Letter: Debate on anti-tobacco edict

Former Muhammadiyah chairman Amien Rais is right to be skeptical about this edict (www.thejakartapost.com, March 13).
Although some people may suspect he is secretly taking backhanders from tobacco companies, it is far more likely that he is concerned about the integrity and credibility of the organization he once headed and of the religion he has devoted himself to.
In this regard, the fact that the anti-smoking edict immediately follows the donation of more than US$390,000 by a foreign anti-tobacco organization suggests that senior Muhammadiyah figures are open to corruption.
In a wider context, the tendency of Islamic leaders to seek influence by labeling things haram, often in response to short-term trends and political fashions, suggests that they are more interested in political scheming than in promoting consistent principles or the spiritual well-being of their followers.
One is bound to wonder whether this edict has solid theological foundations or is more an attempt to jump on a political bandwagon and claim authority over an issue that inflames strong passions. The argument that tobacco should be banned because alcohol is banned is dubious. It was natural for Prophet Muhammad to ban alcohol, as it would have been a severe hindrance to an army on the march in the Arabian desert.
But the Koran doesn’t mention tobacco at all, as Amien points out. Nor, as far as I am aware, is there any indication in the Koran that one’s highest duty is to increase one’s life expectancy. If everyone were to live their lives obsessively avoiding health risks, they would refrain from fasting during Ramadan due to the dangers of dehydration.
The argument that smoking is a form of suicide is ridiculous. In no sense does smoking “definitively cause death”. Untreated rabies definitively causes death. Smoking, as Amien accurately puts it, “may cause disease”. It is thus analogous to riding a motorcycle, which could lead to death, depending on the habits of the rider or smoker and on circumstance. But many people will decide that the benefits to them of smoking or motorcycling outweigh the risks. They are taking a physical risk, not committing suicide!
Certainly there’s no reason why smokers or road users should be allowed to recklessly endanger the lives of others, and on that basis there is a strong case for restricting smoking in public buildings. There is also a strong case that smokers should pay higher insurance premiums to cover their higher healthcare costs.
We should note, though, that the biggest contributor to escalating health costs is the increasing number of old people. But I don’t hear anyone arguing that people should be prevented from living to a happy old age in order to keep the healthcare budget down.
What we do see is a lot of complaints from Westerners denouncing the Indonesian government as laggardly and primitive for not enforcing identical restrictions on tobacco advertising and use to those introduced by Western governments some 50 years after the first evidence of tobacco-linked health risks.
Amid this barrage of emotion and exaggeration, it’s a relief to find figures like Amien, who are still able to say something intelligent about tobacco use. It’s a relief also that the Indonesian government weighs all aspects of the smoking issue, including the livelihoods of the many people who work in tobacco production and distribution, rather than simply following the latest international trends.
I hope the government, on smoking as on other issues, will proceed based on a balanced consideration of the consequences of its policies, and not on balanced appeasement of the demands of competing groups of fanatics.

John Hargreaves
Jakarta