Islamism in Indonesia: Politics in the Emerging Democracy

2. The “Muslim Nation” Dogma

2 The “Muslim Nation” Dogma I t is a key feature of Islamists adhering to the Masyumi tradition to claim greater socio-cultural authenticity than other religions and beliefs. This claim is framed by the truism that Indonesian cultural identity is grounded in a shared religious awareness.1 Masyumi legatees have always asserted to be the vital component of this identity. They, in effect, have been guarding an essentialist position of Islam’s role in Indonesian history and society. The view that postulates the Indonesian nation and Islam as being interrelated and inseparable is shared by tarbiyah activists, but Islamists following the Masyumi tradition have voiced this claim with special vigour. Typically, when asserting a leading position for their religion, they tend to speak vaguely about Islam, while, in fact, referring to the explicitly political and shari’ah-related aspects of faith. This view basically discounts that Islam, like all political cultures has, at some point in history, been learned and incorporated into Indonesian society. Followers of the Masyumi tradition usually find the thought particularly objectionable, but 100 The “Muslim Nation” Dogma 101 their tradition is, of course, equally foreign in origin as it was shaped by the concepts of Islamic reformism coming from the Middle East to today’s Indonesia during the early decades of the twentieth century. Their essentialist view of the position of Islam in a religious society depicts supposedly “imported” belief systems such as secularism, communism and — at times, too — Christianity, as alien and, therefore, illegitimate parts of Indonesian identity.Adherents of the Masyumi tradition are especially outspoken in their condemnation of “non-Indonesian” beliefs. This was highlighted by the fact that Masyumi’s solidarity with Pancasila very much depended on the latter’s usefulness as a tool against the rise of communism.2 Conviction in the leading role of Islam had strong implications for how Masyumi legatees decreed the legitimacy of their ideals in the early post-New Order era. Moreover, while maintaining a preoccupation with defending Islam against domestic foes and threats such as Christian campaigns to convert Muslims, and Sino-Indonesian economic hegemony, a large number of Masyumi legatees adopted the notion of an absolute and timeless cultural tension between Islam and the West, made popular by revivalist writers and activists. The result combines a commitment to political participation through representative governmental institutions with feelings of cultural demise and global suppression of Muslims. Its attributes bear all the hallmarks of a great number of Islamic organizations elsewhere in the Muslim world. Today’s adherents of the Masyumi tradition have upheld the claim to correspond to Muslim interests and national identity despite evidence of the increasing gap with the Muslim community they desire to represent. The 1999 and 2004 election results affirmed that the significance of Masyumi’s style of Islamic politics had fallen sharply. The assertion of cultural ascendancy is thus hollow. It is a cyclical discourse with a fixation on the failures of Indonesian Islamism in the past. Prior to Dutch colonialism and the influx of other ideologies and creeds, Masyumi legatees assert, Muslims had embraced shari’ah rule as the optimum political system. It was Western influence, they lament, that brought down the rule of sacred law. Shari’ah thus became the lost heritage of the political community. Masyumi legatees are resentful of this loss and the little support they get from ordinary Muslims. In contrast to the constant highlighting of the supposed correlation between an unspecified Islam and national identity, not enough Indonesian Muslims have been sufficiently committed to this 102 Islamism in Indonesia belief and to support Islamist parties, either in elections or through a popular movement. These unfulfilled hopes helped to foster an increasingly distorted view of the history and legitimacy of Islamism in Indonesia while the paradigm of Indonesia as a “Muslim nation” triggered ongoing representational claims. Of course, the earlier described awareness among Islamists that the segmentation of Islam and the conversion of Muslim leaders to pluralist parties during previous decades would obstruct them from forming a united Islamist party in the post-New Order era, reveals these representational claims to be rhetorical devices. The case of Masyumi typifies the lack of popular support for crucial Islamist agendas. Masyumi founders believed that it would be the only Islamic political outlet and that it would become the governing party. With the grand majority of Indonesians being Muslim, Masyumi leaders, like many secular nationalists and communists...