News of two gay men being publicly whipped in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh has sparked concerns that Indonesia’s long-vaunted “tolerant” Islam is turning fundamentalist. Islam in Indonesia is in a process of change, and a more fundamentalist version of the faith is increasingly prominent. The “Aceh whippings”, however, might be misleading.
Aceh was the first place in the south-east Asian archipelago to receive Islam, and the province is colloquially known as “Mecca’s veranda”. However, until relatively recently, while Acehnese Muslims were devout, they were far from fundamentalist in their outlook.
This more inclusive version of Islam reflected the region’s extensive and varied external influences as well as an older matrilineal heritage. Some Acehnese Muslims, including many ulama (Islamic scholars), however, have always followed the basic precepts of their faith.
As Aceh’s separatist war was at its peak in 2001, the Jakarta government introduced what it called “special autonomy” for Aceh, in the hope of reducing pressure for independence. Part of this package included the introduction of sharia, as a means of splitting more religiously committed Acehnese from the otherwise nationalist Free Aceh Movement.
The introduction of sharia had little initial effect, with many Acehnese women wearing tight clothing and eschewing headscarves. However, with Aceh’s peace agreement in 2005 and subsequent elections, a number of conservative ulama and their supporters were elected to the provincial legislature, thus starting the more formal adoption of sharia.
[Why has murder advocate ‘Cat Stevens’ been allowed into Australia?]
“Sharia police” were formed to root out anti-Islamic practices, including gambling, drinking alcohol and sexual misbehaviour. Initially formed to work with regular police, the sharia police, who hold no formal policing powers, have since worked as vigilantes.
The imposition of sharia has, however, remained relatively light. Miscreants are often offered the choice of punishments such as whipping rather than paying a monetary fine. The whippings have an element of humiliation about them, but have mostly not been painful affairs.
More recently, though, the Islamic police have insisted on more proactive policing and more genuinely punitive measures. Thus, acting on a tip-off, vigilante sharia police raided a place where two men were in bed together, for which they have been sentenced to be whipped.
This event obscures two other matters, though. The first is that many Acehnese, including the recently elected governor, Irwandi Yusuf, object to the use of sharia law. The second matter is that more fundamentalist Islam has become generally more assertive elsewhere in Indonesia, not least in Jakarta.
The recent jailing on former Jakarta governor, the Chinese Christian Basuki “Ahok” Purnama, for blasphemy as a result of a comment made during the gubernatorial election campaign was but the most pronounced illustration of this phenomenon. Ahok had responded to a claim by Islamic fundamentalists that a Christian could not rule over Muslims. His response was edited and re-posted, as a result of which there was orchestrated rioting and he was charged.
[Jesus F-ing Christ! Blasphemy is back, and it’s flummoxing secular legal systems]
Once convicted, the prosecution asked that Ahok not be jailed, illustrating the overtly political nature of the initial charge. The three judges, however, ignored that advice and jailed Ahok for two years. The judges are widely believed to have succumbed from Islamist populist pressure in, effectively, acting beyond Indonesia’s already interpretable law.
The use of fundamentalist Islam for political purposes has been in the background of Indonesian politics since the 1990s, when then-president Suharto began courting Islam as a counter-balance to an increasingly disenchanted army. His former son-in-law and failed presidential candidate, Prabowo Subianto, was at the lead of the pro-Islamist movement.
Prabowo is again using a more fundamentalist Islam to promote his political agenda. In his sights is the less than robust presidency of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
There is no guarantee that Prabowo will be successful in his bid against Jokowi. But, either way, he and the radical mobs he has so assiduously used will have legitimised fundamentalist Islam as a central factor in the future of Indonesia politics.
I’m sometimes surprised by the level unsophistication of Indonesian intelligentsia, for example judges boasting about how few they have judged innocent, because, by enlarge, they are well educated and westernised. But sending to jail a politician to jail for some innocuous comment or whipping men for being gay is a whole new level of primitivism. Do Indonesians really want to go back to the dark ages?
As usual with Kingsbury’s cut’n’paste boilerplate, he misses salient points such as the massive amount of Saudi money – consider the recent trip of the Saudi prince with an entourage of 300, several aircraft and untold hundred of millions of dollars to further wahabism.
Precisely like the $900M private donation to the Malaysian PM a couple of years back to promote the kleptocracy’s pernicious & intolerant variant to a muslim populace which has been happy with unshrouded women for centuries.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Politics is not the key to power in Indonesia, and that Islam has usurped that power. Sharia is just the brutal enactment of Islam. In Arabic, the word “Islam” means submission or surrender. Indonesia is not the only country where this is clearly evident. Europe is but one prominent example. They will all just have to live with the whippings.
Jimbo, there’s a lot of disconnected thoughts-out-loud there. No matter what faith or non-faith a nation follows there will always be a political process. In a religious dictatorship it’s not the religion that’s the dictator it’s the autocrat at the top of the pile. You’ve left a bit out of the meaning of ‘Islam’ – submission, yes, but ‘submission to God’ is more accurate and complete. Which, when you reflect on the dogma and catechisms of Christianity is pretty much one and the same. In fact, I recall that the Anglican marriage vows in Sydney require that, having already surrendered herself to God, the woman must then agree to submit to her husband. Kinky eh? What is Europe “but one prominent example” of?
Yes, I fear that eventually Indonesia will succumb to the radicals – there seems to be no political power or will to stop it. I really thought Indonesians were more feisty than this and want to retain the freedom they fought the Dutch for. Balinese friends of mine say that muslim Javanese in areas around Kuta are already causing problems. The time is coming for tourists and businesses to take stock and maybe give Indonesia a wide berth.
Hugh
Q; “In a religious dictatorship it’s not the religion that’s the dictator it’s the autocrat at the top of the pile.” And how do you get a Muslim to the top of the pile? Islam dictates that Muslims can only vote for a Muslim. Then who is in charge? The Koran. (viewed by Muslims as the verbatim word of God). ISIS, Boko Haram…….The list is long, all live by the Koran. There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. Surveys have shown only 22% of them subscribe to violent jihadism. (Thank Allah for that)
Your argument is quite academic and ignores the elephant in the room.