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Moderates told to speak up against bigotry

Speak up: Secretary of Muhammadiyah Abdul Mu’ti (second right) addresses the audience during a discussion on “Islam & Democracy in Indonesia” at Multimedia Nusantara University (UMN) in Serpong, Banten, on Thursday

Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post)
Tangerang
Fri, October 20, 2017

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Moderates told to speak up against bigotry

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span class="inline inline-center">Speak up: Secretary of Muhammadiyah Abdul Mu’ti (second right) addresses the audience during a discussion on “Islam & Democracy in Indonesia” at Multimedia Nusantara University (UMN) in Serpong, Banten, on Thursday. With The Jakarta Post’s editor-in-chief Endy M. Bayuni (left) as moderator, the event also featured director of the Wahid Institute Yenny Wahid (second left) and director of the International Center for Islam and Pluralism Syafiq Hasyim. Catholic priest and philosopher Franz Magnis Suseno was also set to join the panel, but was unable to attend because of illness.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

Moderate Indonesian Muslims should no longer stay silent in the face of intolerance in the name of Islam, particularly during elections, when politicians used the faith as a political gambit to gain votes, the daughter of the nation’s pluralism icon has said.

Wahid Institute director Yenni Wahid, who is also the daughter of former president Abdurrahman “Gusdur” Wahid, said the voice of moderate Muslims was especially important at a time when identity politics was on the rise, posing a serious threat to Indonesia’s hard-fought democracy.

“We have seen this tyranny of the majority over the minority. This is not about religion, but rather about people who are using religious identity to get power,” she told a discussion hosted by Multimedia Nusantara University (UMN) on Thursday.

The discussion closed a three-day conference on religion in journalism held jointly by the United States-based International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) and Indonesia’s Association of Journalists for Diversity (Sejuk).

Yenni said moderate Muslims were not forceful enough in countering religious bigotry.

“Moderate Muslims go about their lives as usual. They wake up and go to work, but the extremists wake up in the morning and think how they can spread their narratives,” she said. “They have been aggressive. Moderate Muslims should act as aggressively as those extremist groups,” she added.

More than 170 Indonesian regions will elect new leaders next year, ahead of the presidential election in 2019, preparations for which have been ongoing since earlier this month.

Analysts have warned that sectarianism could mar the upcoming elections, as it did during the Jakarta election earlier this year, when Islamic groups staged rallies to challenge the candidacy of Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian politician.

Yenni argued that Islam was compatible with democracy, as it espoused values that were in essence in line with democratic values. She cited as an example the concept of Islam as rahmatan lil alamin, according to which Islam comes as a blessing to the entire human race.

The idea of equality before the law, one of the paramount principles of democracy, was also found in Islam, she said. She cited an example where Prophet Muhammad said he would be the first person to punish his daughter Fatimah if she was found stealing. “In Indonesia, democracy has been adopted quite successfully. Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy and the biggest democracy among Muslim-majority countries,” she said.

Expressing similar concerns that intolerant groups could dominate public discourse, Abdul Mu’ti, the secretary of Muhammadiyah, the country’s second-largest Islamic organization, called on the government to bring prosperity to the people to prevent extremists from exploiting public resentment over poor economic conditions to advance their interests.

For Muhammadiyah, he said, making Islam compatible with democracy was based on consensus of the founding fathers. “Indonesia is darush shahadah, a country of consensus,” he said.

International Center for Islam and Pluralism director Syafiq Hasyim said it was not just intolerant groups and politicians using religion for political gain that barred Indonesia from progressing in democracy, but also the emergence of laws that contradict principles of democracy, including the Blasphemy Law, which curbs the freedom of expression.

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