The Australian, April 03, 2004
Putting faith in the future
By Jakarta correspondent Sian Powell
THE banner stretched across a busy, muddy lane in Solo, central Java, tells good
Muslims exactly what to do in Monday's national elections. It's a fatwa, or edict, from
the terrorist-linked preacher Abu Bakar Bashir, whose notorious Ngruki school is just
around the corner.
Decorated with a symbol of the conservative Prosperous Justice Party, the banner's
words command: "It's obligatory to ensure the victory of Islamic parties which have
been proved sincere in the struggle for sharia Islam."
Plastered on nearby walls are posters with Bashir's "declaration from jail", exhorting
Muslims to vote for sharia Islamic parties and forbidding them to give the "smallest
opportunity" to anyone else.
Illustrated with photos of the cleric and his associate, the radical (and recently freed)
preacher Habib Rizieq Shihab, the Brigade Hizbullah posters feature silhouettes of
armed and helmeted warriors.
Radical Islam in Indonesia has been dangerously squeezed. A simmering frustration
with the perceived oppression of Muslims across the world has galvanised a solid
proportion of the electorate, but the movement's adherence to the tenets of sharia law
(which include whipping and hand-lopping) and its connection with terrorism have
alienated many others.
The tide of overlap between the extremist Indonesian Muslims who have been
accused (and convicted) of terrorism and the hardline Islamic parties is unsettling.
Two prominent Islamic party leaders visited Bashir in prison; the Solo headquarters of
Justice Minister Yusril Izha Mahendra's Crescent Star Party (PBB) sports a large
poster of bin Laden on the wall; and one of Bashir's chief lawyers, Mahendradatta, is
general-secretary of the Islamic Reformation Star Party.
Understanding the disfavour trailing the Bali and Jakarta Marriott hotel bombings,
some of the Islamic political leaders have sought to tone down the rhetoric.
Islamic politicians have looked nervously north to Malaysia, where the conservative
Islamic party PAS was trounced two weeks ago. Indonesian Vice-President Hamzah
Haz, leader of the once-strictly Islamic United Development Party (PPP), has
declared that Indonesia doesn't need to become an Islamic state. Other Islamic party
leaders, including Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) leader Hidayat Nurwahid, have
sounded wobbly on the need to implement sharia law.
It's different out in the sticks. Solo is a city known for its extremes of permissiveness
and piety, where women can be seen peering through the slit in their full Islamic
chador veils and prostitutes stand openly on the streets. In Solo, posters of bin Laden
are easy to find.
In the PBB office in central Solo, political candidate Roko Patriajati says Indonesia's
problems come mainly from a lax morality. More religious education is needed, the
22-year-old says, to overcome the enormous hurdles the nation faces.
Asked about the bin Laden poster, he smiles. "Osama bin Laden is a good man," he
says. "He raised the flag to fight against violence; it's because the US keeps
oppressing Muslims." Patriajati's fellow candidate, Mohammad Juwari, agrees. "If we
fight for Indonesia, automatically we will fight for the people of Islam," he says.
Stickers on the wall reflect the mood: "Don't be frightened of America; Allah will
protect us."
In the 1999 election, the Islamic parties won about 14 per cent of the vote from an
electorate that is about 88 per cent Muslim. It was a huge plunge from the 42 per cent
in 1955, the last comparably free election. Yet despite the shortage of support, in
1999 Islamic parties felt they had been freed from the oppressive anti-religious
atmosphere of the Suharto years and they saw good things on the horizon.
Their hopes could well come to nought. Along with many other political analysts,
University of Indonesia politics expert Arbi Sanit doesn't expect the radicals to
improve their support this time around. "There is nothing significant to increase their
vote," he says. "There is no change and nothing new on offer from the parties."
Sanit notes that no one is really spruiking sharia law or the Jakarta charter (an
addition to the constitution that would officially make Indonesia an Islamic nation).
An Australia-funded Centre for Democratic Institutions report released last month
concluded that the new election rules could shift support from the Islamic parties
(especially the smaller ones) to the two secular giants, the Golkar party and
President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
"The longer-term effect might even be to increase the splintering of an already
fragmented political Islam in Indonesia," the report says.
Conservative Muslims shrug off such pessimism. Supporters of the Prosperous
Justice Party (PKS), clad in white, roar around Solo in a convoy of motorbikes and
trucks. More than 100,000 supporters turned up at a giant Jakarta rally this week and
the party is likely to at least double the 1.4 per cent of the vote it got in 1999.
Haryanto, who heads the public policy department of the Solo PKS, says he expects
a solid increase in support, regardless of whether sharia is a policy platform. "The
PKS wants to show that Islam is part of politics," he says. "Many of our laws are
adopted from sharia."
Yet the central party leaders have been concentrating on the PKS's reputation as a
clean party, one that will work to rid Indonesia of corruption, rather than focusing on
religion.
Almost drowned out by the noise of raucous PDI-P supporters revving their bikes up
and down the street, Haryanto says he is confident about the future.
Certainly there is a lot of pro-Islamic feeling in the district. A rally in Solo last week to
mourn the killing of Palestinian Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin drew thousands,
perhaps tens of thousands, bearing placards about the death of a hero.
At the central mosque in Solo, a hundreds-strong crowd from the Majelis Tafsir
al-Qoran (Council of Koran Explanations) waits to rally for whichever Muslim party
needs them.
"Our activity is to support Islam," says Achmadi. His fellow riders wait patiently, ready
to put on whichever T-shirt is required.
There is a reservoir of Islamic feeling waiting to be tapped, Haryanto says. "I think in
Indonesia the development of Islamic parties will increase," he explains, shrugging off
the Malaysian disaster. "In Malaysia, it's not as democratic as Indonesia."
These Solo Muslims are pragmatic. The city is a PDI-P stronghold, held by the party
of the bull, and they all concede it will still be PDI-P red after the election. But
perhaps not quite so red.
© The Australian
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