D

uring the commemoration of National Press Day in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged state apparatus to evaluate the presence of mass-organizations involved in acts of violence and, if necessary, to disband them.

But this idea is likely to fail not because of a threat from hard-line Muslim group FPI (Islam Defenders Front) to topple the government or the recent meeting between the Home Minister and FPI leader Habib Rizieq, but because it lacks reasonable judgment and risks radicalizing wider groups of believers and escalating riots.

Whereas this idea may hurt freedom of expression and freedom of association, the question that may arise next is how persecution, intimidation and violence will come to an end while the same people are still on the streets. Instead of disbanding them, the government should enforce the law and regulate them. There are some arguments regarding this issue.

First, most of the mass-organizations involved in the violent acts are community-based organizations. They created their communities long before they formed their organizations. The decision to formalize was simply a strategy to achieve their goals. If formalization is deemed necessary, they will create it. If not, they will go back to their community for further promulgation (dakwah).

Following the issuance of a fatwa (religious edict) by Shaikh Muhammad ibn Hadi al-Madkhali of Saudi Arabia, Ja’far Umar Thalib disbanded the Laskar Jihad (LJ), the jihadist group involved in Muslim-Christian conflicts in Ambon, and urged all of his followers to go back to their madrasa and pesantren. On the same day, the LJ headquarters in Yogyakarta was evacuated. Should, for instance, al-Madkhali issue another fatwa that jihad against Ahmadiyah was a must for every Muslim, thousands of its members would be ready to be mobilized and attack the Ahmadis.

Second, it is hard to believe that hard-line organizations such as the FPI are single-minded and can be put into one basket. Like moderate Muslim organizations, they vary. A friend of mine working for a foreign NGO in Jakarta told me that some branches of the FPI were involved in anti-corruption and funding for poverty movements. These actions came in response to the rampant corruption in the country.

While the FPI in Bekasi, West Java was involved in vandalizing the allegedly illegal Batak Protestant (HKBP) Church, in Pekalongan the FPI was promoting the importance of public knowledge on budgeting. The FPI leader in the Central Java town was enthusiastic to announce he had finished reading the Holy Koran, but he just started reading the budgeting book.

These facts must be eye opening for those who viewed the FPI as a violent organization that persecuted minority groups, ransacked the Playboy office, crushed the gay and lesbian film festival or swept the expatriates when global injustice erupted in the Middle East. The point that I want to make is that the FPI is a part of civil society born during the time when the country began to enjoy freedom.

Third, freedom of expression should be entwined with another element of democracy: Law enforcement.

The road to democracy is long and arduous and we don’t need to romanticize civil society. We don’t take the pill of civil society tonight and wake up the next morning having democracy.

Civil society is a bunch of people who have interests. It is therefore obligatory for the state to create regulations to prevent civil society from going astray.

At this point, many of us agree that the ability of the state to enforce the law has eroded. Some even dare to say that the state has been absent for too long.

The state has been ignorant witnessing violent acts taking place unashamedly in public life. This is the great mistake of our democracy when civic seedlings grow wild and endanger the tree of state. The Tocquevellian idea that civil associations contribute to democratization can only be understood in the framework of a strong state.

Fourth, many organizations in Indonesia, be they religious, social, ethnic or political, have militia wings. The origin of this idea stems from the belief that each element
of a society should be aware of and responsible for the survival of the nation.

While these militia groups were needed during the Indonesian revolution, in the context of new emerging democracy, their existence will threaten the diversity of Indonesia and escalate horizontal conflicts.

They can easily be manipulated by the elites. I want to make another point which becomes the lynchpin of my argument that the state should disband all the militia groups and clean up their attributes that might lead to violence.

The fact that ordinary citizens are not sanctioned to freely brandish weapons such as daggers and knives in public arenas has created fear among certain groups and apathy and hate among others. These uncivilized gestures should be outlawed and the perpetrators should be punished and put into jail.

It is estimated that the total number of mass-organizations in the country are more than 100,000. The Home Ministry is revising regulations on this issue. No matter what it takes, revisions should reemphasize the fundamental principle that each mass-organization should respect the common platform.

This common platform refers to the spirit of pluralism that Indonesia is religiously, ethnically, and politically diverse. If this principle is ignored, and business as usual continues, a more horrible, helter-skelter disaster will take place before our eyes.

The writer is a researcher at Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University (UIN), Jakarta.