Muslims in Global Politics: Identities, Interests, and Human Rights

9. Negotiating Modernity and Tradition in Indonesia

Chapter  Negotiating Modernity and Tradition in Indonesia Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago and the fourth largest country in the world. It is also the world’s most populous Muslim country, a major producer of oil, and well endowed with natural resources. Its strategic location allows it to control a major waterway between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The security of these waterways is crucial to the passage of oil tankers and the international shipping trade. Indonesia is home to a blend of indigenous beliefs and a diverse array of cultures and civilizations as well as a variety of different ethnic and religious groups such as Hindus, Buddhists, Arabs, and Europeans. Indonesia’s political and cultural history has been equally influenced by Hindu-Buddhist ideas from India and by Islam.1 Islam came peacefully to Indonesia through the trade routes. Despite some battles, Islam eventually settled into regions with Hindu and Buddhist temples and absorbed some of their mythologies.2 There are more than 490 ethnic groups and 250 distinct languages in this scattered archipelago of some 3,000 islands. Different racial groups, such as Chinese, Arabs, and Europeans , constitute Indonesia’s minorities. The major division lies between the Javanese and other ethnic groups as well as between orthodox (santri) and local (abangan) forms of Islam in Java. Most Indonesians are nevertheless linguistically and culturally part of a larger Indo-Malaysian world encompassing present-day Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and other parts of insular and mainland Asia.3 Many incidents of brutal communal violence in Indonesia predate the twentieth century, and in modern times, violence has persisted despite some strides made under democratization programs.4 Indonesia’s ruling elites have constantly managed the country’s decentralization and have attempted to resolve, with varying degrees of success or failure, numerous religious and ethnic conflicts, such as the separatist movement in resource-rich Aceh province.5 President Sukarno (who ruled Indonesia  from 1945 to 1965) and President Suharto (who ruled from 1966 through 1998) institutionalized the tenet that domestic peace in Indonesia required a separation of church, state, and society. Much of Indonesian politics has been influenced by its leaders’ attempts to institutionalize and manipulate traditionalist and modernist Muslims.6 The 1997 Asian economic crisis and collapse of Asian currencies caused the downfall of Indonesia’s Suharto and led to the separation of East Timor as an independent nation-state. It is important to remember that opportunistic leaders of the postindependence era have played on repressed ethnic and religious tensions for political gains. Although clashes between different groups have been blamed on ethnic and religious hatred, economic troubles and political manipulations have been their root cause.7 Like the rest of the world, some experts remind us, Indonesia has witnessed a jump in religious vitality. As politics has liberalized in countries such as India, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, and Indonesia in the late 1990s, religion ’s impact on political life has increased vividly. The burgeoning influence of Nahdlatul Ulama (Renaissance of the Ulama or NU) and the Muhammadiya (followers of Mohammad) in shaping Indonesian ideas and society in recent years is typical. In a 2002 Pew Global Attitudes Survey conducted in some Muslim countries, majorities or pluralities cited Islam as their primary identity, trumping nationality.8 The upsurge of the new orthodoxies, such as the Nahdlatul Ulama, in Indonesia must be seen in this context.9 The focus of this chapter is on Indonesia’s ethnoreligious, linguistic, and cultural diversity as well as its class and racial divisions. The key to stability and economic growth in Indonesia is moderation of religious beliefs and practices. As a multiethnic state, Indonesia has had serious concerns about the uneven impact of globalization on its populace, with its ethnic Chinese benefiting the most. Indonesian leaders have argued that globalization could weaken the government and undermine the notion of national identity, posing threats to the nation’s social cohesion. Indonesians’ concern over eroding values and social cohesion is widespread and legitimate. A Historical Overview Indonesia’s postindependence era was marked by authoritarianism, state corruption, and economic mismanagement. The diversity of cultures in Indonesia and the historical experience of colonialism had done little to pre-  Chapter  pare Indonesians for democracy. Neither the Dutch nor the Japanese had helped to ready the colony for self-government. Given its key role in the National Revolution (1945–50), the military became deeply involved in politics .10 Through thirty...