A public order officer shows a cigarette confiscated from a smoker during a raid at Blok M bus station in South Jakarta. With a by law issued in 2005, the Jakarta administration bans smoking in public area (JP/Ricky Yudhistira)

When the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the country’s largest Islamic council, issued a number of controversial fatwa (edicts) earlier in the week, they were met with a mixed reaction.

But while bans on yoga and abstaining from voting have attracted the attention of some, it is the issue of smoking that remains the most disputed among Indonesians.

In South Jakarta, it is just before sunset and the room is full of fifty or sixty teenage boys. Each is dressed in a slightly different variation of a black T-shirt and jeans. They crowd into the simple rooftop stage area of the Rossi Musik Centre.

They’re here to listen to or play in one of the dozen or so punk bands scheduled to perform at night. The sign on the wall says no drinking or smoking.

While there isn’t a drink in sight, every second hand holds a cigarette. Underneath the screams and distorted guitars, the call to prayer can be heard in the distance.

The MUI edicts ban women and children from smoking, as well as smoking in public places. Smoking in all other circumstances is deemed makruh (blameworthy).

However, But there has been conflict between different Islamic bodies.

“Smoking is a problem but we need to emphasize the health aspects not the religious,” says Masdar F. Mas’udi, Deputy Chairman of the Nahdatul Ulama (NU), the country’s largest Islamic organization.

Even within the NU there appears to be different views.

Mas’udi told The Jakarta Post that a better way to address the issue of smoking is for religious leaders to set an example by not smoking themselves.

But Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of the NU, who had also criticized the edicts earlier in the week, is still a smoker.

Despite this, Mas’udi says that other methods would be more effective than the edicts, like better enforcement by the government of existing smoking bans in public spaces.

“What we need is not to threaten those people who are addicted with hell, but consistent enforcement of smoking regulations,” he says.

Groups like the Southeast Asian Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) agree that basic things are not being done in Indonesia to protect the young.

“It appears that the Ulema Council is coming out because nothing is being done by the government,” says Dr. Mary Assunta, Senior Policy Advisor with SEATCA.

But unfortunately there is no evidence that issuing this fatwa will affect the tobacco industry, she says.

“Indonesia is not the first country to do this, Malaysia did the same, so did Brunei, that’s just in Southeast  Asia.”

Still, health officials have welcomed the move by the MUI, while trying to avoid the conflict between the Islamic bodies.

“We are all doing our best to keep the youngsters away from smoking, because if they start smoking, once they are adults they are already addicted,” a spokesperson from the Indonesia Cancer Foundation says.

Tobacco farmers on the other hand objected to the bans during the week.

“When you look at what the fatwa is about – how it is harmful for young people and pregnant women to smoke – for farmers to say that they object to that means they approve of children and pregnant women smoking, which is unacceptable,” says Assunta.

The SEATCA are one of several groups who campaigned unsuccessfully for Philip Morris International (PMI), one of the largest tobacco companies in the world, to withdraw sponsorship from a recent series of concerts featuring popular Indonesia band, Slank.

“Philip Morris is arrogant enough to go ahead with these concerts because ... there are no rules against it in Indonesia,” Assunta says.

In 2008, PMI faced international pressure to withdraw its sponsorship from a scheduled appearance by Alicia Keys in Jakarta.

“There is quite a difference because Alicia Keys is an international star ... and she had to face the American public about promoting smoking in Indonesia,” Assunta says.

So while PMI withdrew from the Keys concert it did not do the same for the Marlboro Rocks concert series this month, which featured Slank.  A campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an American lobby group, called for PMI Chairman and CEO Louis C. Camilleri to stop sponsorship of concerts due to their appeal to youth.

“How can we reach any conclusion other than the fact that PMI, under your leadership, does not place the same value on the life of a youth in Indonesia that it does on the life of an American child,” says Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids President Matthew Myers in a letter to Camilleri.

PMI were not available for comment.

Kyle Taylor

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