Falling foul of reactionary forces

THE blasphemy trial of the Governor of Jakarta, Indonesia, began on Tuesday of last week (News, 16 December). Prosecutors launched the event by accusing Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama of intentionally misinterpreting a Qur’anic verse during a speech on a working visit to Indonesia’s Thousand Islands region on 27 September.

   The Governor, better known by his nickname “Ahok”, replied to the charges in tears, saying “I did not intend to misinterpret Surah Al Maidah 5:51 nor commit blasphemy nor insult Islamic scholars. I referred to certain politicians who had misused Surah Al Maidah 5:51 to avoid fair competition prior to upcoming regional elections.”

   While world media outlets focus on this unfolding blasphemy trial in today’s Indonesia, the subtext to this event has deep roots in past history.

When Indonesia attained its independence in the 1940s, the new nation was preoccupied with defining its identity. Indonesia is diverse in terms of its ethnic, cultural and linguistic make-up. In order to build a united nation, the Malay language, previously spoken by most Indonesians as a second language, was adopted as the national language. The official national motto was articulated as “Unity in Diversity”, demonstrating the delicate balance that was sought between respect for difference and a quest for cohesion.

   In this context, the resident Chinese minority that resulted from immigration during the Dutch colonial period and which had preserved Chinese culture, customs and language, was seen by some as an alien implant. Anti-Chinese sentiment had long been present among the different Indonesian communities. This sentiment exploded in ugly ways at several points during Indonesia’s past 70 years of history.

   In the wake of the abortive coup d’état of 1965, the regime of new President Suharto forced the Chinese to adopt Indonesian names and to discontinue cultural festivals. Chinese language schools were closed and the upshot has been the loss of the linguistic-cultural heritage of the Chinese Indonesian community over the last 50 years.

   The fall of the Suharto regime in 1998 brought a period of social disarray. Chinese were targeted, with hundreds killed and many Chinese women raped. Nevertheless, the new era of democratic reform brought with it new efforts to express multicultural respect for Chinese Indonesians. Laws were passed to allow them to use their former Chinese names and to celebrate Chinese festivals. In 2004, Chinese New Year was recognised as a public holiday.

   So when Ahok (or Basuki Tjahaya Purnama according to his adopted Indonesian name) became the first ethnic Chinese Governor of Jakarta in 2014, many liberally-minded Indonesians were supportive. But his appointment was greeted with dismay by some others who continued to harbour hostile anti-Chinese sentiment.

The second focus of the struggle for identity in the new nation of Indonesia relates to religion. In the 1940s Indonesia’s independence movement was split between those who sought to establish a nation accepting of religious pluralism and allowing for democratic parliamentary processes and those who sought to establish an Islamic State based on Sharia law.

   The ascendancy of the former led to Indonesia adopting an official state philosophy, the Pancasila, that defines its first principle as respecting the one God as worshipped by Muslims, Christians (Catholics and Protestants were differentiated), Hindus and Buddhists. In response, conservative Islamist groups revolted and the ensuing Darul Islam rebellion cost thousands of lives before its eventual defeat in 1962.

   The Suharto regime (1966 – 98) imposed tight limits on political expressions of Islam for most of its rule. So with the democratic reforms after 1998, Islamist groups, long starved of a political platform, were quick to establish new political parties and to contest national elections in the hope of reviving their dreams of an Islamic State based on Sharia in Indonesia.

   In the event, their dreams have led to disappointment. While winning seats in the four national elections since 1998, they have come nowhere near gaining a majority in Indonesia’s Parliament, garnering only around 8.3% support, or 10 million votes, in the 2014 parliamentary elections. As a result, conservative Islamist groups have resorted to other means to pursue their dreams, such as mass rallies, stand-over tactics, disrupting church construction and worship services, as well as levelling blasphemy charges against their perceived adversaries.

   Governor Ahok is not only Chinese, but he is also a Christian. Conservative Islamic groups in Indonesia have long invoked Qur’an Surah Al Maidah 5:51 to oppose leadership of Muslim communities by non-Muslims, according to its instruction “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies.” In Indonesia, conservative Muslim groups often interpret the term “allies” as “leaders”. This represented a challenge to the concept of Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta being led by a Christian Governor.

The blasphemy trial of Governor Ahok must run its course. It has been adjourned until 20 December, at which point further arguments will be presented by prosecution and defence lawyers. The chances of the Governor being acquitted are slim; in over 50 blasphemy trials since 2004 there has not been one single acquittal. Even if the Governor were to be acquitted, he would be at risk from Islamist vigilante groups, so his position is extremely bleak. Realistically he faces a jail term of up to five years, the maximum if found guilty of blasphemy.

   This trial represents a window into the future for Indonesia. Islamist groups will continue their push for increasing influence, with the ultimate goal of establishing a Sharia-based state. There is widespread opposition to this push from the broader Indonesian population, both Muslim and non-Muslim, as reflected in voting patterns in past elections. The tragic irony is that democratic reform since 1998, for which so many Indonesians yearned during the Suharto years, has opened the way for the flourishing of groups whose very raison d’être is antidemocratic and anti-pluralist. Indonesia faces some challenging times in years to come.

This article first appeared in The Church Times  (UK) on 23 December 2016