Alex, I sympathise with your eagerness in understanding Moslem people in Indonesia. Couldn’t agree more, there is a complexity in understanding Moslem people in Indonesia. Therefore, every conclusion should be reflected carefully. Otherwise, people would misinterpret with your intentions.
A holistic approach, I think, would also help you to explain more about the complexity. Thus, approaching only from conservative versus moderate, I think, would not substantially helpful. It seems that you use old-fashion approach. Sorry to say that.
Rather than to focus on the institutions (such as NU or Muhammadiyah), I think you can also investigate more from the interplay between clerics (ulama), followers (ummat), and states (umaro). It would be more powerful I think as suggested by Safrudin Amin above.
PS. I prefer to use the notion of “Moslem people in Indonesia” rather than “Islam in Indonesia” because what we need to understand is the people and not the religion itself.
@Alex,
Apart from the aggressive tone which is both unnecessary and counter-productive, I don’t see how Krisna’s comment is ‘engaging in polemic.’ His point is actually not dissimilar to mine above, which I think is based on a reasonable degree of scepticism about your rather unproblematic assumption about the role and influence of NU and Muhammadiyah in Jakarta.
I have nowhere written that there is no difference between moderate and conservative/radical Muslims nor would I agree with such an opinion. Maybe you should read my commentary again and check which words or sentences you might not have understood.
What I did say is that there are large parts of NU and Muhammadiyah that have taken a conservative and fundamentalist turn. Maybe you would not agree that these factions are “large”. But that there are plenty of groups and people inside the aforementioned organizations that are indeed conservative, not moderate, seems to be part of your core argument, so I would be surprised if you would really like to criticize me for that.
IMO, most likely it’s about the ‘preservation’ of corrupt practices/culture. Since Jokowi, and then Ahok took over the city, they have been hard at work not only in infrastructure, but also eradicating corruption internally. Many ‘victims’ already fallen (see corruption scandals regarding budgets (UPS for schools), buses procurement, etc.). Just look at the list of politicians who despise Ahok and demand persecution against him. It’s basically a list of corrupt politicians.
If you can stop Ahok, then there’s big chance that corrupt practices to return so ‘they’ can live happily ever after.
Sir: You are starting to engage in polemics now so I wont be answering your comments as well as having any other engagements in this forum. Have a nice day.
JP, It would seemed that your understanding for Chinese business-dominance in SE Asia (not just Indonesia) is over-simplified. You only take things as it seemed on the surface. If you look at Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines & even Indonesia, you will notice a trend. That Chinese dominates the entire business circle. Yet, you oversimplified by stating that these Chinese relied on corruption, politician favors, protectionism etc to rise above in turmoil times, often at the expense of local indigenous. How wrong is this line of thinking. It is exactly this type of thinking, which prevails in Malaysia & Indonesia that gave rise to anti-chinese riots (ethnic cleansing) a few decades ago. Politicians will almost always use this ‘common enemy’ tagline to unite the locals and fights off the Chinese.
This line of thought completely neglect two factors. 1) that the locals have received constant assistance from the government. In Malaysia, this is still happening as we speak with the pro-bumi policy and in Indonesia, university have adopted ‘muslims-favored’ in its recruitment. Huge and often very powerful groups backed by government/politicians are for such policy. 2) the effect of Islam law which firmly disallow converting out. The Chinese obviously came from a more established civilization (more than 5000 years of history) and with its strong cultural heritage, the understanding of hardwork, persistence, commercially-minded, frugality etc will be more ingrained and this trumps the locals. Get to know any local Chinese living in SE Asia in general and you will know what I mean. However, if you look at Chinese living outside of Malaysia & Indonesia (where Islam is pervasively dominant), integrating with locals have not been a problem. Many Thais, Viets and Pinoys with mixed Chinese-local parents do not even want to admit that they have Chinese blood. It doesn’t matter. Why is this different in Islam-controlled countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia? The answer lies in Islam. The rule that disallowed muslims from converting out and yet encouraged/forced others to convert in, is a one-way road. Even much educated & worldly bule falls into this ‘convert to Islam for marriage’ scam. Such polarization discouraged unity on a large scale and draw racial lines, when in reality, it is actually religious lines. In the end, it will always ends up as muslim versus non-muslim. Once the society progress to that, Islam will take over the politics, just like what is happening in Indonesia.
Generally, Islam is a cultural destroyer. It does not allow its followers to embrace anything outside of Islam tradition, which is covering up, Arabic, extreme fasting and jihad. When the Chinese came, bringing along its rich heritage of frugality, hardwork and intensity/persistence to success, how do u think the local (whom have already embraced Islam) will react to it? This is made worse by government which constantly honor and remind population about its restrictions, control and laws. Just like in the case in Malaysia; you have media promoting Islam, NGOs defending its rights (including to insist that non muslims cannot be seen eating when muslims are fasting), laws protecting it, and even security officers enforcing it (raid team that ‘catch’ suspected muslims in khalwat).
JP, I don’t see all this polarization and problem with local-born Chinese dominating local businesses in Thailand, Vietnam & Phillipines. Why is this only happening in Malaysia & Indonesia, both Muslims countries?
Please be cool when reading this article. I have read some papers about Indonesia written by Prof. Aspinall. Whilst it is difficult for some Indonesian people and even Western scholars to understand the recent phenomena, I think Aspinall understands well about Indonesian local context. He explains well in his article about why Ahok failed to win the first round and he predicts that most likely Ahok will lose the second round. He indicates: “Even if Ahok loses, which seems quite likely, …”. Of course, many people would not be happy with this statement, particularly people who support Ahok and thought that Ahok could get votes more than 50% in the first round.
I also agree with Aspinall that it is not the religious or ethics’ racism or discrimination as the reason Ahok could not win the election in the first round. To my understanding, Moslem people in Jakarta prefer the performance of the leaders more that their religious affiliation. It can also be said that in general Moslem people in Jakarta are not as extreme as other parts in Indonesia. They are very tolerant and flexible to other ethnics and religions when living in Jakarta.
I couldn’t agree more with Aspinall that Ahok lost his potential voters caused by self-destruction from himself, i.e. his inability to understand the local context. Whilst not fully religious persons, Moslem people in Jakarta are very sensitive to their religious belief. Even a Moslem person such as me is very careful what talking or interpreting his/her religious belief. Moslem people will primary ask their clerics when they want to understanding or interpreting the meaning of the Quran and Hadist. Therefore, whoever wants to lead a public office in Jakarta and generally Indonesia through election should understand this local context.
Unfortunately, most politicians and political leaders in Indonesia who came from private business do not understand well this local context. They thought that all systems in Indonesia have been above the law as suggested by Weber. He thought that charismatic power such as hold by Moslem clerics can be easily eliminated by bureaucratic power (such as using the power of the police). As a naive person, Ahok thought that all capitalistic systems can work well in Indonesia post-Soeharto reform and he hang up too much to authoritative legitimate power hold by bureaucracies, as promoted by Weberian; which in fact does not work well in a developing country such as Indonesia.
I think that Ahok should learn that he may not depend too much to the authoritative power. In a country such as Indonesia, he needs to respect the local culture (and belief) and also approaching people through dialogue and consensus, as suggested by Habermas. Neo-liberal reform and a colonialist leadership style as shown by Ahok would always create resistance and conflict in a country such as Indonesia when paying less attention to local context.
We can also learn from this case that all leaders should understand well their local context. Without understanding local context, any reform would fail and create most cost to the people. If a leader wants to implement reform successfully, he/she needs to have more dialogue and respect local context.
Thank you. I am waiting more articles from Prof. Aspinall and maybe one day I will attend your conference presentation.
PS. I am a Phd student at the AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. My interest is how reform can be implemented well within the context and culture such as Indonesia.
I think you need to get your fact straight. Although violence against minority occur often, it is often done by a small number of people. Nowhere near the majority of muslim residence of the area. And about MAJORITY of muslim in cities and town no less, require to belong to Islamic organization, this is patently wrong. If they feel the need, than official facebook or other social media channel of NU and Muhammadiyah would be overflowing with followers, as I stated, since Indonesian tend to overshare in social media. They would definitely share their membership or allegiance to an Islamic organization. Remember that almost 90 million people in Indonesia are active in social media. If what you claim is true, then NU and Muhammadiyah would have followers in the tens of millions, instead of only a low hundreds of thousands they have now.
And lastly about your comment here: While on their daily basis they might have a “live and let live” attitudes toward Non-Muslims and in some cases toward Muslim Minorities like Ahmadis or Shiites, this does not mean that theologically they accept these minorities as equals and that it is OK for these minorities to compete head to head with Muslims, well that is true for most of humanity. People don’t accept minorities as equals, most just pretend to accept and behave because of strong legal action if they don’t.
Authoritarianism is like sexual abuse. The victims grow up to be the next generation of abusers. That is why the military and the government “education” system perpetuate Thailand’s particular brand of misery.
Not entirely. The intellectuals and knowledged who are against ahok are the mental-corrupted that made a big fuss over the so-called blasphemy that thus dragged the religion/ethnicity issue.
Logistical reasons. Only about 10 per cent of Jakarta population are non-Muslims. It’s technically impossible to sample only non-Muslims so you’ve to sample the whole population first and then analyze only the non-Muslims.
It means that to get a sample size of 1,000 non-Muslims, you’ve to sample ten times larger than that (i.e., 10,000 respondents). I’ve never heard of a survey that gets sample size that big except the Cooperative Congressional Election Studies in the U.S. (50,000+ respondents). But even then, they do it online rather than face-to-face like surveys in Indonesia.
There’s a very nice interview with Joshua Kurlantzic on Cogitasia that I would recommend listening too. Kurlantzic has a refreshingly objective take on US policy duirng this period, and his points about how this venture shaped the CIA are fascinating.
The application of totalitarian control to Thai monasticism is very likely to end in tears. The replacement of the senior candidate for Supreme Patriarch with yet another Thammayut placeman has insulted the Mahanikaya monks (who make up all but 7000 of Thailand’s 300000 monks). Today’s pictures of policemen roughing up Dhammakaya monks (Mahanikaya) is also most inauspicious for the Junta.
“the upper and middle-class Muslims living in large towns and cities throughout Indonesia, still feeling the need to belong to a Muslim organization as part of their religious devotions. In Indonesia, this organization is usually NU or Muhammadiyah”
Could you give us some insight on the basis of your claim above? Although NU is vastly influential in many parts of Java, the picture may be different in Jakarta, where it has to share the stage with many increasingly popular groups with little institutional ties to NU.
Also, I think it is important to unpack what “belong to NU/Muhammadiyah as a part of their religious devotions.” If what you meant by that is simply they worship in a NU or Muhammadiyah way, and follow the frequently diverging date for Idul Fitri, then it doesn’t tell us much about their attitude toward contested issues. It’s hard to imagine upper and middle-class Muslims in Jakarta, who do not know any pesantren or kyai, would be interested in browsing NU’s primordial website looking for the latest religious opinions.
This is perhaps why despite the controversy surrounding Ahok, and the support for the conservative reading of Al-Maidah 51 from various prominent figures, Ahok still won about 43% of the vote.
Hi again, Ok, I agree, we need to agree to disagree. Here I don’t mean to extent any kind of polemical stuff. I just highlight our different stand points, if you don’t mind and hopefully I don’t miss any of your points. You seem focus heavily on internal failure of moderate Islamic organizations (NU and Muhammadiyah) in disciplining their members as the main cause of growing “conservatism” (this is a problematic term or discourse). To some extent, now, I agree with that, but I see issues related to the growing “conservatism” and political tension are more complex than that. Beside ‘Ahok factor’ (which interestingly you did not touch it at all), there is more structural aspects, that is how structure (the state) plays its own card to “save” Ahok for certain political calculations (as seen in the ways president and Police respond the case and demand in early stages. The latest case consistently support this argument is the internal minister’s decision to re-install Ahok into governor position even though most constitution-law experts – not conservative – warn him that his decision is violating rules or undang-undang. This is one fresh example). This role played by state contributes to the sense of unfairness and boosts even more resistance among moderate and conservative mass who see Ahok has attacked their religion repeatedly. Any way, we need to agree to disagree, and thank for offering us a kind of different perspective on this issue. I find this topic is interesting. If you don’t mind, I want to discuss more on Islam in Indonesia with you. How I can contact you please?
For years under Soeharto, the Chinese couldn’t –or only a small number could– work for the government, the military, or involve in politics. Business was their only option for a living.
I am an Indonesian “pribumi” and a Christian, but I didn’t vote for Ahok only because of he is a religious minority like me, but because he is an honest competent man.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
The missing middle
Alex, I sympathise with your eagerness in understanding Moslem people in Indonesia. Couldn’t agree more, there is a complexity in understanding Moslem people in Indonesia. Therefore, every conclusion should be reflected carefully. Otherwise, people would misinterpret with your intentions.
A holistic approach, I think, would also help you to explain more about the complexity. Thus, approaching only from conservative versus moderate, I think, would not substantially helpful. It seems that you use old-fashion approach. Sorry to say that.
Rather than to focus on the institutions (such as NU or Muhammadiyah), I think you can also investigate more from the interplay between clerics (ulama), followers (ummat), and states (umaro). It would be more powerful I think as suggested by Safrudin Amin above.
PS. I prefer to use the notion of “Moslem people in Indonesia” rather than “Islam in Indonesia” because what we need to understand is the people and not the religion itself.
The missing middle
@Alex,
Apart from the aggressive tone which is both unnecessary and counter-productive, I don’t see how Krisna’s comment is ‘engaging in polemic.’ His point is actually not dissimilar to mine above, which I think is based on a reasonable degree of scepticism about your rather unproblematic assumption about the role and influence of NU and Muhammadiyah in Jakarta.
The missing middle
I have nowhere written that there is no difference between moderate and conservative/radical Muslims nor would I agree with such an opinion. Maybe you should read my commentary again and check which words or sentences you might not have understood.
What I did say is that there are large parts of NU and Muhammadiyah that have taken a conservative and fundamentalist turn. Maybe you would not agree that these factions are “large”. But that there are plenty of groups and people inside the aforementioned organizations that are indeed conservative, not moderate, seems to be part of your core argument, so I would be surprised if you would really like to criticize me for that.
Interpreting the Jakarta election
IMO, most likely it’s about the ‘preservation’ of corrupt practices/culture. Since Jokowi, and then Ahok took over the city, they have been hard at work not only in infrastructure, but also eradicating corruption internally. Many ‘victims’ already fallen (see corruption scandals regarding budgets (UPS for schools), buses procurement, etc.). Just look at the list of politicians who despise Ahok and demand persecution against him. It’s basically a list of corrupt politicians.
If you can stop Ahok, then there’s big chance that corrupt practices to return so ‘they’ can live happily ever after.
The missing middle
Sir: You are starting to engage in polemics now so I wont be answering your comments as well as having any other engagements in this forum. Have a nice day.
Interpreting the Jakarta election
JP, It would seemed that your understanding for Chinese business-dominance in SE Asia (not just Indonesia) is over-simplified. You only take things as it seemed on the surface. If you look at Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines & even Indonesia, you will notice a trend. That Chinese dominates the entire business circle. Yet, you oversimplified by stating that these Chinese relied on corruption, politician favors, protectionism etc to rise above in turmoil times, often at the expense of local indigenous. How wrong is this line of thinking. It is exactly this type of thinking, which prevails in Malaysia & Indonesia that gave rise to anti-chinese riots (ethnic cleansing) a few decades ago. Politicians will almost always use this ‘common enemy’ tagline to unite the locals and fights off the Chinese.
This line of thought completely neglect two factors. 1) that the locals have received constant assistance from the government. In Malaysia, this is still happening as we speak with the pro-bumi policy and in Indonesia, university have adopted ‘muslims-favored’ in its recruitment. Huge and often very powerful groups backed by government/politicians are for such policy. 2) the effect of Islam law which firmly disallow converting out. The Chinese obviously came from a more established civilization (more than 5000 years of history) and with its strong cultural heritage, the understanding of hardwork, persistence, commercially-minded, frugality etc will be more ingrained and this trumps the locals. Get to know any local Chinese living in SE Asia in general and you will know what I mean. However, if you look at Chinese living outside of Malaysia & Indonesia (where Islam is pervasively dominant), integrating with locals have not been a problem. Many Thais, Viets and Pinoys with mixed Chinese-local parents do not even want to admit that they have Chinese blood. It doesn’t matter. Why is this different in Islam-controlled countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia? The answer lies in Islam. The rule that disallowed muslims from converting out and yet encouraged/forced others to convert in, is a one-way road. Even much educated & worldly bule falls into this ‘convert to Islam for marriage’ scam. Such polarization discouraged unity on a large scale and draw racial lines, when in reality, it is actually religious lines. In the end, it will always ends up as muslim versus non-muslim. Once the society progress to that, Islam will take over the politics, just like what is happening in Indonesia.
Generally, Islam is a cultural destroyer. It does not allow its followers to embrace anything outside of Islam tradition, which is covering up, Arabic, extreme fasting and jihad. When the Chinese came, bringing along its rich heritage of frugality, hardwork and intensity/persistence to success, how do u think the local (whom have already embraced Islam) will react to it? This is made worse by government which constantly honor and remind population about its restrictions, control and laws. Just like in the case in Malaysia; you have media promoting Islam, NGOs defending its rights (including to insist that non muslims cannot be seen eating when muslims are fasting), laws protecting it, and even security officers enforcing it (raid team that ‘catch’ suspected muslims in khalwat).
JP, I don’t see all this polarization and problem with local-born Chinese dominating local businesses in Thailand, Vietnam & Phillipines. Why is this only happening in Malaysia & Indonesia, both Muslims countries?
Interpreting the Jakarta election
“The Ahok’s self-destruction ”
Please be cool when reading this article. I have read some papers about Indonesia written by Prof. Aspinall. Whilst it is difficult for some Indonesian people and even Western scholars to understand the recent phenomena, I think Aspinall understands well about Indonesian local context. He explains well in his article about why Ahok failed to win the first round and he predicts that most likely Ahok will lose the second round. He indicates: “Even if Ahok loses, which seems quite likely, …”. Of course, many people would not be happy with this statement, particularly people who support Ahok and thought that Ahok could get votes more than 50% in the first round.
I also agree with Aspinall that it is not the religious or ethics’ racism or discrimination as the reason Ahok could not win the election in the first round. To my understanding, Moslem people in Jakarta prefer the performance of the leaders more that their religious affiliation. It can also be said that in general Moslem people in Jakarta are not as extreme as other parts in Indonesia. They are very tolerant and flexible to other ethnics and religions when living in Jakarta.
I couldn’t agree more with Aspinall that Ahok lost his potential voters caused by self-destruction from himself, i.e. his inability to understand the local context. Whilst not fully religious persons, Moslem people in Jakarta are very sensitive to their religious belief. Even a Moslem person such as me is very careful what talking or interpreting his/her religious belief. Moslem people will primary ask their clerics when they want to understanding or interpreting the meaning of the Quran and Hadist. Therefore, whoever wants to lead a public office in Jakarta and generally Indonesia through election should understand this local context.
Unfortunately, most politicians and political leaders in Indonesia who came from private business do not understand well this local context. They thought that all systems in Indonesia have been above the law as suggested by Weber. He thought that charismatic power such as hold by Moslem clerics can be easily eliminated by bureaucratic power (such as using the power of the police). As a naive person, Ahok thought that all capitalistic systems can work well in Indonesia post-Soeharto reform and he hang up too much to authoritative legitimate power hold by bureaucracies, as promoted by Weberian; which in fact does not work well in a developing country such as Indonesia.
I think that Ahok should learn that he may not depend too much to the authoritative power. In a country such as Indonesia, he needs to respect the local culture (and belief) and also approaching people through dialogue and consensus, as suggested by Habermas. Neo-liberal reform and a colonialist leadership style as shown by Ahok would always create resistance and conflict in a country such as Indonesia when paying less attention to local context.
We can also learn from this case that all leaders should understand well their local context. Without understanding local context, any reform would fail and create most cost to the people. If a leader wants to implement reform successfully, he/she needs to have more dialogue and respect local context.
Thank you. I am waiting more articles from Prof. Aspinall and maybe one day I will attend your conference presentation.
PS. I am a Phd student at the AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. My interest is how reform can be implemented well within the context and culture such as Indonesia.
The missing middle
I think you need to get your fact straight. Although violence against minority occur often, it is often done by a small number of people. Nowhere near the majority of muslim residence of the area. And about MAJORITY of muslim in cities and town no less, require to belong to Islamic organization, this is patently wrong. If they feel the need, than official facebook or other social media channel of NU and Muhammadiyah would be overflowing with followers, as I stated, since Indonesian tend to overshare in social media. They would definitely share their membership or allegiance to an Islamic organization. Remember that almost 90 million people in Indonesia are active in social media. If what you claim is true, then NU and Muhammadiyah would have followers in the tens of millions, instead of only a low hundreds of thousands they have now.
And lastly about your comment here: While on their daily basis they might have a “live and let live” attitudes toward Non-Muslims and in some cases toward Muslim Minorities like Ahmadis or Shiites, this does not mean that theologically they accept these minorities as equals and that it is OK for these minorities to compete head to head with Muslims, well that is true for most of humanity. People don’t accept minorities as equals, most just pretend to accept and behave because of strong legal action if they don’t.
Interpreting the Jakarta election
…and we are talking about Indonesia, what’s with sudden ‘western sentiment’?
Interpreting the Jakarta election
No, just the people in FPI said so. Not the author
Private: Grieving as Thainess in 2017
I am noticing a few pop up events in Bangkok, designed to keep the mourning momentum going (?)
The Siam Society slogan is “Knowledge Gives Rise to Friendship”. Always? Discuss.
Loneliness and love under Thailand’s junta
Authoritarianism is like sexual abuse. The victims grow up to be the next generation of abusers. That is why the military and the government “education” system perpetuate Thailand’s particular brand of misery.
Interpreting the Jakarta election
Not entirely. The intellectuals and knowledged who are against ahok are the mental-corrupted that made a big fuss over the so-called blasphemy that thus dragged the religion/ethnicity issue.
Ethnicity and Jakarta’s election
Logistical reasons. Only about 10 per cent of Jakarta population are non-Muslims. It’s technically impossible to sample only non-Muslims so you’ve to sample the whole population first and then analyze only the non-Muslims.
It means that to get a sample size of 1,000 non-Muslims, you’ve to sample ten times larger than that (i.e., 10,000 respondents). I’ve never heard of a survey that gets sample size that big except the Cooperative Congressional Election Studies in the U.S. (50,000+ respondents). But even then, they do it online rather than face-to-face like surveys in Indonesia.
Lifting the shadows on a secret war
There’s a very nice interview with Joshua Kurlantzic on Cogitasia that I would recommend listening too. Kurlantzic has a refreshingly objective take on US policy duirng this period, and his points about how this venture shaped the CIA are fascinating.
https://soundcloud.com/csis-57169780/secret-war-in-laos
Loneliness and love under Thailand’s junta
The application of totalitarian control to Thai monasticism is very likely to end in tears. The replacement of the senior candidate for Supreme Patriarch with yet another Thammayut placeman has insulted the Mahanikaya monks (who make up all but 7000 of Thailand’s 300000 monks). Today’s pictures of policemen roughing up Dhammakaya monks (Mahanikaya) is also most inauspicious for the Junta.
Interpreting the Jakarta election
Have I got this correct ? Jakarta’s election was ENTIRELY about religion / ethnicity ?
The missing middle
“the upper and middle-class Muslims living in large towns and cities throughout Indonesia, still feeling the need to belong to a Muslim organization as part of their religious devotions. In Indonesia, this organization is usually NU or Muhammadiyah”
Could you give us some insight on the basis of your claim above? Although NU is vastly influential in many parts of Java, the picture may be different in Jakarta, where it has to share the stage with many increasingly popular groups with little institutional ties to NU.
Also, I think it is important to unpack what “belong to NU/Muhammadiyah as a part of their religious devotions.” If what you meant by that is simply they worship in a NU or Muhammadiyah way, and follow the frequently diverging date for Idul Fitri, then it doesn’t tell us much about their attitude toward contested issues. It’s hard to imagine upper and middle-class Muslims in Jakarta, who do not know any pesantren or kyai, would be interested in browsing NU’s primordial website looking for the latest religious opinions.
This is perhaps why despite the controversy surrounding Ahok, and the support for the conservative reading of Al-Maidah 51 from various prominent figures, Ahok still won about 43% of the vote.
The missing middle
Hi again, Ok, I agree, we need to agree to disagree. Here I don’t mean to extent any kind of polemical stuff. I just highlight our different stand points, if you don’t mind and hopefully I don’t miss any of your points. You seem focus heavily on internal failure of moderate Islamic organizations (NU and Muhammadiyah) in disciplining their members as the main cause of growing “conservatism” (this is a problematic term or discourse). To some extent, now, I agree with that, but I see issues related to the growing “conservatism” and political tension are more complex than that. Beside ‘Ahok factor’ (which interestingly you did not touch it at all), there is more structural aspects, that is how structure (the state) plays its own card to “save” Ahok for certain political calculations (as seen in the ways president and Police respond the case and demand in early stages. The latest case consistently support this argument is the internal minister’s decision to re-install Ahok into governor position even though most constitution-law experts – not conservative – warn him that his decision is violating rules or undang-undang. This is one fresh example). This role played by state contributes to the sense of unfairness and boosts even more resistance among moderate and conservative mass who see Ahok has attacked their religion repeatedly. Any way, we need to agree to disagree, and thank for offering us a kind of different perspective on this issue. I find this topic is interesting. If you don’t mind, I want to discuss more on Islam in Indonesia with you. How I can contact you please?
Interpreting the Jakarta election
For years under Soeharto, the Chinese couldn’t –or only a small number could– work for the government, the military, or involve in politics. Business was their only option for a living.
I am an Indonesian “pribumi” and a Christian, but I didn’t vote for Ahok only because of he is a religious minority like me, but because he is an honest competent man.