Contemporary Developments in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the "Conservative Turn"

7. Postscript: The Survival of Liberal and Progressive Muslim Thought in Indonesia

224 7 PostscrIPt: the survIval of lIberal and ProgressIve MuslIM thought In IndonesIa Martin van Bruinessen The developments discussed in this volume appear to have marginalized liberal and progressive Muslim discourses, which in the 1980s and 1990s had been favoured by the regime and had received much sympathetic coverage in the press. The New Order’s Ministers of Religious Affairs, notably Munawir Syadzali (1982–92), strongly endorsed liberal religious thought and made efforts to develop the State Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN) into centres of Muslim intellectualism. The Muhammadiyah, and especially the NU in the Abdurrahman Wahid years (1984–99) provided young thinkers and activists to some extent with a protective umbrella (although there has always much criticism of unconventional thinkers in these organizations). That degree of institutional support for liberal and progressive thought and action no longer exists, whereas other Muslim discourses, including some that were suppressed under the New Order, have gained greater prominence and official endorsement. The same is also true of the audience leading Muslim intellectuals have. During the final decade and a half of the New Order, a significant segment of the educated and increasingly affluent Muslim middle class felt attracted to the liberal Muslim intellectualism of Nurcholish Madjid and his friends, as an alternative to the puritan or politicized and Shariah-oriented Survival of Liberal and Progressive Muslim Thought in Indonesia 225 discourse of mainstream reformist preachers. Other alternatives emerged, however, that appeared to be even more attractive to an upwardly mobile middle class public, such as the hugely popular preacher Aa Gym with his message of tolerance and self-help through pop psychology (Watson 2005). The upheavals and inter-religious violence of the years of transition further increased the demand for such messages and cures for the soul. Many of those who were dismayed with the upsurge of Islamism flocked to gurus offering Sufi teachings and spiritual therapy. Courses on mysticism, collective meditation sessions (dzikir berjama’ah) and mental training courses, rather than seminars on Muslim intellectualism, are currently the middle class’ preferred alternative to political Islam (Howell 2001 and 2007; Rudnyckyj 2009). However, the extent to which progressive and liberal thought remained entrenched in certain niches and continued to flourish and develop is easily overlooked. The IAINs had produced numerous graduates with an interest in philosophy and social science, many of whom went on to postgraduate studies abroad before returning to take up positions in the religious bureaucracy or as lecturers at IAINs. Especially the faculties of Ushuluddin (Religious Studies) of the IAINs in Jakarta and Yogyakarta remained bulwarks of intellectual freedom and tolerance.1 As is shown by Mujiburrahman in his contribution to this volume, in South Sulawesi the main Muslim critics of the programme of enforcing the Shariah were IAIN lecturers and graduates, and the continuing influence of the IAIN contributed to a situation of trust, in which the Christian minority did not feel seriously threatened. It is by no means the case that the IAINs are dominated by liberal Muslims — in fact, many well-known liberals have lost previously influential positions there — but at least they continue providing a vitally important space for intellectual independence.2 Although overshadowed by assertive Islamist voices, the various strains of progressive and liberal Muslim thought that had developed in the course of the 1980s and 1990s, in fact continued to flourish and even became more assertive in defence of religious freedom and pluralism in the post-Soeharto years. A range of Muslim NGOs, including some that were primarily concerned with the critical study of religious discourse, also profited from the international funding for the development of civil society that flowed to the country. This included such NGOs as LKiS (Institute for Islamic and Social Studies) in Yogyakarta, which had previously introduced critical social thought and hermeneutics into the pesantren environment and continued to disseminate religious ideas focusing on liberation and empowerment of subaltern groups, Rahima, which focused on women’s 226 Martin van Bruinessen rights and carried out programmes of gender awareness training, and Syarikat, which strove for reconciliation between the social groups that had been perpetrators and victims of the mass killings of 1965–66, i.e. for the highly controversial accommodation of Muslims with (alleged) communists. The most controversial of the NGOs, and the most immediate target of the notorious MUI fatwa of 2005 as well as the purges in NU and Muhammadiyah was the Liberal Islam Network, JIL...