THE WASHINGTON POST, Saturday, May 4, 2002; Page A01
Indonesian-Style Taliban Fights for Islamic Law
Radical Groups Challenge Secular Traditions
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Foreign Service
TASIKMALAYA, Indonesia -- The Taliban Brigade stormed into the hotel lounge
shortly before midnight, wielding rattan canes and screaming "God is great!"
As patrons cowered under the rickety wooden tables, and the leather-clad singer
bolted off the stage, witnesses said, three dozen young men in flowing white robes
swung their sticks at beer mugs and highball glasses. Then they charged into the
kitchen to seize the hotel's liquor supply, carting off several cases of beer and two
bottles of whiskey.
"This is a Muslim country," the leader of the mob shouted as his minions smashed
everything in sight, according to a hotel employee. "We forbid you to drink alcohol."
The Taliban Brigade, whose connection with Afghanistan's erstwhile rulers is in
ideology only, regards itself as a vanquisher of vice in this small city near the southern
coast of Java island. Members raid nightclubs and cafes to stamp out drinking and
gambling. They ransack shops suspected of selling pornographic video discs. And
they sweep through hotels, rounding up prostitutes and shaving their heads.
The Taliban Brigade is part of a growing network of groups seeking to turn socially
moderate Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago that is home to more Muslims
than any other country, into a strict Islamic nation. Its members -- students and
teachers from Islamic boarding schools -- want to abolish the country's secular legal
system and replace it with a version of sharia, the Islamic law that would ban the sale
of alcohol, require women to wear head scarves and permit courts to order the
amputation of thieves' hands.
Although efforts to enact sharia nationwide remain the subject of much dispute and
little progress, its advocates have become some of the most vocal players in
Indonesia's nascent democracy. They also have employed stealth. Using a new law
that gives localities more autonomy, they have quietly enacted parts of their agenda in
cities and jurisdictions similar to counties without approval from the central
government.
In Tasikmalaya, the Taliban and a coalition of conservative Muslim organizations have
persuaded the district governor to issue a host of edicts, from barring vehicular traffic
near the main mosque during midday prayers on Friday to requiring that elementary
and high school students, no matter what religion, receive a certificate of proficiency
in Islamic studies. The governor also has urged women to cover their hair, and he has
called for public swimming pools to be segregated by.
The Taliban, whose weekly raids are condoned by the police, also has imposed and
enforced local sharia regulations, declaring a zero-tolerance policy toward alcohol,
gambling, pornography and prostitution.
"If we see it, we will destroy it or we will confiscate it," insisted Mohammed Zainal
Mutaqqien Aziz, a religious teacher who heads the Taliban Brigade, which was formed
in 1998 and takes its name from the Arabic word for student. "These sorts of sinful
things are not fit for Tasikmalaya."
Unlike in much of the Muslim world, the growth of religious extremism in Indonesia
has largely been an indigenous phenomenon, owing more to the country's
helter-skelter transition to democracy than to funding from outside groups. With rising
poverty and lawlessness, fueled by economic stagnation and political infighting, an
increasing slice of the population has started to view radical Islam as a panacea.
Conservative Muslim leaders said they have been aided by the U.S. campaign against
terrorism, which is seen by many in Indonesia as a fight against Islam. Membership in
their groups has swelled in recent months, they said.
"America's actions have united Muslims," said Jafar Umar Thalib, the leader of Laskar
Jihad, a hard-line militia that has fought to evict Christians and implement sharia
elsewhere in Indonesia, primarily in the former Spice Islands.
Although the Taliban, the Laskar Jihad and other groups are on the fringes of politics
and society, government officials and mainstream Muslim leaders worry that
extremists are nudging the world's fourth-most-populous country away from its
moderate traditions and secular roots.
"The radical groups may be small in number, but they're very strong in influence," said
Ulil Abshar-Abdullah, director of the Liberal Islam Network, a coalition of moderate
Muslim leaders. "They have enormous power to shape the agenda."
Diplomats said they believe fears of a backlash from fundamentalist organizations --
which make little secret of their admiration for Osama bin Laden and their abhorrence
for America -- have stalled the government's pursuit of suspected terrorists. In the
most notable example, Indonesian police recently opted not to arrest a prominent
cleric alleged to be the ideological leader of an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that
plotted to blow up several Western embassies in Singapore. Indonesian officials
contend that attempting to do so without incontrovertible evidence, which they said
they do not possess, would spark massive protests.
"The government is being held hostage by the extremists," said an Asian diplomat in
Jakarta, the capital. "Nobody wants to take them on."
The rise of conservative Islam seems a clear trend in a country that has long prided
itself in having the world's most liberal Muslims. In Jakarta, where billboards tout
Bintang beer and feature scantily clad models, more young women are opting to wear
head scarves, more men show up at mosques for Friday prayers and more families
are fasting during Ramadan, according to Muslim leaders.
In a recent survey conducted by the State University of Islamic Studies, 58 percent of
respondents across the country said they supported the idea of transforming
Indonesia into an Islamic state run by Muslim clerics. More than 60 percent said the
government should implement some form of sharia. But the survey also found that a
sizable majority are opposed to other changes sought by suchgroups as the Taliban
Brigade, including arresting Muslims who do not fast during Ramadan and having
police ensure that Muslims pray five times a day.
Although President Megawati Sukarnoputri and most of parliament remain opposed to
imposing sharia nationwide, the government has permitted local officials in Aceh, a
province on the northern tip of Sumatra island, to adopt a limited form of sharia in an
effort to wrest popular support from separatist rebels. As a first step, they ordered
residents last month to follow a new dress code -- women have to cover all parts of
their body except their face, hands and the soles of their feet. The officials said they
were forming a religious police force to enforce the rules.
The question of how much sharia is enough, and how much is too much, is emerging
as one of the most contentious issues in this young democracy of more than 220
million people.
Tasikmalaya, located about 150 miles southeast of Jakarta, provides a preview of the
broader fight. Here, the debate over sharia already is wrenching politicians, religious
leaders, business owners and ordinary people.
"This is the most important test for the future of this country," said Abshar-Abdullah
lam Network. "It's a test of whether moderate or conservative Islam will prevail."
Democracy Vs. Sharia
Islam arrived in the islands that now Indonesia about 700 years ago, with traders from
India and the Middle East schooled in the moderate Sufi branch of the religion.
Because it was not imposed by conquerors, the new adherents were not compelled to
renounce their Buddhist, Hindu and indigenous religious practices. The result was a
hybrid form of Islam that coexisted with local traditions.
But by the end of the 19th century, as more Indonesian Muslims traveled to Arab
countries and interacted with orthodox Muslims, a more conservative variety of Islam
began to take hold. By 1945, when Indonesia won its independence from the
Netherlands, liberal and conservative Muslims struggled for dominance. The
conservatives demanded that the new constitution include a clause requiring Muslims
to practice sharia. But moderate Muslim nationalists, led by the founding president,
Sukarno, instead enacted an anti-sharia ideology called pancasila that
accommodated five state-recognized religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism,
Hinduism and Buddhism.
Sukarno's successor, Suharto, was more aggressive in suppressing Muslim groups
that were seen threatening the state. Advocacy of an Islamic state was deemed
subversion. Hundreds of Muslim leaders were jailed and publications were banned.
Muslim political parties had to pledge fealty to the government.
But when the Suharto dictatorship ended in 1998 after 32 years, and Indonesia
embarked on a turbulent democratic transition, all those restrictions evaporated.
Suddenly, clerics and political parties were free to renew their calls for sharia.
"Pancasila has been a disaster for our country," said Irfan S. Awwas, the leader of the
Indonesian Mujahadeen Council. "We are the world's biggest Muslim country. It is our
right to be governed by sharia."
Awwas spent 13 years in prison on subversion charges during Suharto's reign for
promoting sharia. Now he holds pro-sharia rallies across the country.
The growth of the Mujahadeen Council and other conservative groups has been fueled
in part by a feeling that radical Islam is the prescription to quell the poverty, crime and
other social problems that have wracked Indonesia since Suharto's downfall.
"With him gone, we are supposedly in a period of reform, but it's not changing
people's lives," said Ubaydillah Salman, the managing editor of Sabili, a Muslim
magazine that has written glowing stories about the Taliban Brigade. "People are
frustrated, and they see Islam as the answer to all their problems."
The Laskar Jihad, like fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Palestinian territories and
elsewhere in the Arab world, has won new members because it has set up health
clinics and schools in poor communities. Sharia supporters also say strict Islamic
punishments will combat crime.
Political parties that support the implementation of sharia have made headway. The
leader of the largest such party was elected vice president last year, and collectively,
the parties control 24 percent of the seats in parliament. Still, most political leaders
and the country's largest Muslim groups have refused to bend to demands to impose
sharia.
"It's a simple-minded solution for our very complicated problems," said Ahmad Syafii
Maarif, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, a Muslim social organization with 10 million
members. "Adopting sharia will just divide our society further."
Activists promoting sharia have set their sights not on the national parliament in
Jakarta but on smaller cities such as Tasikmalaya, which have recently been given
expanded lawmaking powers by the central government. Last year, after being lobbied
by a coalition of pro-sharia groups, the local legislature passed a five-year plan that
calls for Tasikmalaya to develop as a center of Islamic values.
"Religious preaching and government policies should go hand in hand," said the
governor of Tasikmalaya, Tatang F. Hakim. "It is our responsibility to follow the
demands of the people."
But Abdul Fatah Syamsuddin, leader of the pro-sharia Islamic Youth Forum, said
local police have been slow to enforce laws against prostitution and pornography.
And, he said, the police have not cracked down on alcohol sales because a law
banning liquor is still being debated by the legislature.
"That's why the Taliban Brigade is important," he said. "They are taking matters into
their own hands."
A City Transformed
After expounding on the benefits of sharia for an hour in his living room, Zainal
Mutaqqien, the Taliban Brigade leader, jumped out of his chair and unlocked a large
wooden cabinet to the right of a poster of bin Laden.
Out came a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch whisky, followed by a jug of
Burgundy, a flask of creme de cacao, some creme de menthe and a liter of Cointreau.
"This is what we've seized," he gushed. "This shouldn't be allowed in Tasikmalaya."
Sensing his boss's excitement, an aide rushed off to retrieve a plastic bag containing
dozens of pornographic video discs, including volumes one through six of a
compilation titled "American Hard-Core."
"Nobody should be watching this filth," he said.
The governor's edicts and exhortations, as well as the Taliban Brigade's raids, have
transformed this city and the surrounding district, a lush farming region that is home
to 2 million people. Women who used to walk through the market with their long hair
waving in the wind now wear scarves. Karaoke parlors, theaters and cafes have shut
down. The restaurant at the Mahkota Hotel, like almost every eatery here, has
stopped offering liquor.
At the Sinta Cafe, only one table was occupied on a recent Friday night. The
management stopped serving liquor six months ago after two Taliban Brigade
warnings. Beer, said entertainment manager Deni Wardiana, was still available but
was not on the menu.
"What's wrong with a drink?" he said. "It should be up to people to choose."
But several residents and business owners said they were unwilling to confront the
Taliban Brigade or even talk to government officials.
"People are too scared," said Reni, a secretary who was sipping a beer with her
daughter and son-in-law at the Sinta Cafe. "The Taliban have connections with the
police."
During the day, Reni said, she wears loose clothes and a head scarf. At the cafe,
however, she was dressed in a tight pink top, her coifed bob uncovered. "Not wearing
a head scarf doesn't mean I don't love Allah," she noted.
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