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Jakarta Post

In culture war, Web 2.0 offers new hope for Indonesia

It seems that Indonesia is constantly at a crossroads

Ary Hermawan (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, February 25, 2011

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In culture war, Web 2.0 offers new hope for Indonesia

I

t seems that Indonesia is constantly at a crossroads. As the wind of a Web 2.0-powered revolution is sweeping the Arab-speaking world, Indonesia — home to the world’s largest Muslim population, who mostly do not speak Arabic — is now witnessing what seems to be an open war between the freethinkers and the religionists.

While it’s easy for the paranoid among us to cry foul over the rising number of cases of violence committed in the name of religion — or let’s just say Islam — as well as the creeping Islamization in virtually every corner of Indonesia’s public sphere, it is foolish to overlook the resistance waged by freethinkers against any forms of religious bigotry and how their struggle will determine the face of Indonesia in the next few decades.

With most clerics in Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah calling for the disbandment of Ahmadiyah for straying from the true path of Islam, we know the ongoing war is no longer between moderates and the fundamentalists. They are now both in the same wagon, launching their salvo against those who believe in rational thinking, democracy and universal humanism.

The person who first publicly acknowledged this new phase of ideological battle is Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali, who is apparently on the verge of losing his Cabinet seat for his failings in dealing with the Ahmadiyah issue and at the same time struggling to salvage the shrinking popularity of his United Development Party (PPP).

Speaking to religious leaders in Riau province on Wednesday, Suryadharma said a war was being waged between “free thought” and “order”.

“They are looking for absolute freedom,” he said, referring to certain groups who had protested against his plan to outlaw the Ahmadiyah faith in Indonesia.

Nevertheless, a cultural war would not be unprecedented in this country. The first battle of this kind dates back to the year 1935 when Indonesia’s counterpart to British-American polemicist Thomas Paine, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (or STA), published his provocative essay, Menuju Masyarakat dan Kebudayaan Baru (Toward a New Society and New Culture). Since then, Indonesians have been divided between those who insist on preserving tradition and those who are eager to embrace modernity and continuously seek innovation.

The late Nurcholish “Cak Nur” Madjid, a respected liberal Muslim thinker, won his crusade against the Islamists in the early 70s when he theologically justified Indonesia’s secularism and kept religion (Islam) away from the state. But he was then living under Soeharto’s rule; his victory was unthinkable without the tacit endorsement of the iron-fist leader.

Today, more than a decade after Soeharto’s downfall and under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s powerless leadership, the liberals and conservatives are again up in arms over who among them will decide the future of Indonesia. And the battle now centers around the plight of an unwanted minority, the Ahmadiyah.

The first confrontation between the two sides over the Islamic sect occurred in 2008 when members of the hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI) attacked activists from the National Alliance for the Freedom of Faith and Religion, also known as AKKBB, while they were holding a peaceful demonstration at Jakarta’s National Monument.

The second altercation was in 2010 when a group of human rights activists and liberal Muslims challenged the 1965 Blasphemy Law at the Constitutional Court. The law has repeatedly justified the state apparatus’ persecution of religious minorities, including and mainly the Ahmadis.

Suryadarma and the most conservative ulemas from NU and Muhammadiyah, backed by FPI’s fanfare of “Allahu Akbar” from the balcony, were at the frontline in the battle against the defenders of freedom in court. And they won.

“The law has repeatedly justified the state apparatus’ persecution of religious minorities.”

After a lengthy debate involving scholars, clerics and government officials over “the limit of freedom” and “the need for order”, the court, presided over by Mahfud MD, rejected the judicial review request, leaving Indonesians constantly under the threat of being prosecuted for blasphemy.

The loss was indeed a big blow to the liberals. It was even depressing for many who had placed their hopes in Mahfud, a progressive Muslim who was close to liberal cleric and former president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, who joined the petition to challenge the outdated law.

But the war is not over yet. As more Indonesians are connected to the Internet, the battleground has now turned to the World Wide Web.

I agree with The New Yorker’s sociologist Malcolm Gladwell, who says Twitter may not be responsible for all the revolutions today, but that there is no way we could dismiss the role of the Internet in shaping public opinion and spreading ideas, the memes that pervade our minds.

The freethinkers are thriving on the Internet. Some are atheists, others include agnostics, apatheists and liberal Muslims and Christians, who will fight against religious despotism that curbs their freedom, with their blog posts, tweets and so-called online petitions.

Their numbers, you may say, are perhaps infinitesimal compared to the approximately 230 million
Indonesians. However, Internet users in Indonesia are mostly young and their number continues to grow (2 million in 2000, 30 million in 2010).

We probably won’t have Indonesia’s equivalent to forthright arch-atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris anytime soon, but their local followers and sympathizers are flourishing online.

As long as the conservative Information and Communication Minister Tifatul Sembiring is committed to upholding freedom in the Web, the liberals and the conservative Islamists — who speak louder in mainstream media — will have a free, equally spacious stage to exert their own influences.

The moderates are failing us with their fatwas and derisive statements against Ahmadiyah. The politicians are torn between keeping their popularity intact and fulfilling their obligation to uphold the Constitution.

It is high time for a major campaign for free thought in Indonesia, to ensure that religious conservatism will not rob us of our freedom. And we may do it online. In this culture war, I’m standing behind Mbah STA and Mbah Tom Paine. I hope someday you’ll join us.


The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.

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