THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 180, August 13, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
INDONESIAN DEMOCRACY VERSUS ISLAMIST FUNDAMENTALISM
By Daniel Mandel
FULL STORY:
Is Indonesia safe from the ravages of Islamism and on the road to democratic stability? It is hard to tell.
The country has just held its first direct presidential election since the close of the long, authoritarian Suharto era in 1998. The vote,
completed last week, gave no candidate a clear majority and a run-off vote between the leading contenders -- former Security
Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (Democratic Party) and incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri (Indonesian Democracy
Party) -- beckons in September.
The vote follows parliamentary elections last April, pointing to democratic consolidation in a previously authoritarian Muslim polity.
The separation of state and mosque remains intact, underscored by the fact that the three leading presidential candidates -- the third
being former Armed Forces chief, General Wiranto (Golkar) -- are all secular figures.
Yet Indonesia remains challenged by militant Islam and ambivalent over the transnational war waged by jihadists, in particular, its
own indigenous Islamist terror group, the Jemaah Islamiya (JI). That ambivalence extends to Megawati, who last year blamed the
West for the "climate of violence" that fosters terrorism.
Megawati's stance highlights how anti-Western resentment, discouraged by her predecessor, Abdulrrahman Wahid, straddles the
religious-secular divide. Moreover, even without a chance at the Presidency, Islamic parties could well prove necessary coalition
partners in a fractious Parliament and Islamists have sway among the members of Parliament.
The leaders of two such parties, the fourth and fifth presidential candidates, Amien Rais (National Mandate Party) and Hamzah Haz
(United Development Party) have a history of illiberal statements and associations behind them. Assorted ethnic hatreds,
anti-American sentiment, and denial about the very existence of indigenous terrorism hangs heavy over Indonesia's political
landscape.
Amien Rais has uttered anti-Jewish, anti-Chinese, and anti-Western sentiments in the past. He has even strayed into Holocaust
denial, stating in May, 1998, concerning stories of 170,000 Chinese fleeing Indonesia during riots, "It is a crazy, blown-up figure,
just like when the Israelis said that six million Jews had been killed in World War II."
The same month, he told the Asian Wall Street Journal that, as a doctoral student at the University of Chicago in the late
1970s, he was "struck by the fact" that America's Anglo-Saxon majority had come under the control of its tiny Jewish minority. A
few months later, he referred to a handful of Jews in Surabaya as "Yahudi tengik" (Smelly Jews). He has railed against Chinese
"over-representation" in the Indonesian state bureaucracy.
Rais has sought to unite Islamic parties in a "National Salvation Alliance." His candidacy had the backing also of the Islamist
supported Prosperous Justice Party. It is currently led by Dr. Hidayat Nurwahid, who studied Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia
before returning to teach in Islamic institutions in 1992. The two parties together command 14 per cent of the parliamentary seats.
Hamzah Haz, on the other hand, famously stated, in 1999, that no woman was fit to rule the country -- though he later accepted a
posting in Megawati's Cabinet. He is closely associated with JI's Bashir. In August, 2002, Haz visited Bashir's Islamic boarding
school at Ngruki, Central Java, where he declared, after conferring with Bashir, that there was no such thing as an international
terrorist network in Indonesia.
Haz makes no secret of the fact that his views converge with those of the Islamists. In September, 2003, addressing a meeting of
Muslim clerics, Haz asked rhetorically, "Who is the real terrorist? It is the United States, for they have attacked Iraq. In fact, they
are the king of terrorists."
The rot does not stop there. Even Haysim Muzadi, the Chairman of moderate Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Muslim
organization, is in denial about local terror groups.
Thus, in September, 2003, Muzadi claimed categorically, "I meet with Islamic mass organizations every day from all over Indonesia,
but I've never heard of JI and the people I meet have never heard of JI either."
Although Muzadi, who happens to be Megawati's running mate and could therefore be Vice President, described Haz's "king of
terrorists" utterance as "too much." He also repudiated his own words, offering the qualifier: "It is just possible the U.S. commits
terrorism, but not the whole country."
In addition to to this disaffection for America, there is a lack of seriousness in judicial proceedings against terrorists.
Bashir, for example, was convicted and sentenced to four years on charges of subversion, but escaped conviction on treason
charges. His defense, that he is the victim of a U.S. conspiracy and that JI does not exist, was accepted at face value by the court.
All of this suggests an easy receptivity to such views among the Indonesian public. Undeniably secular and displaying an array
of Muslim opinion, Indonesia nonetheless cannot entirely escape the pan-Islamic resentments that plague other Muslim societies.
This means considerable heartache for Americans involved in efforts to cultivate Muslim friends and allies for the U.S.A. It ought
to alert Washington to the inroads of militant Islam in even democratic Muslim polities and thus to the dangers to the
longterm prospects of democracy in the world's most populous Muslim majority state.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Far East & U.S. Foreign Policy
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
The Middle East & the Arabs
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Daniel Mandel is associate director of the Middle East Forum.
The foregoing article by Mandel was originally published in FrontPageMagazine.Com, August 10, 2004, and can be found
on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 10, 2004
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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