Transcript GregBarton-HFF-IslamIndon-17Oct12

Islam, secularism and liberal
democracy in Indonesia
Greg Barton, Monash University
Herb Feith Research Professor for the study of Indonesia
Herb Feith Foundation Seminar Series
Monash Caulfield, 16 October 2012
Are pluralism and tolerance under threat
in Indonesia?
Will bullying and violence in the name of
God go unchecked?
What does Bhinneka Tunggal Ika mean
today?
May 1998 and democratic transition
 Democratic transition
 Political legitimacy
 Clear support of public
 Challenge of credibility
 A premature transition to democracy?
 Middle class and therefore civil society too small?
 Islam – is the world’s largest Muslim nation ready for
democracy?
 What sort of democracy wiill emerge?
Unexpected success
 Awkward transition
 New Order and ABRI misread?
 Unlikely leaders, unconventional leadership – Habibie and
Wahid
 Islam’s ‘dark matter’ – unrecognised civil society
Sources of Legitimacy
• Nationalism
• Democracy
• Islam
– Parties, politicians, policies and the question of
legitimacy
> What has legitimacy?
> For whom does it have legitimacy?
> How Islamic is Islamic enough?
Institutional legitimacy deficit
• Whilst the initial phase of Indonesia’s democratic
transition has now been successfully completed, and
the current government enjoys high levels of
legitimacy, institutional reform has only just begun
• Indonesia’s most important institutions continue to
suffer from a serious lack of legitimacy
• This is revealed in a number of social surveys
• In 2007 Pusat Pengkajian Islam dan Masyarakat
(PPIM) at the State Islamic University (UIN) in
Jakarta published three survey reports
3rd 2007 PPIM survey Islam and nationalism
• In 2007 PPIM published a social survey with the title
“Islam and Nationalism: Findings of a National Survey”.
• Respondents in this survey indicated low levels of trust
in political parties and public institutions, especially in
the field of law, but relatively high levels of trust in
religious leaders.
• Nevertheless the results of this survey also speak of
Indonesia’s significant success in building a national
identity that transcends ethnicity and regionalism.
Lack of confidence in state institutions
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8% had confidence in political parties
11% trusted the legislature (DPR)
16% trusted the police
22% trusted both the president and the army as
institutions
• 41% had confidence in religious leaders.
2007 PPIM survey Pesantren/madrasah, Islamic schools
• This survey, entitled “Assessment of Social and Political
Attitudes in Indonesian Schools: Madrasah and
Pesantren Directors and Students”, focussed on
interviewing twelve teachers (ulama: kyai, and ustaz) and
senior students from sixty-four pesantren/madrasah and
sixteen Islamic schools across eight provinces, giving a
total of 960 respondents.
• Considerable care was taken to choose a representative
sample of NU and Muhammadiyah institutions together
with independent pesantren and urban Islamic schools
from among Indonesia’s 20,000 pesantren and numerous
madrasah and Islamic schools.
Lack of confidence in state institutions
• It would appear that one reason why shariah law and Islamist
politics have such strong support in Indonesia today is that
there exists very little confidence in public institutions.
• Less than one in five respondents believed that “the police
perform their law enforcement task well” (17.5%)
• 19% believe that nation’s courts perform their task “to
achieve justice in legal decisions”
• 22% have confidence in the performance of the House of
Representatives (DPR).
• 49% have confidence in the president’s performance of his
duties
• 82% believe that “religious leaders, precisely the ulama, will
not mislead them”.
Support for democracy
• It is interesting that whilst PPIM surveys since 2001
show evidence of increasing support for Islamism they
also reveal steadily increasing support for democracy.
Indeed in this 2007 survey high levels of support for
Islamism are accompanied by high levels of support for
democracy.
• 86% of respondents agreeing that “democracy is the
best system of governance for Indonesia”.
• 83% agreed with the statement that “democracy creates
social order within society”.
Islamic democracy – democratic Islam?
• Radical Islamism represents the most substantial
critique of the legitimacy of liberal democracy in
Indonesia
– How much support is there for radical Islamism?
• The world’s largest Muslim nation has transitioned
to democracy but what does Islam have to do with
this?
– Has this occurred because of, or despite, Islam?
– The civil sphere is the place to look for an answer
• What has been the contribution of Islam to civil
society in Indonesia?
– This needs to be viewed broadly and over the longer run, as
well as in the reform movement of the past two decades
The ‘Arab Spring’:
transition in the heart of the Muslim world
Five Implications from the ‘Arab Spring’
• 1. Religion remains important
• 2. Social, economic, political, cultural and
demographic drivers are paramount
• 3. Democracy is just beginning
• 4. Secular, liberal democracy needs to be
negotiated and developed in the context of
local cultural and religious factors
• 5. Religious and social harmony will face
variegated and unpredictable challenges
1. Religion remains important
• Religion is generally not the driver for
protest
• But it informs values, aspirations and
expectations
• And manifests in the market-place of ideas
that accompanies democracy
• Religion has played an important historical
role in dissent and social services
• Hence, the Muslim Brotherhood is key
2. Social, drivers are paramount
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Social
Economic
Political
Cultural
Demographic
3. Democracy is just beginning
• The modern nation state is a very recent
development
– Most members of the UN were born in the
20th C
• Democracy is even more recent
• In the MENA nations democracy is arriving
for the first time
– it was deferred by Cold War imperatives
4. Secular, liberal democracy needs to be
negotiated and developed
• There exists wide-spread desire for
democracy
• But it needs to be developed in the context
of local cultural and religious factors
• Secularity and the appropriate limits of
religion remains a work in progress even in
the west
• Secular liberal democracy does not mean
the absence of religion in the public square
5. Religious and social harmony will face
challenges
• These challenges will be variegated and
unpredictable
• Religious sentiments will be manipulated for
cheap politics
• Religious leaders and communities must be
part of the solution
– But they need wisdom and courage
• More than ever, they will need to work
together
Islam must have it's place
• In the ME engaging with culture, tradition and belief
requires engaging with Islam
• Democracy requires allowing Islam a place in public
discourse, political discourse, social movements and
public life in general
• But what should that place be?
• The relationship between religion and the state needs to
be mediated through the civil sphere without coercion
on any side, independent from the state
• Secular liberal democracy is the only truly popular
option but it must find indigenous form and expression
• Religious social movements can play a vital and
constructive role
Islam and Modernity
• Can Islam and Islamic social movements be truly
modern?
• Binder says yes, but is not sure how.
• Huntington says no, and finds support in radical
Islamist essentialism.
• “"The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic
fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization
whose people are convinced of the superiority of their
culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their
power." (Huntington, 1996:217-8)
Multiple Narratives
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Traditionalist Muslims
Modernist Muslims
‘Secular’, non-observant cosmopolitans
Progressive/liberal Muslims
Moderate Islamists
Radical Islamists
Jihadists
Indonesia’s democratic transition
 Democratic transition
 Political legitimacy
 Clear support of public
 Challenge of credibility
 A premature transition to democracy?
 Middle class and therefore civil society too small?
 Islam – is the world’s largest Muslim nation ready for
democracy?
 What sort of democracy wiill emerge?
Unexpected success
 Awkward transition
 New Order and ABRI misread?
 Unlikely leaders, unconventional leadership – Habibie and
Wahid
 Islam’s ‘dark matter’ – unrecognised civil society
Joining the BRICs
• Indonesia is now increasingly recognized as a
key nation in the emerging second tier of rapidly
developing large nations
• joining the likes of Turkey and Mexico
• in the wake of the original BRIC group (Brazil,
Russia, India, and China) of first tier emerging
nations.
A present reality
• This is a present reality not merely a long-term
projection.
• Over the next eight years Indonesia is on track
to overtake Spain, Canada and Italy to become
the world's 11th largest economy in 2020
– just behind South Korea
– Indonesia is currently ranked 15th.
2010 v 2020
Brookings – June 2011
World Economic Expansion
Asia’s rising middle class
McKinsey Global Institute – Sep 2012
Decade of growth – 2000 - 2010
A decade of stable growth
Growing working-age population
Urbanisation – 71% in 2030
The rise of the cities
Not just Java
The rise of the middle class
Education – 42b in 2030, 6% per annum
But what about the risks?
• How is Indonesia currently fairing on:
• - good governance and the consolidation of
democracy
• - 2014 elections
• - terrorism and violent extremism
• - communal relations
• - economic management
Good enough to be a dragon
• Indonesia's prospects are sound
• Even just muddling through it is well on track to
join China, India, Japan and South Korea as an
Asian dragon
How should we respond?
• We need to reset our mental picture, our grand
narrative, of Indonesia
• We need to recognize that not just economic
growth but also generational change are
transforming outlook, capacities, expectations,
and aspirations