There is no doubt that the public space for free expression in Indonesia is gradually shrinking and, tragically, successive democratically elected governments have played a role in the deterioration of our freedoms.

The banning of public discussions and stage performances has become too frequent to be ignored, but sadly the nation, which only won its freedom 16 years ago, appears to be complacent. Few people speak up against the erosion of freedom.

Religion may be part of the reason, but the larger explanation is that Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, is simply becoming more and more conservative. The claim that Indonesians have become more religious is debatable.

There was the monologue performance about national hero Tan Malaka in Bandung that had to be canceled on police orders in March, and only through the intervention of Mayor Ridwan Kamil went ahead a day late. There was no such intervention the following week when police stopped a pantomime performance in the same city.

Many public discussions, including those held in universities, have been stopped on various pretexts, whether it be the theme, the speakers or simply because some people objected to them.

There was the discussion about the leftist movement in the country in Jakarta. In another case, a discussion organized by the Islamic Students Association (HMI) in Pekanbaru, Riau, was stopped because one of the speakers was a Shia, a minority group in the nation of predominantly Sunni Muslims.

The targets keep widening.

The entire lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is now suffering officially sanctioned public persecution, which the state started. The spiritual cult Gerakan Fajar Nusantara, with tens of thousands of followers, has now been officially banned by the government because it is considered a national threat.

In banning public discussions and performances, the police have invoked the need to maintain security and order, or simply said that these events did not have the necessary permit, a throwback to the days of the authoritarian Soeharto regime.

Conservatives are winning the Indonesian culture wars to the point that children are being told by teachers at school not to blow out candles when celebrating their birthdays because such a practice is “un-Islamic”. Many parents, who most likely grew up blowing out candles each year on their birthdays, have complied.

Indonesia is undergoing a culture war of its own that is pitting conservatives against, for lack of a better term, liberals. Nowhere is this war felt more than in the public sphere. With the room for free expression shrinking, conservatives are gaining the upper hand. For now.

It is a war that most people, except for the few who are directly engaged in it, are not aware of, even as they lose their freedom. It is a silent war, but one that is fought fiercely as both camps try to win the hearts and minds of 250 million people. As Indonesia becomes like any modern society, the culture war is arguably the one that really matters in determining the fate and future of the nation. Indonesians have become divided along the conservative-liberal fault line.

The conservatives are winning because they are far more prepared and more united. Several books have been written about the “conservative turn” in Indonesia, with religion being the primary, though not the only, weapon used by the conservatives in waging their war on liberals.

They’d like to think that God is on their side. In a country where religion plays an important part of people’s lives, such claim can give them some advantage.

Conservative Islamic organizations, including political parties, are riding on the conservative tide. Their Islamist agenda, including turning Indonesia into an Islamic state or making sharia the law of the land, is coming to the surface.

The extent to which they can push their agenda and be accepted by the public remains debatable. In the last 2014 general elections, all political parties that pushed an Islamist agenda performed poorly, suggesting that the conservative turn has not gone so far as to seriously influence the nation’s political choices.

Indonesian liberals in contrast are far less prepared for this war and are only putting up a meek or timid resistance. They are also a diverse lot, but the difference is that they are not as united as the conservatives.

The conservatives have succeeded in their campaign to publicly discredit liberals by associating them with the evil West. “Neolibs” is now the catchall phrase to attack anyone who disagrees or opposes their conservative politics. Some Cabinet ministers who are more “market-oriented” are branded as neolibs and accused of being a danger to the nation.

The liberals are also too busy engaging in elitist and intellectual discussions, whereas the conservatives are aggressively recruiting converts at the grassroots level.

But is Indonesia really experiencing a “conservative turn”, or is this simply “the turn of the conservatives” after a period in which the liberals have prevailed? Will the pendulum not swing back to the left as usually happens in culture wars in modern societies?

We can take comfort in the fact that there are enough moderating forces in the country to keep the nation from moving too far to the right or too far to the left.

But the pendulum is not going to swing back to the center on its own.

The liberals need to take this war more seriously. First and foremost, they need to fight to open up the public space for free expression, before it shrinks so much that their voices disappear.

Conservatives may be wining the battles, but they haven’t won the war. They have had their turn. It is only a matter of time before the tide turns.
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The writer is editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Post.

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