. Their socio-educational strategies of enlightening the minds and hearts of the common people have contributed significantly not only to Indonesian independence, but also to imbuing spiritual meaning into the future of a free Indonesia. Both movements also had inherited the spirit of the socio-religious resistance to colonialism. Thus, their philosophy is that the life under foreign or domestic exploitation is not a life of honor and dignity. And for this reason, the individual and collective freedom is absolutely sacred, and every citizen must fight to achieve it at any cost.
These movements had not only helped support the independence movement, but also laid the foundations for Indonesian democracy and civil society decades before Indonesia declared its independence, they put forth in their organizational constitutions the right of majority to elect their top leadership, while embarking on educational endeavors to educate Indonesians who could lead Indonesian society in the future. Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), their mass institutions and more than 30 million and 40 million members, respectively, operate unbelievable numbers of charitable tasks/projects.
Until now, both movements have established and fostered all over Indonesia tens of thousands of schools/colleges/universities, from the level of earlier education for kids to highest learning institutes, thousands of hospitals and clinics, numerous orphanages, houses for the elderly, youth organizations, women’s movements and other humanitarian institutions and services. Indeed, there have been hundreds upon hundreds of Indonesian scholars, intellectuals, politicians, social workers, and civil servants who attended, if not graduated, from their schools/educational system. This is the way through which both movements have given a substantial meaning to Indonesian nationhood.
Organizationally, these faith-base movements have adopted a strategy of keeping out of practical politics, thus enabling its members to actively and creatively concentrate their works towards educating the masses, helping the weak, and offering spiritual values to safeguard and shape the course of modern Indonesian civil society and culture. This has enthroned the Muhammadiyah and NU both as the leading socio-religious movements in the world with a potential eventually to become global social movements like the hizmet (Gulen) movement. I would say that in terms of their gigantic socio-religio-educational networks/institutions, that with exception perhaps of hizmet/Ahmadiyya social global movements there are no other social and educational Islamic movements in the world comparable to these two. Ahmadiyya Islamic movement that is a global socio-religious movement (founded in 1889 in India) worth mentioning here because it has been unfortunately alienated by mainstream Muslim majority countries due to reconcilable (in my opinion) interpretational differences when there is an urgent and desperate need for all enlightened Islamic movements to net-work for reuniting ummah Islamiya and the entire human family (ummah Insaniya).
All Muslim communities around the globe are undoubtedly needing faith-based, social, peace promoting and transformative (individual and collective) movements creating think tanks. Such think tanks with a paradigm of new servant leadership will naturally rise to all levels including the top slots of all Muslim nations in the future presenting like Turkey and Indonesia today as models of love, tolerance and unity on the global map.
To begin with, Indonesia, since Sukarno’s era, had been a state based on an Indonesian national ideology and philosophy called “Pancasila” (Five Principles). These five principles were: (1) Belief in one supreme God or monotheism; (2) Just and civilized humanism; (3) The Unity of Indonesia; (4) Democracy; and (5) Social Justice.
Living harmoniously in the religiously pluralistic Indonesia had only become possible, when two conditions were met: (1) Pancasila as state ideology was whole-heartedly accepted and supported by the Indonesian Muslims, the largest religious groups in the country; and (2) Indonesia as a country was governed democratically.
Thanks to the Reformation Movement (Gerakan Reformasi) that had brought an end to Suharto’s dictatorship in May 1998, the two conditions had begun to be met again in the post-Suharto Indonesia. There is no stronger indication of this than the rejection by the majority of Muslim politicians in the newly and democratically-elected People’s Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat or MPR) of the “Sharia amendment” in 2002. Although some politicians who came from Islam-based political parties supported the amendment, and they only constituted about 15% minority of the total membership of MPR.
In Indonesia’s history, this was the first and the foremost democratic decision in which Indonesian people (including majority of Muslim politicians in the People’s Consultative Assembly fully and heartedly) accepted Pancasila as a state ideology and rejected the Jakarta Charter for the state to implement Islamic law and/or become “Islamic State”. This happened because of the changes that had been taking place over the many decades in Muslim intellectual thought and practice in Indonesia providing further Islamic justification for the acceptance of pluralistic and democratic Pancasila.
Through lectures, writings, and actions, the three most enlightened and influential Muslim thinkers and reformers in Indonesian contemporary history advocated democracy and delegitimized Islamist political parties. Unlike in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, but very much like Gulen and Nursi movements that too had begun in Turkey in 1960s. The Indonesian reform movements have always been through rather large organizations as discussed here. Intellectuals such as Abdurrahman Wahid (1940-2009), Ahmad Syafii Maarif (born 1935) and Nurcholish Madjid (1939-2005) were Muslim leaders/intellectuals who chaired and or supported these large organizations. They spread their inclusive and pluralistic ideas to Indonesian Muslim society through these organizations. Wahid did it through Nahdlatul Ulama (40 million members), Maarif through Muhammadiyah (30 million members), and Madjid through Islamic Student Association and its alumnae (over 10 million members). Madjid also fully supported Maarif in his efforts with Muhammadiya.
Both of these large Indonesian organizations were meant to provide the backbone of a tolerant civil society and public /charitable works as discussed here, which they have supported over the decades. Both have had connections to political parties through these prominent public intellectuals/scholars who had consistently spoken out for democracy, tolerance and pluralism and against an Islamic theocratic state.
Syafi’i Ma’arif, the former chair of Muhammadiya, had made pluralist arguments, grounded in the Koran, against blind obedience to Islamic classical jurisprudence. Abdurrahman Wahid, the former chair of NU, for decades advocated respect for religious pluralism, and was pivotal in mobilizing democratic opposition to the authoritarian leader Suharto. A third Islamic intellectual, Nurcholish Madjid, called for the “de-sacralizing” of politics in the 1970’s, advocated genuine multi-party democracy in the 1990’s, and personally urged Suharto to step down in 1998.
Madjid developed his support for the modern ideas of justice, equality, tolerance, pluralism, consensus, opposition, and popular sovereignty from Islamic doctrines and traditions. He argued that any ideas developed by Muslims that contradicted these modern social and political ideas should be subjected to historical and constructive criticism. By taking this approach and stating it publicly, coupled by his being an effective writer and orator, he became an important agent of Islamic cultural change among his contemporaries. He had been, for decades, a major force in developing a modern Islamic discourse and political practice in Indonesia. Madjid rejected the idea of Islamic theocratic state. He argued that for many Muslims, Pancasila was, from the Qur’anic perspective, a common term (kalimah sawâ’) between different religious people that God commands to seek and find. He quoted a verse from the Qur’an (3: 64) addressed to the Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh): “Say: O people of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, lords and patrons, other than God….”Thus the principle of monotheism (tawhid), for Madjid, was the common term of all divinely inspired religions. But he quickly added that the adherents of different religions could also agree to a set of common terms that included more values than that of monotheism alone. “And the more values that the adherents of different religions could agree upon as common terms, the better it should be,” he wrote. This means, to have five common terms between different religions or factions, such as Pancasila for Indonesian people, was better than to have just one term. In that way Pancasila became a firm basis for the development of interfaith dialogue, tolerance and pluralism in Indonesia. Madjid was known for his secularization motto, “Islam, Yes, Islamic party, no,” which meant that Muslims did not have to support any one particular political party using Islamic name or symbols.
Madjid ideas found cordial support from his close colleague Abdurrahman Wahid (1940 –2009), another major agent of the modernization of Muslim thought and political culture in Indonesia. In fact, given his background and social placement, Wahid’s agency has had perhaps been even more decisive contributor than that of Madjid’s. Wahid was a grandson of the founder of NU Hasyim Asy’ari; (The NU- Nahdlatul Ulama founded in 1926 has been for decades one of the largest independent faith-based social but non-political movement in Indonesia. The estimates of the NU membership range are as high as 40 million or perhaps higher). NU has been (like Nurco and Hizmet were in Turkey and Muhammadiya) acting as a charitable and socially transforming movement, helping to fill in the numerous and serous shortcomings of the Indonesian government in the civil society over the many decades; it has been funding schools, hospitals, and organized communities into more coherent civic groups in order to help combat poverty and ignorance. Abdurrahman Wahid was son of Wahid Hasyim, the long-term NU Chairman. In 1984, Abdurrahman Wahid, inherited the leadership of NU from his father, and he was later elected President of Indonesia in 1999. In addition to his own intellectual Islamic thought and teachings, Wahid had also been known for his close attention to Western intellectual, civilizational and artistic tradition. Although he was less inclined than Madjid in anchoring his ideas in Islamic teachings and tradition, his voice strongly resonated in and was widely accepted in NU circles, importantly because of his social standing and background.
For decades, Wahid’s major concern had been with plurality and tolerance in the context of the modern Indonesian nation-state. He argued that in order for Indonesia to be a modern nation-state, and for the sake of the public interest and the core values of Islamic teachings; every citizen in the country must be treated equally regardless of his or her religious affiliation. Since Indonesia is a religiously pluralistic nation, in which Islam is only one among many other religions, treating someone as a second-class citizen simply because he or she is non-Muslim was entirely intolerable. For this reason, Wahid had argued, putting Islam and other religions as complementary, not antagonistic, was necessary for the sake of the public interest. He also believed that Islam could indeed thrive spiritually in the Indonesian multicultural state that is not formally based on Islam. He wrote, “NU adheres to a conception of such multicultural nation state that was in accordance with the Pancasila and the Constitution of 1945.”NU had become the pioneer in ideological affairs. This has been the case even though throughout the entire Islamic world there is still a problem between nationalism and Islam. All the Saudi writers consider nationalism a form of secularism. They do not yet comprehend that nationalism such as in Indonesia was not hard-core secularist, but rather soft secular that respected the role of religion. During the New Order (Suharto) period, Wahid’s idea of an inclusive Islam led him to support Pancasila as the sole foundation of Indonesian politics. And under his leadership, NU was the first major faith-based social movement and organization that had accepted Pancasila as the final state ideology. Moreover, NU declared that Pancasila is its organizational foundation, a decision that had a powerful effect on NU’s role in national politics. Among others, under his leadership, NU withdrew from partisan politics and declined its support for PPP, an Islam-based political party. And in 1984, NU returned to the 1926 khittah (“the guideline of 1926,” the year it was born), meaning that it became once again a purely social and faith based movement, but not a political movement. Under this principle, as if echoing Madjid’s secularization motto, the members of NU were free to participate and vote for any political party, regardless of its religious affiliation. Since then, NU members can be found in many parties, Islamic and secular, including the NU-based PKB political party that had rejected the “Sharia amendment” in 2002. What many Islamophobes around the world were relieved about was the fact that Indonesia, not unlike Turkey, did not descend into an exclusivist Islamic state. Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia and the Muslim world as a whole too in my view will not be endangered or destined for any theocracy ever in the long run.
Indonesia’s Muhammadiyah movement was founded in 1912 as a Rational-legal authority based on achievements and intellectual talents. It has had somewhat intolerant culture and strong opposition at times due to its centralized hierarchy although has had passive secularity and a relatively peaceful State-Religion relationship.
Syafii Maarif was chairman of Muhammadiya Movement from 1998 and held the post until 2005. Very early months of his chairmanship of Muhammadiyah, he was deeply concerned by the uncertain political situation in Indonesia after the collapse of Suharto’s regime. But gradually, learning from his two colleagues and contemporaries, his self-confidence was sustained until the end of his term in 2005. What he was concerned about most during that critical early period was to help save the nation from bankruptcy, morally and economically. Through active and dynamic interfaith dialogues and cooperation, his self-confidence to lead Muhammadiya grew stronger than ever before despite the fact that early on the contributions made by the religious leaders were not so great, but at the moral level, he became sure, about having done meaningfully enough things for the nation.
He also had founded a Maarif Institute for Culture and Humanity before his retirement from Muhammadiya for better goals/objectives and for the accomplishment of brighter future of Indonesia. The institute seeks Indonesia that is free from any religious zealots; it is committed to envision the future of the nation where democratic and pluralistic values are honored and respected by all citizens regardless of their historical and religious background. Indonesia is the home for all, though the Muslims are the majority of the population.
About the Muslim-Christian relations in Indonesia, he felt like his colleagues that the relationship would become more conducive and fruitful as the time passes. Of course, there have been some misunderstandings between the two at the grass-roots level, but in general, the interfaith cooperation has shown its very positive and constructive trends in recent years. He had further assured that the future shape of Muslim-Christian relations would be full of the spirit of human brotherhood under the philosophy of Pancasila!
He always wanted to see the implementation of the moral principles of the sharia as are enshrined in the realms of justice, human brotherhood, democracy, tolerance, and pluralism. Under Pancasila, Muslims have enough space and opportunity to achieve all of these objectives. Islam can accept the concept of modernity under the control of the prophetic transcendental values.
Conclusion
Indonesian democratic and evolving process is young but growing dynamically. Despite the problems confronting the Indonesian government today, it has been successfully sustaining its economic progress, curbing the unemployment rate, reforming the legal system, and building its infrastructure.
During the first five years since the 1998 and fall of Indonesia’s autocratic President Suharto after 32 years, Indonesia has had three presidents—Bacharuddin Yusuf Habibie (from 1998–99 of Golkar political party), Abdurrahman Wahid (from 1999 to 2001 of National Awakening Party), and Megawati Sukarnoputri (from 2001–04 Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle) —all of them took power by democratic elections won by the secular (non-religious) parties. The people of Indonesia had enjoyed freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of information, checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government, and a depoliticized military. The military, in Indonesia had then and rightly decided to let its influence be handled through retired generals in the political sphere, thereby isolating the serving officers from the politics. The election of a retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY- of Democratic Party) as a president came about in the eventual culmination of that process by 2004 and his reelection for a second term in 2009 to the present. This should serve as an example for Pakistan, Egypt and other autocratic Muslims countries.
All of these political parties have had a great commitment for democracy and Indonesian pluralism. On the other hand, Islamic political parties have been declining. According to the recent survey released by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Indonesian Muslims are keeping their preference to secular parties for the next general election (2014).
In spite of such an optimist views, there are still two big challenges that Indonesian democracy is facing: corruption and some intolerance. Over the past decade, the Indonesian government has been fighting against the corruption. An independent organization called Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK) was set up and has been working hard and diligently to bring those involved in corruption to justice. Hundreds of those caught in corruption scandals have been detained and hundreds more are in waiting.
Meanwhile, intolerant behaviors have periodically threatened the unity of the country seriously. Fanatic Islamic groups have been the most serious danger for pluralism and harmony in the country. Indonesian governments have worked very hard to curb the radical and terrorist groups and approached the moderate Muslims to fight against Islamic extremes. If the Indonesian people and government can overcome these two challenges, the country will most likely become a globally honored role model for the Muslim democracies.
