Susilo and the Veep
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is a busy man. Just this week he opened the 8th National Development Planning Congress, the first World Malaria Day at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital and the Asia Pacific Conference and Exhibition on Financial Transformation. He managed to find time to meet with military cadets and Taruna Nusantara High School students at the Military Academy in Magelang, President Xanana and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari to discuss the progress of the Aceh Peace Agreement before wrapping up the week with Bill Gates at the Jakarta Convention Centre.
Not only is he busy, but he’s got a lot to say. In the past couple of weeks, he has encouraged plebs and bureaucracy alike to save energy, fight malaria and use internet banking. He promised peace in Aceh, a resolution to the Timor Leste border dispute and broadband access to all Indonesians by 2015. What a guy!
The Veep’s been just as busy - and magnanimous - though with a much tougher audience. VP Kalla had the job of appeasing angry voters as rumours of fuel price hikes become a reality. A modern day Robin Hood, he has promised that half of the revenue the Government saves will be given back to the poor - proving that that, contrary to what he says, fuel prices are very much an election issue.
Burning issue
While Susilo and Jusuf busy themselves with the economy, fuel subsidies and World peace, their mates in the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Bakor Pakem (the somewhat McCarthy-istic Co-ordinating Agency to Oversee People’s Beliefs) conduct the biggest witch hunt to occur since the routing of the PKI. In scenes reminiscent of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, accusations of “heresy” and “blasphemy” fly, mosques are burned to the ground and religious zealots call for the death penalty.
Heretics and blasphemers
The so-called guardians of Islamic orthodoxy seem to forget the adage that the heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next age.
— Rogue Wan, “Modern Day Witch Hunt”
At stake is the religious freedom of some 200,000 followers of Ahmadiyah, an Islamic sect that arrived in Indonesia 80 years ago. Unlike the general Islamic community, Ahmadiyah followers believe that their founder, Mirza, received divine revelation from God, making him a latter day prophet. By contrast, most Muslims believe that the prophet Mohammad is God’s last prophet. For this very reason, from the time of Ahmadiyah’s arrival in Indonsia, the Indonesian Ulema Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia or MUI) has refused to allow Ahmadiyah to join the Muslim family of faith. Instead, the MUI has adopted a strategy of exclusion, hatred and persecution, more reminiscent of the 17th century Roman Catholic papacy than modern day enlightened Indonesia.
Mirza Ahmad, founder of Ahmadiyah
Ironically, MUI’s policy of exclusion and isolation guaranteed and preserved Ahmadiyah’s existence. Excluded from mainstream Islam, Ahmadiyah followers were free to practice their faith, protected by Articles 28E and 29(2) of the Constitution. The ulemas could issue fatwas until the cows come home.
In 2007, MUI changed tact. WIth the support of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, they entered into dialogue with Ahmadiyah leaders. It was agreed that Ahmadiyah would be included in the Muslim community if they recognized Muhammed as the last prophet. Perhaps betraying their desire for acceptance, on 14 January, Ahmadiyah leaders issued a 12-point statement which did just that, downgrading their founder, Mirza, to the status of “teacher” and “bringer of good tidings”:
Out of desperation or naivity, or perhaps things seemed to be going so well, Ahmadiyah leaders agreed to implement the 12 statements within 3 months.
With its next move, the Government betrayed its true intentions. Instead of waiting for the 3 month grace period to pass, the Ministry of Religious Affairs immediately established a monitoring team and despatched its witch-hunters.
Within days of the expiry of the grace period, the Minister’s “fact-finding” team came to the stunning, if not somewhat obvious, conclusion that Ahmadiyah had not consistently implemented the 12 resolutions. Bakor Pakem moved swiftly, ordering Ahmadiyah to cease all activites and demanded that the Government ban Ahmadiyah as a heretical and blasphemous to Islam.
The Assault
The call to ban Ahmadiyah was based on Article 156 of the Criminal Code, the law against blasphemy, a law that did not apply as long as Ahmadiyah remained outside mainstream Islam. But when Ahmadiyah leaders issued their 12-point statement, they sealed their fate. As members of the Muslim family, they effectively lost the protection of the Constitution.
Now everyone is calling for blood. Maruf Amin of the MUI has called for the Ahmadiyah leadership be put on trial for deliberately and systematically blaspheming against Islam. Ahmad Sobri Lubis of the Islamic Defenders Front has made several incitements to murder. On 21 April, in the town of Banjar, hundreds of men from the “Forum Pembela Islam” boarded up an Ahmadiyah mosque.
The inevitable happened shortly after midnight on Monday 28 April, when a hired mob attacked and burned down a mosque belonging to Ahmadiyah in the sleepy town of Sukabumi, West Java. A fire truck was despatched from Cicurug and would have saved the mosque. But the mob blocked the vehicle, and threatened to set it on fire as well.
Sanity
Don’t let them later say that all other streams of Islamic thought are heretical as well.
— Syraif Usman Yahya
To their credit, the vast majority of Indonesians oppose the ban and are horrified at the violence. In a survey conducted by Tempo magazine, 75% of those surveyed indicated they oppose the ban. The day following the mosque burning, 500 people demonstrated outside the Sukabumi regency office. Islamic boarding students from Cirebon demanded that the Government act against the perpetrators of the mosque burning.
There is even dissent within the MUI. A group of senior clerics from the Forum Kyai Peduli Khittah Nahdatul Ulama in Cirebon rejected the ban and promised to ready 20,000 Islamic students to protect Ahmadiyah followers.
The head of the Constitutional Court and Syafi’i Anwar of the International Cental for Islam and Pluralism have both come out opposing the ban, stating that it needs to be made clear that Indonesia is based on Pancasila not religion.
But Ahmadiyah’s strongest support comes from the President’s advisory council, the Dewan Pertimbangan Presiden. Led by Adnan Buyung Nasution, eight of the council’s nine members have urged the President not to ban Ahmadiyah. The lone dissenter is, of course, Maruf Amin from the MUI.
History generally shows that accusations of heresy and blasphemy very rarely have anything to do with religion. The Government is playing a dangerous game. Hopefully Susilo and the Veep will see beyond the power play and politics and do right by Ahmadiyah - and all Indonesians.