{"id":21956,"date":"2015-08-11T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=21956"},"modified":"2015-08-10T20:48:38","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T10:48:38","slug":"a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"A positive turn in Indonesia’s religious affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mosque<\/a>Indonesia\u2019s religious affairs minister, Lukman Hamid Saifuddin, is a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a break from a long line of ineffectual predecessors who did nothing to defend minorities and showed extreme cowardice in facing up to those wanting to impose an Arabic culture on Indonesia.<\/p>\n

A member of the sharia-based United Development Party (PPP), the 52-year-old Saifuddin is taking a nationalist approach to the religious debate, arguing that Indonesian Muslims should embrace what he calls Islam Nusantara, or Islam of the Archipelago.<\/p>\n

In essence, he\u2019s saying that because Indonesia is so culturally different from the cradle of Islam, the world\u2019s largest Muslim nation should follow its own version of Islam, which emphasises moderation and tolerance, and supports indigenous cultures and the rights of women.<\/p>\n

Saifuddin notes that because Islam came from the Middle East, there\u2019s a widely held perception that only Middle Eastern traditions are legitimate. \u2018<\/strong>Yet, anywhere in the world, Islamic values are based on local culture,\u2019 he says<\/a>. \u2018In India, Egypt, Sudan and China, for example, Islamic values are part of the local culture.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an effective defence against hardliners who claim he\u2019s pushing deviant thought, particularly in his support of the controversial Javanese-style chanting intonation of the Koran which appears to have divided many of the country\u2019s Islamic clergy.<\/p>\n

What makes Saifuddin\u2019s open-minded approach compelling is that he was educated solely in Indonesia, first at a progressive Gontor Islamic boarding school in East Java and then at the Jakarta\u2019s As-Syafi\u2019iyah Islamic University where he obtained his BA.<\/p>\n

Other Gontor graduates include Hasyim Muzadi and Din Syamsuddin, former chairmen of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, the country\u2019s two largest mass Muslim organisations, and the late Muslim intellectual Nurcholish Madjid.<\/p>\n

A three-term parliamentarian, Saifuddin is receiving powerful backing, beginning with President Joko Widodo who told a 23 July meeting of religious leaders:<\/p>\n

This nation will only progress if it succeeds in overcoming the problems of tribalism, religion and race.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it will take more than words. NU, which the minister is a prominent member of, is finally speaking out against the way successive governments have allowed hard-liners to slowly eat away at Indonesia\u2019s pluralistic traditions.<\/p>\n

NU Supreme Council chairman Mustofa Bisri told foreign journalists that with more political will, the Government could be playing a vital role in efforts to counter the influence of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) and other extremist groups.<\/p>\n

Islam Nusantara was the main theme at NU\u2019s five-yearly congress in the Central Java city of Jombong last month. In the weeks prior to that, Bisri was among a range of senior religious figures warning of the threat to Indonesia\u2019s inclusiveness from ignorance and poverty.<\/p>\n

\u2018The benefits of tolerance must be recognised,\u2019 Saifuddin said in a recent interview with Tempo<\/em> magazine<\/a>. \u2018The way to do it is to be more pro-active in respecting and honoring others, instead of demanding and insisting that others understand you.\u2019<\/p>\n

Indonesia has suffered through a long line of ineffectual religious affairs ministers. Saifuddin\u2019s predecessor, former PPP leader Suryadarma Ali was forced to step down last year to face charges of stealing from a US$5 billion state-sponsored pilgrimage fund.<\/p>\n

Others before him have been little more than dead wood, unable to take an objective view of issues involving other faiths and beliefs, and currying favour with the hardline clerics who have dominated the religious debate since the birth of democratisation.<\/p>\n

Police admitted recently they were reluctant to crack down on hate speech because there were no \u2018rewards\u2019 for doing so, something that also applies to a wide range of infractions which flourish in Indonesian society because of a lack of law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Critics say apart from fearing a backlash, police and other local officials often can\u2019t separate their official duties from their personal beliefs, either siding with the majority or doing nothing to protect minorities.<\/p>\n

The media hasn\u2019t been any better.<\/p>\n

The National Commission of Human Rights\u2019 latest report cited 14 cases of serious religious intolerance<\/a> in the April\u2013June period, including the persecution of the Ahmadiyah Muslim sect in South Jakarta, the closure of churches in Aceh and the criminalisation of Shiites in Bogor.<\/p>\n

In his quest to make Islam more \u2018friendly,\u2019 Saifuddin has aroused controversy by questioning why all restaurants should be closed during Ramadan fasting hours and in taking aim at other dictates that have taken hold in recent years more by default than anything else.<\/p>\n

Largely repressed for much of President Suharto\u2019s 32-year rule, Islam has underwent a significant revival in the democratic space created after his downfall. But it has also led to a revival of extremism as well, and a worrying drift in which the mainstream majority acts like a minority.<\/p>\n

Saifuddin argues that unlike the bloody conflicts that accompanied Islam\u2019s spread into Europe and African, not a drop of blood was shed when it was introduced into an archipelago that had previously embraced Hindu and Buddhist values until the close of the 13th century.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t always been the case over the past 15 years, however. Indeed, the minister knows better than anyone that new legislation seeking to promote interfaith harmony will be meaningless unless it\u2019s accompanied by a change in mainstream attitudes, as moderate as they generally appear to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indonesia\u2019s religious affairs minister, Lukman Hamid Saifuddin, is a breath of fresh air. He\u2019s a break from a long line of ineffectual predecessors who did nothing to defend minorities and showed extreme cowardice in facing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":21957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,377,1403,376,1371],"class_list":["post-21956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-indonesia","tag-joko-widodo","tag-lukman-hamid-saifuddin","tag-politics","tag-religion"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA positive turn in Indonesia's religious affairs | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A positive turn in Indonesia's religious affairs | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Indonesia\u2019s religious affairs minister, Lukman Hamid Saifuddin, is a breath of fresh air. He\u2019s a break from a long line of ineffectual predecessors who did nothing to defend minorities and showed extreme cowardice in facing ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-10T20:00:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-10T10:48:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/6321267579_54d4ef25d8_z.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John McBeth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John McBeth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/6321267579_54d4ef25d8_z.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/6321267579_54d4ef25d8_z.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":427,\"caption\":\"Mosque in Jakarta\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/\",\"name\":\"A positive turn in Indonesia's religious affairs | The Strategist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-10T20:00:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-10T10:48:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/9b5c44c0b34c5424dbbe1e0de664b19a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A positive turn in Indonesia’s religious affairs\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/9b5c44c0b34c5424dbbe1e0de664b19a\",\"name\":\"John McBeth\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a7845a8a2730a369903c0a345160c3b3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a7845a8a2730a369903c0a345160c3b3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John McBeth\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/john-mcbeth\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A positive turn in Indonesia's religious affairs | The Strategist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-positive-turn-in-indonesias-religious-affairs\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A positive turn in Indonesia's religious affairs | The Strategist","og_description":"Indonesia\u2019s religious affairs minister, Lukman Hamid Saifuddin, is a breath of fresh air. 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