Viewing Religious Rituals from Cultural Persperctive

Opinion and Editorial - January 14, 2005


Kristian Tamtomo, Jakarta

I would like to comment on the article titled Spiritual Materialism in the Haj Pilgrimage written by Dadi Darmadi (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 22). The article itself is well written and well argued. Yet, in my view, it fails to explain the reason why people are consumerist during their haj pilgrimage. This phenomena, I think, can be widened to include pilgrimages of other religions).

One way of finding a reason for this is by examining the social and cultural significance of the ability of a person to embark on a haj pilgrimage, from the viewpoint of the person's community. This is something that Darmadi, as a student of social anthropology, should have seen in the first place.

Rather, he has chosen to denounce the consumerist behavior of pilgrims as a result of poor understanding of the spiritual and religious significance of the haj pilgrimage, not to mention the ever lurking effects of capitalism. This argument is understandable from the viewpoint of a religious scholar, theologian or cleric. However, coming from an anthropologist, I beg to differ.

Religion has always been a strong topic of anthropology. The first anthropological works were on, what was labeled then, "primitive" religion. My first taste of anthropology was in reading The Religions of Java by superstar anthropologist, Clifford Geertz.

From all these different works, I can sum up the distinct anthropological viewpoint on religion. Anthropologists, the discipline I was trained in, view religion as a part of a wider social and cultural system. It is inevitably entwined with society, with its different social classes and relations.

Thus, religious practices are viewed as part of the dynamic of everyday social life. I think this view can yield different ideas when compared to the religious point of view that emphasizes the normative "what is right and what is wrong".

In the case of the haj pilgrimage, a brief case analysis may obtain a different interpretation. Allow me to illustrate. I participated in a fieldwork training exercise in the Petungkriyono, a remote mountain area south of Pekalongan in January 2001. The villagers there are mostly farmers who plant corn and vegetables in non-irrigated fields (ladang).

One prominent villager rose up to become the wealthiest person in the whole area, through his crop and cattle trading business. He then controlled a substantial amount of land and cattle. Many villagers came to him to work on his land.

Others also tended his cattle on a shared ownership basis. Some villagers worked for him as truck drivers to deliver crops to town. He also gives credit and loans to neighbors in exchange for the exclusive right to buy and sell their crops.

To put it simply, he became the social and economic patron of the area. It is then not surprising that he would be the first man in the village to embark on a haj pilgrimage.

Before he left for Mecca, he arranged a big selamatan (thanksgiving dinner) and invited hundreds of guests. He also handed out gifts such as sarongs and peci (Muslim cap) to his guests. It would not be surprising if, when he returns from haj, he will hold another selamatan and give out gifts as well.

Most villagers expect him to do that. It is his role as a patron to do so, in exchange for their labor and support, also to keep good ties with the other villagers. In this context, his practice of "spiritual materialism" made perfect sense.

On the other hand, his title as a haj pilgrim would also increase his social status. Not only is he the social and economic patron, he will also be a religious patron. He will still keep the obligations and benefits of his social-economic ties (reinforced by the gifts he gave out).

In addition to that, he now commands the religious respect given to a haj pilgrim. Thus, the haj pilgrimage for this man was not simply a religious phenomenon. He might have intended it to be just a religious issue, but when it was played out in the social context that he was in, it became a symbol of his status. It affected his relationship with the fellow villagers, and it became a vehicle for a stronger social and political position.

To view the ritual (and rituals in general) as simply a religious phenomenon would be sterile anthropologically. Once we can grasp the deeper socio-cultural significance of the phenomena, then we can see why people do it, why they enjoy it, and why it makes perfect sense to them.

If we are able to look at things this way, it would not be surprising (especially for a social scientist) to see that religious rituals are divided by class. People live in a society that is divided by class, their culture is also class divided, and certainly it would not be surprising that religious practices exhibit the same trait.

Could we not dare, for once, to view religion as inseparable from culture and society? We might come up with the disturbing fact that religious rituals and practices have always had social and political significance.

They were never about spirituality per se, even if religious teachings and texts say that it should be. Clifford Geertz understood that when he saw how a simple funeral ritual could become a symbolic battleground between two different political ideologies of the 1960s.

Darmadi's explanation of spiritual materialism and the contestation on religion, tourism and capitalism is very enlightening. However, it was disappointing, as an anthropologist, to see that the analysis was briskly closed when he stated that the haj rituals have become more than a religious phenomenon. I hope that my illustration above can show that religious rituals are always, inevitably, more than just religious phenomena. It makes sense from an anthropological point of view that religious rituals not only serve religion, but also social status and politics as well.

It is easy to say "this is wrong or misleading, that is right", but it is very hard to open our minds to understand what people are actually doing and why they are doing it. Not just to "grasp the native's point of view", but also to capture further meanings that are played out in the course of social phenomena including religious rituals. The first task of a social scientist is to achieve this understanding. Then, if one feels the need, the scientist can choose to pass judgment.

The writer is an Alumnus from the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Gadjah Mada University.

A Comment on Pilgrimage and Tourism

The Jakarta Post, January 4th, 2005

I'm writing to comment on Dadi Darmadi's article titled Spiritual materialism in the haj pilgrimage (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 23) in which he eloquently described the Indonesian pilgrims' behavior abroad. He also likened them to tourists, which is obviously has a lot of truth in it.

Generally speaking, Indonesians who have the means to go abroad, whether as tourists (including the above pilgrims) or students are bargain hunters and fanatic shoppers. Look, for instance at such Indonesian tourists in Singapore or Bangkok, and one will most likely see them on shopping sprees in the various malls.

The same can be seen in Australia or New Zealand. Indonesian students (the other side of the same coin, of course) every Saturday and Sunday go out, taking with them addresses or locations of "garage sales", strolling around shopping for used goods such as electronics, clothing, books, etc. for their collection.

Indonesian pilgrims' strenuous habit of spending their money -- after prayer times -- particularly in Mecca's well-known Pasar Seng shopping area, which ridiculously dominates the marketplace, at the very least, shows the real face of Indonesia abroad -- that Indonesians' standard of living, is better than those of, say, African or South Asian countries.

Also, whether we are aware of it or not, it could be seen that they are actually taking the Koran's order to heart, which says "And when the prayer is ended, disperse in the land and seek Allah's bounty" (QS 62:10).

Dadi Darmadi was right when he says that religious pilgrimages blend with tourism and consumerism. However, this is not apparently understood by the Indonesian tourism ministry when it comes to the annual Buddhist Waisak festival, which takes place at the Borobudur and Mendut temples in Central Java.

In order to help the government obtain more and more foreign exchange from tourism, they should have stepped up promotion to the Buddhists of the world by tapping into the rapidly growing economy of China, which has over 2,000,000 tourists who spend their holidays abroad. Out of that amount, strangely enough, only around 80,000 spent their holidays in Indonesia last year as compared to 550,000 Japanese tourists.

M. RUSDI, Jakarta

Islamic Iconography among Indonesian Muslims

by Dadi Darmadi

As a representation of an object, icon produces a mental image of the object represented. Barthes mentions that a picture of a tree, for example, evokes the same mental image of the tree, regardless of differences in languages of the people who view it. The picture of a tree invokes the idea of "tree" in people’s mind.

In many religious traditions, iconography has played significant roles in maintaining religious identity, mediating the visualization of religious ideas and important ornaments in rituals. In Catholicism, for instance, the images of Jesus are ubiquitous in its various religious edifices. Imitatio Christi, an idea to fittingly reproduce Christ’s suffering and implements his doctrines of love, is largely motivated by the compelling images of Jesus Christ among its believers. The statue of Buddha and plentiful statures of Hindu deities, among other things, became parts of the sacred quantity of religious life, and remarkably remain important in both public and private domains of these great religions. This reminds me of what Barthes says that image is necessarily a “re-presentation,” and is “ultimately resurrection” (Barthes 1977: 32). Therefore, images have power and the appearance and images of the religious figures, for whatever reasons, are undoubtedly important.

In Islam, however, I find the representation of images faces certain degree of restriction. Even though the Qur’an, as the main sources of Islam, does not prohibit explicitly the figurative art and images, it is traditionally and widely accepted among Muslims that certain images are forbidden. Representation of created beings is prohibited, that is to say, fearing that Muslims will be inclined to associate the creative power of Allah. Unlike other religious traditions that represent images of their religious figures, Islam strictly prohibit the representation of Muhammad’s image, the Prophet of Islam. A devout Muslim will argue that, “there is definitely no human being that can ever depict the beauty and grandeur of his [the Prophet’s] countenance.” Another Muslim may also argue that this prohibition prevents Islam from falling into racial favoritism and discrimination among its followers, namely Muhammad as being an Arab. There are, however, a number of Islamic manuscripts containing Muhammad’s image, in which his facial appearance has often been defaced (Ruthven 1997: 37). In this context, one may argue that Islam has become strongly iconophobic.

This issue of visual representation in Islam is actually rather challenging for many Muslims because the fact that Muhammad is often considered a role model. Imitatio Muhammadi, pursuing the example of Muhammad in a Muslim’s life is considered to be very important, and, that is exactly what the Hadith, the second major source of Islam, is all about. The question is therefore, how do Muslims reproduce their religious and cultural icons? Despite such sturdy restriction how do Muslims replicate their call for the visualization of the sacred in Islam?

Iconography has never ceased to exist in Islamic tradition. Instead, with different types of representations, Islamic iconography emerges as important as in any other religious traditions. Keeping away from these two or three dimensional visualizations of created beings, many Muslims throughout the history have represented visual images of the sacred of their religion. In Indonesia, home to more than a hundred and seventy million Muslims, this Islamic iconography is often embedded with its traditional culture, and, while maintaining its strong spiritual bonds of values and sacredness, it takes on different nuances.

Photographic images of such religious figures as the local and national respected Muslim scholars (ulama) and guru, along with the pictographic images of mosques and religious sites such as Ka’bah and sacred tombs of the Saints (wali) can be easily found in both public and private domains. Likewise, in numerous occasions such as religious gatherings (pengajian), religious celebration and festivals, both inside and outside religious sites, this type of Islamic iconography is massively put on the market, and it sell quite well. Thus, this issue may raise also the questions of whether, like Sontag has suggested, visual images of religious representation confer “the nature of mass-spectacles” and entertainment of the masses” (Sontag 1977: 179).

Those images of mosques and religious figures are dead objects. Barthes, however, reminds us that photographs somehow can achieve a “transparency.” Although photographs are dead objects, they can function to represent their subjects. It is imperative to discover how these religious photographs may carry the transparent portrayal of their subjects and not only the indistinct and shadowy objects.

Barthes certainly believes that a photograph possesses a certain meaning. But, he also thinks that a photograph is perpetually linked to the object of which it is taken. For Barthes, for instances, a photograph of an old man is always linked to that old man whereas a painting of the old man might very well be the construction of the author's mind and, therefore, have no real analog. I was wondering if this framework will also fit in with the visual imagination and representation of religious and cultural icons. Given the fact that religion has always been related to different meanings and interpretation of its practitioners, I would like to see if I could push Barthes’s proposition further, especially when those images are viewed by people from different cultures.

Spiritual Materialism in the Haj Pilgrimage

Dadi Darmadi, Cambridge, MA
The Jakarta Post, December 23, 2004

This year, again, more than 200,000 Indonesian pilgrims are going to Saudi Arabia. What is the biggest challenge facing many Indonesian pilgrims as they head to Mecca: Severe desert weather? Terrorism? Poor transportation and accommodation? Or the government's ongoing mismanagement of the haj?

Every single factor above could be equally challenging. In fact, most of these problems still likely haunt Indonesian pilgrims. But nothing seems so difficult that it cannot be slowly but surely overcome.

The biggest challenge is, as has been in the past, how the pilgrims liberate themselves from spiritual materialism. That sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that is how the pilgrims triumph over the strenuous challenge and stay true to the arduous commitment of the pilgrimage, which is all about equality and self-effacing humility. That said, to say the least, the pilgrims will not be able to spend as much money as they wanted.

By the way, what do pilgrims actually do? "Oh, as the 'guests of God', we come to Mecca only to pray and fulfill our obligations as Muslims." Some others will faithfully tell us "we would like to get the fullest blessings from the visit to both the holiest cities of Mecca and Medina".

Indeed, those are dreadfully wonderful rejoinders. However, those are regrettably normative ones. The actual phenomenon is often deeper than what it may seem. When it comes to the pilgrimage, it seems there is no sign of economic crisis among Indonesians. If each pilgrim spends at least 250 riyals each for souvenirs, that means annually Indonesian pilgrims spend no less than 50 million riyals (approximately Rp 125 billion).

That figure is far less than the annual spending of roughly 400 million riyals, the equivalent of Rp 1 trillion, for 200,000 Indonesians during the haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. A friend of mine jokingly told me that pilgrims often spend more money than anyone in the world.

They buy things from religious iconography to toys, as well as other non-religious things. Some pilgrims even buy teapots, mugs and trays, not to mention other bigger and heavier merchandise like electronics, bedspreads and rugs. It is not surprising, after all, Indonesian pilgrims have long been known for being "bargain hunters" and some really do shop "till you drop" in the pilgrim way!

They even have to satisfy their desire to hand out gifts for their beloved relatives and friends by buying things from, hilariously, the Tanah Abang market. But, probably the most amusing of all, people know it, keep doing it and look happy with it. How can you make sense of this? Why does this hunger for candid spirituality feed spiritual materialism?

Religion surprisingly blends pretty well with tourism and consumerism. Such a case is true, for instance, in the contemporary practice of the pilgrimage among American Jews to Israel and Poland. Or look closely at the practice of umrah, the Islamic lesser pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, among some well-off Indonesian Muslims. Luxurious packages offer pilgrims different routes from Jakarta to Jeddah. Afterwards, they can visit Istanbul, Cairo or Jerusalem.

In this voyage, they are plunged into transnational linkages brought to them by this tightly knit endeavor of religion and tourism. By visiting some Islamic historical sites they are invited to religious imagination of the splendid Islamic civilization and to reconstruct the memory of the golden age of the Islamic past.

This without a doubt allures the more wealthy pilgrims to extend their reach in a merely "religious duty". If this is not enough, you can also be accompanied by Indonesian celebrities. On this package, where everything is provided, pilgrims cannot help but quit the arduous obligations of the ritual.

The pilgrimage becomes a ritual departure from the routine and workaday world in luxurious hotels, shockingly scattered all over the shrines. That spiritual materialism is a real blend of religion and consumerism. Religious shrines often become a contested space, where Islam, as a global religion, cannot avoid the global culture of capitalism.

When pilgrims are also tourists, the pilgrimage is not a religious phenomenon anymore. The ritual carries a banner of religion, commercialism and even class identity. They want their Islam to be "comfortable" enough for their lifestyle, as well as suitable for their class identity so that they can stay put and feel "at home" with the religion.

Seen in this way, however, religious observation not only reaffirms religious and cultural identity but also, and more importantly, class identity. Moeslim Abdurrahman, a respected Indonesian anthropologist, said the Indonesian haj tours in the 1990s were "divided" rituals along social class lines.

Mind you, this is not my effort suddenly to consider those respected "guests of God" as being haji mardud, the rejected pilgrims, as some people in the village mockingly point the finger at particular shoddily behaved pilgrims upon their return. God forbid, the pilgrims themselves surely know better than I do. However, if we want the pilgrims to keep away from becoming rejected ones, we had better get used to self-criticism. If, for some reason, that brings up predicaments about new religious reformism, so be it. We are going to be called reformers for whatever changes we make.

U.S. Muslim Ad Drive Gets Thumbs Down in SE Asia

BY JALIL HAMID

Reuters


KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A U.S. government-funded television advertising campaign showing American Muslims living and worshipping freely has received bad reviews from Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia, two of its main target audiences.

Broadcast in Malaysia this week and Indonesia last week, the series of short documentaries seeks to dispel any notion that Muslims in the United States are a persecuted minority.

But critics say the ads, funded by the State Department, fail to address the root causes of anti-U.S. sentiment among Muslims, namely Washington's support for Israel, the injustices suffered by Palestinians and the plight of ordinary Iraqis.

"The U.S. is spending millions of dollars to change public opinion in the Muslim world which is against U.S. views," said Ghani Shamsuddin, head of Malaysia's Ulama (Islamic scholars) Association. "But I don't think it will work."

The documentaries profile Muslim Americans such as Lebanese American teacher Rawia Ismail in Toledo, Ohio, and Kashmiri American paramedic Farooq Mohammad of New York City.

Mohammad says that he attends his local mosque and that his colleagues at work are respectful toward his religion.

"It's easy for me to get along with other Americans. I'm from here, I'm hip to the culture... That's the beautiful thing about the United States, that you can be of any faith and practice your faith freely," he added.

U.S. diplomats said the $15 million drive was part of a wider campaign to improve the United States' image in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

"How it treats its Muslims at home is not an issue," said Zulkifli Alwi, a leader of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party.

"The issue is the U.S. administration's overall policy toward the Muslim world. It should go to the roots," he said.

The ads will also run in newspapers in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, and in mainly Muslim Malaysia as well as on some pan-Arab television networks during Islam's holy month of Ramadan, which started Wednesday.

Dadi Darmadi, a moderate Muslim intellectual in Indonesia said the campaign reinforced a message that Washington is not an enemy of Islam.

"But it overlooks the fact that there are flaws in the U.S. foreign policy with regards to Muslim countries," said Darmadi, who runs the Center for the Study of Islam and Society in Jakarta.

Indonesia: Extremism and Fundamentalism Rejected by the Majority

Asia Pacific/Radio Australia
15/4/2003

Indonesia is to confront the nature of Islamic extremism in its midst as the
first trials in the Bali bombing case get under way early next month. The
bombings - on October the 12th - killed 202 people. The attack has been blamed
on the fundamentalist group, Jemaah Islamiyah - which wants to create an
Islamic state covering Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines.
Indonesians however have been horrified by the extremism of the bombings...

Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell
Speakers: Dadi Darmadi of Jakarta's Islamic University; Najahan Musyafak, of
the Institute of Islamic Studies.

DARMADI: The whole notion of extremism and fundamentalism and the Bali bombing
is regarded as something very bad that people do not want that to happen again
in the future. And the majority of Indonesian Muslims as well they are pretty
much aware of the danger of this activism.

DOBELL: Najahan, what sort of questions do you think that the Bali bombing has
raised for Indonesians about the nature of Islam and the way that Indonesians
think about Islamic extremism?

MUSYAFAK: It's not part of Indonesian culture because we believe that we have
to live together and it's better for us to live in harmony, in peace, something
like that, so what's wrong with the people who did this kind of activities?

DOBELL: Dadi is there still a sense of surprise as well as horror that this was
carried out?

DARMADI: I think an immediate response from many Muslims in Indonesia when it
happened that they do not believe it was carried out by Indonesian Muslims
themselves, because we would think that it's just crazy to do that in our land,
it will be such a bad advertisement of Islam as well as Indonesia during this
very terrifying economic crisis that we have suffered in the last few years.

DOBELL: Indonesia has always prided itself on the tolerance of Islam in
Indonesia. How much surprise has there been that there could have been one or
two suicide bombers involved in the Bali bombing? Has that raised questions
about the changes taking place in Islam in Indonesia?

DARMADI: This is a very interesting question that in the history of Islam in
Indonesia we've never seen such suicide bombings or suicide terror attack done
by a Muslim Indonesian. We have heard about that from probably the ethnic or
religious conflicts in India or even in the Middle East in the newspapers, but
you see many people try to look at now at the growing international influence
from Islam in the Middle East, a great influx of influence to our Islamic
tradition. And in many ways I would say that at some level there has been a
decline of traditional Islamic authority.

DOBELL: Najahan, how much do you think that these Middle East influences are
changing the way that Indonesians think about Islam?

MUSYAFAK: Indonesia has a special culture, it's a unique community so something
to be done in Indonesia is how to make Islam more contextual rather than
textual, I mean that Islam in Indonesia can be applied not only on the Islamic
teaching itself without any historical background, but also we have to look at
how Indonesian people naturally live.

DOBELL: How significant do you think it is that the Indonesian parliament has
refused to change the constitution, it has refused to make Indonesia a Muslim
state?

MUSYAFAK: It is very significant, in order to make Indonesia more unity so this
kind of notion will make some worsened condition, not the better condition...

DARMADI: ...the idea of Islamic state actually is always supported by a small
Islamic organisation, Islamic parties. If we see at the last '99 general
election, those parties who support Islamic state actually only below two per
cent, and there is always tendency that in public that people would like to
discuss about that. But I would say the majority of Indonesian people will see
there's just more discussion than a reality, because our national survey for
example in the last two years has found out that although many Muslims believe
that Sharia is very important, but when they are asked about whether they agree
or not with the idea of like the government should impose let's say a woman to
wear hijab in public, the majority of them say, no. They do not agree with the
idea of cutting off hands or the stoning to death, those kind of medieval
practices of Islam, of Sharia is not very popular in Indonesian Muslim. But
once again I mean the identity becomes very important as a Muslim so they tend
to think that the Sharia is also very important as a symbol at least.

DOBELL: That's not necessarily the perception from outside, Australia's foreign
policy white paper which was released in February said that Indonesia is
fertile ground for international extremist Islamic influence, and talked about
the effort by some to overthrow the Indonesian state and establish a Taliban
style regime. What's your view of that sort of outside perception?

DARMADI: We cannot deny the fact that there are some other religious groups,
Islamic groups which tend to be more radical and more fundamentalist than other
Muslims in Indonesia, we cannot deny that, and this is the fact. Just the very
nature of Islam, I mean Islam has never been monolithic, Islam has never been
in one particular form, Islam is just as diverse as any other religious groups
in the world. And the majority of Indonesian Muslims they practise moderate
views of Islam but then since the difficulties that we have had for economic
crises and political instability and some other factors have left some
uncertainties, (for)the people, the psychological uncertainties that Muslim
people have had and they once again show that they want to have a solution for
that. And some people said 'oh, might be Sharia is a good solution.' But many
people said you know please do not think one instant solution, we have to think
more deeply to the future of Indonesia.

DOBELL: Najahan, how do you think Indonesians are thinking about Muslim
solutions?

MUSYAFAK: After the falling of Suharto, in Indonesia freedom of expression,
freedom of the press and freedom to establish organisation is quite open for
everybody. So it means that in Indonesia at the moment everybody can express
their opinion, their point of view, their ideas, something like that, even it
is in Islamic community. So it is part of the development of freedom in
Indonesia.

DOBELL: Dadi final question, the clash of civilisations question, how do
Indonesians view the war in Iraq? Is it seen as the west waging war against
Islam?

DARMADI: (They do) Not necessarily think that Iraq is a representation of
Islamic country or even Saddam Hussein is an Islamic leader, no. They think
that pretty much against the war because of more humanitarian reasons, they do
not want some countries can go into other countries by putting some ideas of
democracy or anything like that. Basically the people of Indonesia wants that
every country must recognise and must regard the sovereignty of their own
people, not by doing, like pushing and imposing something to the countries. And
that can be seen as a more arrogant attitude by the US government, but even we
see now in Indonesia that even more people get involved in street
demonstrations outside Indonesia, like in Australia or the US or in European
countries, we just have like 10-thousands of even couple of hundreds of people
get involved in such a street demonstrations. (They do) Not to see this war in
Iraq as the west against Islam.

DOBELL: Najahan, do you see Iraq as the west against Islam or is it for you a
humanitarian issue?

MUSYAFAK: Yes I would say that it's more a humanitarian issue rather than
religious issue. Even France, Germany didn't agree with the invasion or attack,
so they in the west themselves whereas contradictory opinion about that notion.

A Question of Perception

From ABC, 08/04/2003

When the Iraq war began it was feared Indonesia would explode with anger, but its response so far has been measured, and its protests peaceful.

The country’s largest demonstration, held two weeks ago, boasted a turnout of around 100,000 people and something of a family atmosphere.

Although dominated by Islamic groups, the march also included Christians, Buddhists, women’s groups and NGOs.

It represented a stark contrast to the violent demonstrations that greeted the United States’ bombing of Afghanistan in October, 2001.

Two young Islamic academics, Dadi Darmadi and Najahan Musyfak, spoke to the ABC on a recent visit to Australia.

Dadi Darmadi is a Lecturer in Comparative Religion at Jakarta’s State Institute of Islamic Studies, and Najahan Musyfak is Deputy Secretary to the Executive Board of NU, or Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation.

The Religion Report’s Stephen Crittenden invited them to discuss the complexity of the Indonesian response to the war.

Dadi Darmadi: Generally, we can divide it into two perspectives. The first one, some people perceive that this is religious. But another perspective says that this is not a religious issue but a humanitarian issue.

Stephen Crittenden: Yes, a lot of people in the Muslim world have seen it as an attack on Islam. President Megawati a few weeks ago assured the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, that she didn’t see it as an attack on Islam. Is that view shared more widely, do you think, among Indonesians?

Dadi Darmadi: I would say yes, there has been a major shift since September 11 and the US retaliation against Afghanistan, which most Muslims in Indonesia perceived as a US war against Islam.

And the street demonstrations during the war against Afghanistan were joined mostly by the Muslims. But now we see in the streets of Jakarta, and other major cities, they’re not only Muslims who hold protests in the street.

Stephen Crittenden: The recent protests in Jakarta - they crossed religious lines, there were Buddhists, there were Christians, there were Muslims.

Dadi Darmadi: Yes, although we have to acknowledge still that there are a small number of people – like the leader of the Front Pembela Islam, Habib Rizieq Shihab, in the first couple of days of the war against Iraq – saying that, “We will send some, a number of Muslim people, going for jihad to Baghdad”.

But then a few days later, some other Muslim leaders criticised this decision, saying “this is ridiculous to do that, because we know Saddam Hussein is not a representation of a Muslim country”. But many Muslims still feel that Baghdad is traditionally the symbol of the greatness of Islam in the past, and the war against Iraq now can be considered as the Second Fall of Baghdad.

But for many, I think, who rejected the idea of war against Iraq, it is because many civilians will be the victims, and from the very beginning, many people ask if war really is required for this. I mean, just to topple down Saddam Hussein from power.

Stephen Crittenden: And Najahan Musyfak, how is Saddam Hussein seen by Indonesians, do you think?

Najahan Musyfak: In Indonesia, the majority of Muslims feel that Saddam Hussein is a Muslim symbol in the Middle East. That Islamic leader has announced that Iraq is not a Muslim country, but yes, we agree that Baghdad is a symbol of Islamic civilisation in the past. And why Islamic leaders, a couple of weeks ago, met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in order to build up a good relationship between Islamic community and the government, how to deal with the problem of Iraq in Indonesia.

And they said that it is better for Muslims in Indonesia not to go to Iraq for jihad. But jihad doesn’t mean by sword or by gun, jihad also can be done by giving funds, money, and other things, that can be used in Iraq. This is what the Islamic leaders said, and we agree about that.

Stephen Crittenden: Do you think, Dadi, that perhaps there isn’t the level of anti-Americanism in Indonesia that we maybe see in the Middle East? I hear that in Jakarta there are still big crowds of people queuing up to see Chicago with Rene Zellweger, that that’s all still happening as normal.

Dadi Darmadi: Right. This is what we see every hour in our television, all of them are American programs. But yes, in the first couple of days of the war against Iraq, there were protests in Bandung for example, and in Macassar in south Sulawesi.

People got together in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken, for example, McDonald’s and they put up a big paper saying that we prohibit Indonesians to buy foods in this place, because it’s considered haram, or something like that. It’s prohibited.

But again, the attitude of anti-Americanism has been growing steadily in many places in Indonesia since September 11. I think America is mostly perceived by many Muslims in Indonesia as having close ties with Israel, and is always mishandling the problems in the Middle East, for example.

Stephen Crittenden: And what about Australia? There’s certainly a view here that Australia’s involvement in this war with Iraq has done us a lot of damage in the region. Is that how you see us or not?

Dadi Darmadi: The latest development of the protest demonstrations that I see in Indonesia also shows a much more clear message given by many community leaders, saying, “It’s not that we are against the people of America, or the people of Australia, or the people of Britain – but more towards the Bush Administration or the Australian government”.

Stephen Crittenden: I mean, Dadi, for example, is there an awareness among Indonesians that so many Australians have been out protesting on the streets against the war?

Dadi Darmadi: Yes, this is also interesting, that some young writers write interesting articles in the newspapers in Indonesia, saying, “Look, this time it’s not appropriate to put the West against Islam, because we have seen so many people in the West themselves – in France, Germany, in Britain, in North America, in Australia, in Sydney and Melbourne – we’ve seen on the television that even more people held street demonstrations than we have had in Indonesia”.

So we quickly understand that this is more for humanitarian reasons than religion.

08/04/2003

I was fondly listening to 'Ghanni-lik Suway-ya-Suwayy' of Umm Kalthoum, played by an ashtonishingly talented amateur 'ud player, when my friend interrupted and captured this picture.  

The Religion Report on Radio National

with Stephen Crittenden

On Wednesday 02/04/2003

Full transcript

Summary:

Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson last week sent a letter to state education ministers, asking them to ensure that Islamic schools were not "encouraging anti-Christian and anti-Western feeling" in their students. Dr Nelson says he is confident that Islamic schools are, in fact, toeing the line on curriculum and content, and that he is simply responding to public concern. But a storm has erupted over whether or not the Minister is putting pressure on Australian Muslims at a particularly sensitive time. Also: hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Indonesia demonstrated against the Iraq war on the weekend - but the demonstrations were generally peaceful, and contrasted strongly with the angry protests that greeted the US attack on the Taliban. We look at Indonesian opposition to the war. And retired Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, forced by the Vatican to relinquish his church duties in 1998 amid allegations he sexually molested young boys, has died at the age of 83.

Details or Transcript:

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program. This week: protests against the war in Indonesia, and we mark the passing of Austria’s Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer.

But first: with Australia embroiled in a controversial war in Iraq, you might think that now isn’t an especially appropriate time to be raising questions about whether Islamic schools are anti-Western, or anti-Christian. But late last month, Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson wrote to all State Education Ministers around the country, raising what he described as the “sensitive issue” of Islamic schools.

That letter was tabled in the Queensland Parliament last Thursday by Queensland’s Education Minister Anna Bligh, who accused Brendan Nelson of giving ministerial weight to anti-Islamic prejudice. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie later told reporters that the letter was an example of “divisive, base politics” on the part of the Howard government.

And Brendan Nelson’s carefully crafted letter certainly is a minor ministerial masterpiece. He says “I have received a number of letters from concerned citizens across the country, who feel that the teaching in Islamic schools may be encouraging anti-Christian and anti-Western feeling in the students enrolled in them”. Dr Nelson then says he is confident that such concerns are groundless. But – just in case – he goes on to point out that it is the responsibility of State and Territory governments to ensure that all non-government schools are meeting their legal teaching and curriculum requirements, and that “in these times it is important that we can assure the wider Australian community that State inspection regimes are rigorous”.

Well, there’s probably no need to ask Pauline Hanson’s supporters what they make of a letter like this, but Islamic community leaders are divided. Some have responded angrily to the implication that Islamic schools need to be treated with suspicion. While others feel the Education Minister is responsibly trying to ensure that unfounded negative sentiment about Islamic schools doesn’t spread.

The President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Dr Ameer Ali, spoke to David Rutledge.

Ameer Ali: There’s no suggestion on Islamic schools. The Minister was quite confident that the schools are following the curriculum and are subject to all the conditions laid down by the government. Therefore there is no extraordinary concern about the schools. In fact, he was expressing his concern about those people who raised these issues. And our feeling is that if that is a concern for the government, they should come and inspect what we are doing – the schools are open, free, and they can have their inspection and come to their own conclusions after seeing what is going on.

David Rutledge: But isn’t there an implication – if the Federal Education Minister tells State Education Ministers that they’d better make sure that the Islamic schools are above reproach, isn’t there an implication there that they might not be toeing the line on teaching and curriculum?

Ameer Ali: Well, if you read too deeply into the letter, you might come to that conclusion – but for me it’s not very much of a concern, that letter. I think he’s responding – in fact by being a Minister, he had to respond to the people who raised this issue. I want to say that the Muslim schools are trying to provide a well-rounded education, which blends the Islamic values with the Australian values.

David Rutledge: There must be points, though, at which Australian and Islamic values really can’t be easily reconciled.

Ameer Ali: Now, which one? Tell me one?

David Rutledge: Attitudes to sexuality, for example.

Ameer Ali: Sexuality. Why can’t it blend? Because do we mean to say that every Australian wants to have this free sex? No. Do we mean to say that every Muslim says that [women] mustn’t mix with males? No. So there is a compromise possible. All we are doing is to have a concerted effort, through our education system, that there must be a section where we teach each other’s cultural values – and unless we do this, we are going to continue with the sort of myopic view about each other’s society.

David Rutledge: And what would you have Muslim students taught about Australian cultural values?

Ameer Ali: Of course, things like giving a fair go, and the concept of mateship, egalitarianism, a sense of patriotism, loyalty to the country.

David Rutledge: You also mentioned to me in a previous conversation that Australians are happy-go-lucky, they have a sort of irreverence in the culture, and that that’s something that Islamic Australians should be taking on board.

Ameer Ali: Of course for example, Australians – take for example the image of Jesus Christ: Australians don’t feel any reservation about making a mockery of Jesus Christ. But the Muslims will not tolerate that. The reverence that the Muslims give to religion is much higher – which was even accepted by the Pope himself – than the normal Australian. For example, some of the plays that were staged – “Corpus Christi”, one of the plays staged in England – there was a fatwa on this play, that the writer must be sentenced to death. But that’s very extreme.

David Rutledge: Are you saying that you think there should be less reverence?

Ameer Ali: No, no, more reverence for religion. Not less reverence.

David Rutledge: So you’re not saying that Muslim Australians should learn to laugh at Jesus Christ or at the Prophet?

Ameer Ali: There are things to be laughed at, there are things to take seriously. If you just laugh at something about Jesus Christ, the Muslims don’t take it easily, because for them Jesus is a more respectable personality. And in fact if you don’t respect Jesus, you can’t be a good Muslim.

Stephen Crittenden: The easygoing Dr Ameer Ali, President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

Well among those who think Brendan Nelson is using wedge politics to inflame prejudice is Queensland’s Labor Education Minister, Anna Bligh, who ignited the controversy last week by tabling the letter in State Parliament. Anna Bligh spoke to David Rutledge.

Anna Bligh: In my view, the unanswered question in this whole saga is why the Federal Minister felt any obligation to send a “please explain” to State Ministers. The approval processes for non-government schools are public, they are transparent, they should be well understood by every Commonwealth Minister and his or her department. Why you would need to seek any assurance about the rigor of those processes is beyond me, and to do so in the context of alleged concerns about the quality of Islamic education, is I think a very unfortunate juxtaposition that could have easily been avoided. Whether that was Minister Nelson’s intention or not is not known to me, but I think this has potentially fanned the flames of prejudice amongst some in our community.

David Rutledge: But people have pointed out, in Dr Nelson’s defence, that he’s really just doing his job – that if he receives complaints from his constituents, then he has to do something about it, and passing on those concerns in private correspondence is an appropriate way of going about it.

Anna Bligh: Well, that is one construction on the facts. My own view is that as the Federal Minister for Education, he has at his fingertips all of the facts that he would need to immediately allay any concerns that are brought to his attention. Sending a “please explain” to State Ministers, in my view, elevates those concerns, gives them some gravitas that they do not warrant. I think in Australia we have a very long history – that many people will recall in the 1950s, 60s and 70s – of a very heated sectarian debate about the place of religious schools in our education system. Those of us who went to religious schools – like I did, and many others during those years – will recall that they were very difficult times. I think those times are behind us, and I would hate to see that sort of religious sectarianism re-emerge in our understanding of Australia’s education system. These are difficult times in our country and the place of people of an Islamic faith is one that’s very sensitive in the community. And people who occupy positions of public responsibility should exercise that responsibility in a very careful way, and I don’t believe that the Federal Minister has done that.

David Rutledge: On this question, just finally, of inflaming public prejudice: Dr Nelson’s office said that the letter was a private correspondence, and that tabling the letter in Parliament was a much more inflammatory act than writing it in the first place. Did you have any qualms at all about going public with the letter in the way that you did?

Anna Bligh: I can understand that Dr Nelson would prefer that these “please explains” to State Ministers were kept out of the public arena, because it would have kept this particular controversy away from him. But I think it’s disingenuous, I think it is shockingly disingenuous for the Federal Minister to have taken this action in response to these concerns. Because by the virtue of doing it, the Federal Minister fans a perception that maybe there is something to be answered, just perhaps there’s a question mark there. And I don’t think there’s any room for those sorts of question marks.

Stephen Crittenden: Queensland Education Minister, Anna Bligh. We did invite Brendan Nelson onto the program, but our invitation was declined. Labor’s Shadow Federal Education spokesperson Jenny Macklin was also unavailable because she’s overseas at the moment.

Now, Brendan Nelson isn’t someone we normally associate with wedge politics, but Jenny Macklin’s office has drawn our attention to the fact that Dr Nelson’s press secretary these days is none other than Ross Hampton, former press secretary to Peter Reith, and well-known for his involvement in the Tampa incident. Also working on Brendan Nelson’s staff is Catherine Murphy, formerly a senior adviser to the Prime Minister who, as I understand it, was instrumental in Wik. One thing we’ve learnt from observing the Bush Administration in recent weeks, is that the real story can often be found through tracing the names of the special advisors, the private staff members, and the department heads.

At the commencement of the American-led campaign in Iraq, there were some nervous warnings that our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, could be a dangerous tinderbox ready to explode with Muslim anger at what Muslims around the world are calling a war against Islam. As we’ve seen, there have been angry demonstrations right across the Muslim world, and last Sunday 100,000 people came out to protest on the streets of Jakarta, the largest anti-war demonstration yet seen in Indonesia.

But rather surprisingly, perhaps, it was a peaceful march, with something of a family atmosphere – dominated by Islamic groups, but also featuring Christians, Buddhists, women’s groups and NGOs. It stood in stark contrast to the violent demonstrations that greeted the US bombing of Afghanistan in October, 2001.

Well Dadi Darmadi and Najahan Musyfak are two young Islamic academics visiting Australia at the moment. Dadi Darmadi is a Lecturer in Comparative Religion at Jakarta’s State Institute of Islamic Studies, and Najahan Musyfak is Deputy Secretary to the Executive Board of NU, or Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation, once run by former Indonesian President Wahid. We invited them into the studio to tell us about the complexity of the Indonesian response to this war.

Dadi Darmadi: Generally, we can divide it into two perspectives. The first one, some people perceive that this is religious. But another perspective says that this is not a religious issue but a humanitarian issue.

Stephen Crittenden: Yes, a lot of people in the Muslim world have seen it as an attack on Islam. President Megawati a few weeks assured our Prime Minister John Howard that she didn’t see it as an attack on Islam. Is that view shared more widely, do you think, among Indonesians?

Dadi Darmadi: I would say yes, there is a major shift since September 11 and the US retaliation against Afghanistan, which most Muslims in Indonesia perceived as a US war against Islam. And the street demonstrations during the war against Afghanistan was joined mostly by the Muslims. But now, we see in the streets of Jakarta and other major cities, they’re not only Muslims who held the protest in the street.

Stephen Crittenden: The protests last weekend in Jakarta, they crossed religious lines, there were Buddhists, there were Christians, there were Muslims.

Dadi Darmadi: Yes, although we have to acknowledge still that there are a small number of people – like the leader of the Front Pembela Islam, Habib Rizieq Shihab, in the first couple of days of the war against Iraq – saying that “we will send some, a number of Muslim people, going for jihad to Baghdad”. But then a few days later, some other Muslim leaders criticised this decision, saying “this is ridiculous to do that, because we know Saddam Hussein is not a representation of a Muslim country”. But many Muslims still feel that Baghdad is traditionally the symbol of the greatness of Islam in the past, and the war against Iraq now can be considered as the Second Fall of Baghdad. But for many, I think, who rejected the idea of war against Iraq, it is because many civilians will be the victims, and from the very beginning, many people ask if war really is required for this, I mean just to topple down Saddam Hussein from power.

Stephen Crittenden: And Najahan Musyfak, how is Saddam Hussein seen by Indonesians, do you think?

Najahan Musyfak: In Indonesia, the majority of Muslims feel that Saddam Hussein is a Muslim symbol in the Middle East. That Islamic leader has announced that Iraq is not a Muslim country, but yes, we agree that Baghdad is a symbol of Islamic civilisation in the past. And why Islamic leaders, a couple of weeks ago, met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in order to build up a good relationship between Islamic community and the government, how to deal with the problem of Iraq in Indonesia. And they said that it is better for Muslims in Indonesia not to go to Iraq for jihad. But jihad doesn’t mean by sword or by gun, jihad also can be done by giving funds, money, and other things, that can be used in Iraq. This is what the Islamic leaders said, and we agree about that.

Stephen Crittenden: Do you think, Dadi, that perhaps there isn’t the level of anti-Americanism in Indonesia that we maybe see in the Middle East? I hear that in Jakarta there are still big crowds of people queuing up to see Chicago with Rene Zellweger, that that’s all still happening as normal.

Dadi Darmadi: Right. This is what we see every hour in our television, all of them are American programs. But yes, in the first couple of days of the war against Iraq, there were protests in Bandung for example, and in Macassar in south Sulawesi; people got together in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken, for example, McDonald’s and they put up a big paper saying that we prohibit Indonesians to buy foods in this place, because it’s considered haram, or something like that. It’s prohibited. But again, the attitude of anti-Americanism has been growing steadily in many places in Indonesia since September 11. I think America is mostly perceived by many Muslims in Indonesia as having close ties with Israel, and is always mishandling the problems in the Middle East, for example.

Stephen Crittenden: And what about Australia? There’s certainly a view here that Australia’s involvement in this war with Iraq has done us a lot of damage in the region. Is that how you see us or not?

Dadi Darmadi: The latest development of the protest demonstrations that I see in Indonesia also shows a much more clear message given by many community leaders, saying “it’s not that we are against the people of America, or the people of Australia, or the people of Britain – but more towards the Bush Administration or the Australian government”.

Stephen Crittenden: I mean, Dadi, for example, is there an awareness among Indonesians that so many Australians have been out protesting on the streets against the war?

Dadi Darmadi: Yes, this is also interesting, that some young writers write interesting articles in the newspapers in Indonesia, saying “look, this time it’s not appropriate to put the West against Islam, because we have seen so many people in the West themselves – in France, Germany, in Britain, in North America, in Australia, in Sydney and Melbourne – we’ve seen on the television that even more people held street demonstrations than we have had in Indonesia”. So we quickly understand that this is more for humanitarian reasons than religion.

Stephen Crittenden: Dadi Darmadi and Najahan Musyfak.

This week, Austrian Catholics are again reliving one of the most traumatic periods in their recent history. In fact, it’s fair to say that you would have to go back to the time of Adolf Hitler to find an Austrian Catholic who has caused as much damage to the Catholic Church as was caused by Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who died this week aged 83.

Groer, a Benedictine, was Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna from 1986 to 1995, an ultra-conservative who succeeded the much loved Cardinal Konig (still alive and going strong in his 90s) and who was himself succeeded by the Cardinal Christoph von Schonborn. Just as Cardinal Groer was preparing to retire in 1995, he was engulfed in a sexual abuse scandal which rocked Europe, involving a school where he had been headmaster more than twenty years before. Then in 1998 there was another series of allegations involving a number of seminarians.

At the height of the Groer scandal, an estimated fifty thousand Austrian Catholics formally severed their ties with the Church in a single year.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt has been the Vienna correspondent for the Catholic magazine The Tablet for many years, and she agreed to tell a story which is unfamiliar to most Australians.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: One of Austria’s best-known weekly political magazines called Profile published an article in which one of Cardinal Groer’s alleged victims accused him of sexually abusing him twenty years previously, when he was at school up in Lower Austria where Cardinal Groer was a headmaster at the time, at a Catholic school for boys. The editor of Profile then explained that he had told Cardinal Groer at least four weeks beforehand what he was going to do, and that there were several other abuse victims who did not want to mention their names because they were now in church employment and would therefore lose their jobs. But this one victim had gone forward, he was a man called Hartmann, whose life had been ruined. And he wrote, or sent messages to the Archdiocese, and said “listen, could we talk about this, and maybe if you explain, we will not publish”. But as he got no answer from, I think, four or five attempts, he decided to publish. And it was a worldwide explosion as far as Europe was concerned, because Groer was a Cardinal.

The Cardinal remained silent. At first, the first thing we knew was that on television, two bishops spoke out on the evening news and said “this was”, in rather pre-war Austrian manner, “a conspiracy against the Church”. Whereupon everybody sort of gasped, knowing that Profile was unlikely to support a conspiracy against the Church. Well, within hours, of course, these same bishops were begging Cardinal Groer to explain. No conspiracy, but a silent Cardinal. The Cardinal remained silent.

Stephen Crittenden: And of course there was a whole other episode in March 1998, when a seminarian – in fact, a number of seminarians – came forward and accused Groer of a whole other series of sexual abuse cases in the early 70s.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: That was three years later, but in the meanwhile he had – already before this broke out, in the autumn before, when he was 75 – sent in his resignation to the Pope.

Stephen Crittenden: So he’d resigned as Archbishop of Vienna, but remained the Chairman of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: Well, when this broke he was still Chairman, and they had a dramatic session where he was re-elected by the conservatives. But in the end the other non-conservatives said this was quite impossible under the circumstances, and he stepped down. Rome indirectly interfered, in that it made the present Cardinal Schonborn then an auxiliary, made him co-adjutor, but didn’t do anything about Groer. Groer remained. He remained the entire summer, and then, as is usual, the Pope accepted his resignation because he was 75.

Well, this went on until a year later, we suddenly heard in 1997 or something, that he’d been made Prior of a Benedictine Abbey up in Lower Austria. And everybody said “wait a minute now, this has not been gone into”. No, no, Groer was made Prior. Well, that wasn’t too good. Then in 1998, the new scandal broke. Groer joined the Benedictines late in life, taking with him about nine novices; the Benedictine Abbey of Göttweig had not had that many new recruits since the Middle Ages or something. Suddenly, some of these monks said “we too, but we weren’t under age”, and came out with the most ghastly details. I mean, things like undressing in confessionals and so on. In the end Rome did something, they sent the head of the Benedictines, Marcel Rooney, to this Benedictine Abbey –

Stephen Crittenden: To investigate.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: – and he talked to all these monks, but we never heard again. He went to Rome. Finished.

Stephen Crittenden: Except that Cardinal Schonborn and several other Austrian Bishops –

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: Yes. Four. Four of our main bishops – including, strangely enough, the Archbishop of Salzburg, then Georg Eder, who is very conservative, and who was one of the conservatives that were put in against the wish of Salzburg. But he – it must have been in the winter, because there was a television film, and you could see (old, he’s very old and frail) Bishop Eder walking up and down in the snow and saying “no, no, not in the confessional. Not in the confessional. Now that won’t do, he’s got to speak out. No, no, I can’t go along with this”. And the next morning, he and Cardinal Schonborn and Weber, and Capilari of Klagenfurt, all signed a declaration saying that to the best of their knowledge the allegations against Cardinal Groer were correct. Which bowled over, I think, the Bishops’ Conference which has been split ever since, completely split Austrian Catholics – and Groer remained silent.

Stephen Crittenden: And remained silent right up until his death.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: He did issue a small declaration. When the four bishops came out, he was apparently forced to issue a small declaration which said “if I am guilty … I apologise”.

Stephen Crittenden: You’ve estimated that around about fifty thousand Austrians have left the church.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: These are statistics that we get every year, and in certain years in the Groer years, and in the 1998 scandal, and the several scandals we have had, it’s been up to forty thousand to fifty thousand a year.

Stephen Crittenden: Directly as a result of this scandal?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: Well, that’s what the statistics tell us. In Austria, we have a State charge where you have to pay tax, and therefore you are registered with your local County Council. If you decide to leave the church, that is, if you don’t want to pay tax any more –

Stephen Crittenden: – you have to officially say so?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: You have to go along and register, and say “I am now leaving my church”. Otherwise you have to go on paying tax.

Stephen Crittenden: And did people leaving over this affair actually indicate that this was the reason they were leaving?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: Apparently. We don’t know. According to – well, Cardinal Schonborn has always said that he writes to every single person who leaves the church officially, to try and ask “why are you leaving, could you come along, we would like to talk to you, maybe you could re-think it”. And therefore they do know that roughly this is the reason. It also goes in waves, and there were huge waves of thousands after the Groer affair.

Stephen Crittenden: How has the death of Cardinal Groer been greeted by the Austrian public and the Austrian media?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: The interesting good broadsheets have not taken much notice of Cardinal Konig and Cardinal Schonborn’s appeal not to go into the shadows of Groer’s past.

Stephen Crittenden: Both released statements saying let bygones be bygones.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: They didn’t say bygones be bygones, but they said “please, we must forget all this, faced with the majesty of death, we pray for Groer, and we would ask you not to bring all the dirty linen out again”. They haven’t brought out the dirty linen in any nasty way, but they have gone into every detail, and said “this happened and this happened and this happened. He remained silent”. And above all, I don’t think it’s so much Groer, you know. I think if Groer – even from the beginning, perhaps even after it had all happened, after 1998 – if Cardinal Groer had got up and said “I’m awfully sorry, I just am a sick man, or I don’t know what happened, or I’m a bit – ” or if the Pope had said “listen, I think I’m having that man into the Gemelli Clinic in Rome”, Austria would have forgiven him. It’s not the man, it’s the church. It’s the way Rome and the hierarchy have dealt with this, and every paper has said “forget poor old Cardinal Groer, he probably was a completely disturbed man. It’s the church, it’s the church’s way of appointing bishops, it’s the church”. Which we know – I mean, you know, there is this sexual going-on, and they don’t realise it, they never admit it, they always cover it up. And in Austria’s case, I mean even faced with Cardinal law and the Irish problem everywhere, they’ve still done exactly the same thing: “please don’t talk, please forget it”. And I think the great attack is really, and what will come out in the future is, how did the church behave, and how did Rome behave – but not only Rome. What happened to the Holy Father?

Stephen Crittenden: He continued to be received by the Pope?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: He continued to be received and Rome said nothing. He had breakfast with the Pope, spent three-quarters of an hour with the Pope.

Stephen Crittenden: Christa, would you have to go back about sixty years to think of another Austrian Catholic who’d caused so much damage to the church?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: I think it’s generally understood in Austria, now, that it was the worst crisis since Hitler, and since Cardinal Innitzer signed that almost welcoming statement with “Heil Hitler” in 1938. I don’t think there’s been a crisis – in fact, I know there hasn’t. It’s the worst crisis we’ve ever had.

Stephen Crittenden: What will the long-term fallout be?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt: I think there is this general mistrust, that despite all the Popes, and the bishops in the USA and in Ireland and in England, Cormac Murphy, are saying now “we will be transparent, a house of glass. We’ve really realised now our mistakes in the past, we will clear this up”, Austrians will say “ha! Don’t you believe it”.

Stephen Crittenden: The Tablet’s Vienna correspondent, Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

And that’s all this week.

Guests on this program:
Ameer Ali
President, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils


Anna Bligh
Education Minister, Queensland State Government


Dadi Darmadi
Lecturer in Comparative Religion, State Institute of Islamic Studies, Jakarta


Najahan Musyfak
Deputy Secretary, Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia


Christa Pongratz-Lippitt
Vienna correspondent, The Tablet


Musical Items:
Lacrimosa
CD Title: Mozart: Requiem
Artist: Vienna Boys Choir/Vienna Volksoper Orchestra (cond. Peter Marschik)
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Label/CD No: Capriccio LC 8748 (1995)

Jibril Ibrahim
International Human Rights Law Group, Nigeria

Satu Bumi Banyak Agama

besorah.cjb.net - BPK Gunung Mulia, Jakarta, bekerja sama dengan Jaringan Islam Liberal menggelar acara bedah buku di ruang teater Komunitas Utan Kayu, Jakarta. Buku yang dibedah adalah buku terbaru terbitan BPK Gunung Mulia berjudul "Satu Bumi Banyak Agama" karangan Paul F. Knitter.

Dalam bedah buku tersebut, pembicara yang ditampilkan yaitu Albertus Patty (Kristen) dan Dadi Darmadi (Islam). Sementara bertindak sebagai moderator yaitu Martin Sinaga dari Masyarakat Dialog Antar Agama (MADIA).

Menurut Patty, Knitter sangatlah ambisius dalam menulis buku tersebut, sebab ia menggabungkan tiga topik yang sangat kompleks: dialog antar agama, keadilan manusia, dan keadilan bumi. Padahal, untuk masing-masing topik saja sudah cukup rumit untuk diangkat.

Dadi Darmadi sependapat dengan Patty. Ia mengutip suatu komentar mengenai Knitter yang mengatakan bahwa suara Knitter adalah jeritan tangis di tengah belantara, yang tidak didengarkan oleh siapapun. Namun, ia sendiri mengagumi keberanian Knitter sebagai seorang teolog kontemporer yang pernah menulis buku No Other Name.

Menurut Darmadi, Knitter telah melangkah jauh dibanding gurunya sendiri, Karl Rahner. Ia juga lebih idealis dibanding rekannya sendiri, Hans Küng, yang dalam pengantarnya masih terkesan ortodoksi.

Bedah buku yang diadakan pada 16 Juli 2003 tersebut dihadiri oleh sebagian besar audiens dari Jaringan Islam Liberal sendiri, di samping terdapat juga beberapa pemerhati masalah dialog antar agama. Turut hadir dalam acara tersebut, Hamid Ba'asyid, yang dianggap tua-tua JIL, dan Trisno S dari STF Driyarkara, yang pernah menjadi moderator dalam acara Pekan Komunikasi Agama-agama I, yang diselenggarakan oleh STT Apostolos, IAIN Syarief Hidayatullah Jakarta (sekarang UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Ciputat), dan IAIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta.

Menurut Hamid, banyak orang beragama sekarang ini yang melihat agama lebih penting daripada semestinya. Padahal, menurutnya, kalau mau dibuatkan rak, maka agama cukuplah mendapatkan satu rak, sementara rak-rak yang lain biarlah diisi dengan ekonomi, teknologi, dan sebagainya. Ia mengutip pandangan Mu'tazilah, bahwa banyak masalah manusia bisa diselesaikan dengan akal, tidak harus dengan agama.

Sementara itu, Trisno justru mempertanyakan mengenai dialog antar agama itu sendiri. "Apakah ada perintah dalam kitab suci untuk berdialog antar agama?" Menurutnya, dialog muncul karena dipaksakan oleh zaman, bukan karena adanya kesadaran awal dari agama-agama. Karena itu, ia mengatakan, ada dua institusi besar yang memiliki kecenderungan menghasilkan bahaya besar, yaitu agama dan negara.

Diskusi yang terjadi pada akhirnya tidak lagi fokus pada pembicaraan mengenai buku karangan Knitter itu, tapi telah meluas pada persoalan-persoalan antar agama. Bahkan, menjelang usainya acara tersebut, sempat diangkat isu Kristenisasi yang dianggap mengacaukan dialog antar agama.

Salah satu peserta menyarankan agar agama-agama menghentikan misinya agar dunia ini aman. Namun, pendapat ini kurang disetujui oleh Patty. Patty berpendapat bahwa misi tidak mungkin dihilangkan, sebab kalaupun dihilangkan, kita tidak akan mungkin menghilangkan prejudice. Karena itu, lebih baik meredefinisikan misi, bukan menyetopnya.

Bedah buku yang berlangsung sejak pukul 19.00 itu berakhir pada pukul 22.00 dengan diwarnai sejuta canda. Intinya, para peserta sepakat bahwa problem dialog antar agama tetaplah menjadi problem serius hingga sekarang ini. Itulah sebabnya, gagasan Knitter tetaplah relevan (oyr).

Perubahan Paham Keberagamaan Umat Islam: Sebuah Keniscayaan?

oleh Dadi Darmadi

Beragamnya corak pemikiran keagamaan yang berkembang dalam sejarah Islam di Indonesia—dari Islam yang bercorak sufistik, tradisionalis, revivalis dan modernis hingga neo-modernis—dengan jelas memperteguh kekayaan khazanah keislaman negeri ini. Fenomena ini juga membuktikan beragamnya pengaruh yang masuk ke dalam wacana Islam yang berkembang di kepulauan Nusantara ini. Dalam perspektif sejarah perkembangan intelektual, hal itu, tak pelak lagi, menunjukkan bahwa telah terjadi pergeseran visi dan orientasi di dalam corak pemahaman keagamaan di kalangan Muslim Indonesia.

Pola pergeseran tersebut, bisa dimulai dari penjelasan Martin van Bruinessen, seorang sarjana Belanda yang ahli dalam kajian Islam di Indonesia, bahwa pada masa-masa awal berkembangnya Islam di Nusantara sejak abad ke-13 M corak Islam yang berkembang adalah Islam yang bernuansa sufistik. Bentuk Islam yang seperti itu juga mempengaruhi para pemikir-pemikir Islam pada masa tersebut hingga setidaknya empat abad kemudian. Lebih tepatnya, ia memberikan penilaian seperti berikut ini:

“Wajah Islam di Indonesia beraneka ragam, dan cara kaum Muslim di negeri ini menghayati agama mereka bermacam-macam. Tetapi, ada satu segi yang sangat mencolok sepanjang sejarah kepulauan ini: untaian kalung mistik yang begitu kuat mengebat Islamnya! Tulisan-tulisan paling awal karya Muslim Indonesia bernapaskan semangat tasawuf…"

Pada saat ditengarai munculnya ide-ide pembaharuan pemikiran Islam, sebagai akibat dari hubungan kalangan terpelajar Nusantara dan Timur Tengah pada abad ke-17 dan 18 M, pengaruh pemikiran sufistik pada berbagai kalangan Muslim masih cukup kuat. Hal ini ditandai dengan masih berkembangnya berbagai ajaran kelompok tarekat dan sufi di Nusantara. Yang penting dicatat di sini adalah bahwa, untuk tujuan penelitian ini, pada masa-masa ini Islam cenderung masih lebih bermakna sebagai sesuatu yang dipeluk, diyakini, dan dijalankan meskipun jumlah orang yang mendalami Islam cukup banyak, sebagian di antaranya bahkan di Timur Tengah. Maksudnya, pun jika Islam dipelajari, hal itu lebih sebagai sebuah upaya untuk “mempertebal” iman, dan “meningkatkan” kesalehan seseorang yang mempelajarinya, dengan ruang lingkup studi yang terkadang lebih spesifik dan pendekatan yang normatif sifatnya.

Sementara itu, menjelang akhir abad ke-19 dan awal abad ke-20—ketika bangsa Indonesia, termasuk kalangan Muslim terpelajarnya berkenalan dengan ide-ide Barat secara lebih intensif—telah secara signifikan mempengaruhi cara pandang masyarakat Islam, terutama para cendekiawannya, untuk lebih memahami dan mereaktualisasikan ajaran-ajaran Islam ke dalam realitas sosial mereka. Dalam konteks ini, muncul sejumlah pemikir Muslim Indonesia seperti Moh. Natsir dan Agus Salim, dan beberapa dekade sebelumnya telah muncul berbagai gerakan pembaharuan Islam seperti Muhammadiyah dan Persis yang sudah mulai melibatkan pemikiran keislaman mereka dengan berbagai tantangan sosial dan budaya bahkan kebangsaan yang mereka hadapi saat itu. Namun demikian, karena pada saat yang hampir bersamaan juga muncul pengaruh pemikiran Islam dari luar, khususnya negeri-negeri Arab, corak pemikiran Islam ini lebih cenderung puritan, sehingga terkadang juga disebut ortodoks.

Tidaklah mengherankan, meskipun sudah berkenalan dengan gagasan-gagasan modernisme yang sekuler, masih ditemukan ide-ide puritan mengenai wawasan keagamaan dan kebangsaan yang secara ideologis mencita-citakan negara "Islam". Kecenderungan seperti ini cukup dominan mewarnai corak pemikiran keagamaan kalangan yang kemudian sering disebut sebagai Muslim modernis awal tersebut.

Hingga paruh pertama abad ke-20, pusat-pusat studi Islam tertinggi bagi kalangan masyarakat Muslim Nusantara masih berada di wilayah Timur Tengah, khususnya Mekah, Saudi Arabia, sebelum akhirnya bergeser ke Kairo, Mesir. Meskipun demikian, patut dicatat adanya beberapa upaya yang dilakukan oleh kalangan terpelajar Muslim pada tahun 1930-an untuk mendirikan berbagai lembaga pendidikan tinggi yang diharapkan setingkat dengan lembaga akademis.

Pada tahun 1960, pemerintah secara resmi mendirikan IAIN (Institut Agama Islam Negeri) di Jakarta dan Yogyakarta, yang merupakan perpanjangan dari lembaga pendidikan tinggi agama yang telah dikembangkan jauh sebelumnya pada tahun 1940-an. Sampai pada dekade 1960-an, IAIN hanya memiliki ratusan mahasiswa dan umumnya masih mengandalkan dosen-dosen dari kalangan pesantren, sarjana Indonesia lulusan Timur Tengah dan lulusan IAIN sendiri.

Pada era 1970-an, wacana pembaharuan pemikiran keislaman semakin marak. Generasi muda dari kalangan terpelajar Muslim pada dekade ini sudah lebih menunjukkan kecenderungan pemikiran yang tidak lagi normatif memandang agama. Mereka—tidak seperti pada masa Islam yang bercorak mistis dan sufistik—kemudian lebih tertarik dengan pemahaman keislaman yang berdasarkan kepada pendekatan-pendekatan empiris dan historis di dalam pembentukan visi keagamaannya. Hal itu, misalnya, dengan tepat digambarkan oleh Richard C. Martin, Mark R. Woodward dan Dwi S. Atmaja yang mengatakan bahwa:

“Indonesian Muslim intellectuals are increasingly concerned with the questions of the proper role of Islam in national development and how Islamic values can be reconciled with Western rationalism, rather than with the nature of an Islamic state...What distinguishes thinkers associated with this movement from earlier modernists is the combination of empirical and historical approaches they employ in formulating a vision of an Islamic society.”

Tidak dapat disangkal bahwa perubahan visi dan orientasi itu sejalan dengan masuknya pengaruh pembaharuan Islam, yang utamanya, dibawa oleh kelompok Muslim modernis "generasi kedua" ini. Namun demikian, jelas sekali bahwa perkembangan wacana intelektual Islam seperti yang dimaksud oleh Martin, Woodward dan Atmaja di atas sudah memasuki babak baru, karena sudah menyangkut metodogi yang lebih empirik dan historis yang dipergunakan di dalam memformulasikan masalah keislaman dan masalah kemasyarakatan. Dalam sebuah penelitiannya, Karel Steenbrink, sarjana Belanda yang pernah menjadi dosen tamu di IAIN Yogyakarta, mengatakan bahwa khususnya sejak dibukanya program pascasarjana di lingkungan IAIN pada tahun 1982, pengaruh pendekatan historis dan empiris seperti ini sudah sedemikian nyata.

Dalam konteks seperti ini, IAIN dapat dilihat sebagai sebuah institusi pendidikan tinggi Islam yang memberikan "wadah" dan kesempatan bagi kalangan Muslim terpelajar untuk mengembangkan tradisi studi Islam yang empiris dan tidak lagi normatif.

Dengan demikian, kita bisa melihat adanya pergeseran orientasi dan visi yang signifikan di dalam mendekati, memahami dan mengkaji Islam di kalangan terpelajar Muslim Indonesia ini. Perkembangan ini menunjukkan semakin menguatnya kecenderungan untuk melihat Islam dan masayarakat Muslim sebagai sebuah obyek studi, penelitian dan pengkajian--tidak melulu sebagai sesuatu yang harus “dipeluk” dan “diimani” saja--sehingga hasil-hasil studi yang dilakukan bukan saja tidak melulu diharapkan bersifat apologetik dan merupakan “pembenaran” terhadap agama yang dianutnya, melainkan juga bersikap kritis. Sikap ini penting untuk dilihat secara lebih seksama, mengingat aspek-aspek seperti inilah yang bisa mendorong tumbuhnya tradisi ilmiah di kalangan terpelajar Muslim, khususnya seperti mereka yang menyerap dan mewarisi tradisi seperti itu di lembaga pendidikan Islam seperti IAIN.

Outside the holiest mosque, al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, I witnessed the sacred and the profane is totally too absurd a meaning.  

Where Do We Go from Here? Contemporary Anthropologists on Islam in Indonesia

by Dadi Darmadi
For nearly two decades, scholarly and journalistic accounts of Islam have focused on militant, intolerant, and often violent fundamentalist movements. Some contemporary anthropological works on Islam in Indonesia cover various aspects of “modern” Islam. At the same time, during this period, Indonesia has attained more emphasis as the world's fourth most populous nation, the third largest democracy, and the largest Muslim country.
As we shall discuss, contemporary anthropological studies of Islam in Indonesia tend to be historically as well as very specifically grounded. Some of our current anthropological literature focus on Islam in everyday experiences, understandings, and representations of gender, power, and difference; and tend to devote considerable analytic attention to themes of contradiction, paradox, and ambivalence.
John R. Bowen in his new book, Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: an Anthropology of Public Reasoning (2002) tries to examine the struggle of Indonesian Muslims to reconcile radically different sets of social norms and laws. Included here are the norms and laws derived from Islam, as well as contemporary ideas about gender equality and law in Indonesia. The book is a splendid work that displays archival and ethnographic research and interviews with national religious as well legal figures. Bowen, whose work to date has focused on the ethnographic study of Gayo society in Aceh, here relates to debates in Indonesian society where people struggle to live together with extreme differences in values and lifestyles. In the meantime, almost in the same vigor, Michael Peletz in his book, Islamic Modern: Religious Courts and Cultural Politics in Malaysia (2003), explores the culture, economy, and history of Islamic courts in Malaysia.
The two books by Michael Peletz and John Bowen cover a lot of fascinating aspects of Islam and the cultural logics of both legal theories, policies and practices, and religious interpretation in the support for modernity and multiculturalism, all of which not only suggest the potential but also the perspective for the opening of freedom, public space and modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia.
One of the reasons I like these works is not only the very nature of the book to analyze the dynamics of Islamic legal practices, the text and context, but also their research and reflections on the norms, values and doctrines and all the process and mechanism in their interpretation in Muslim’s everyday life, often the neglected aspects of Islam in contemporary Southeast Asia look. The other reason is that the two books have vividly tried to display the significance of Islam in Southeast Asia as an example, once again, to reconsider the reflection of Islam, especially after the tragedy of September 11.
I would like to begin with a brief remark that, in general, these two notable books are very significant in terms of spelling out the challenges and responses of contemporary Muslims in Southeast Asia. Likewise, they are important in scrutinizing the roles of government to accommodate some Muslim aspirations, and its political will to social change and yet, accordingly, reinforce its formal cooperation to win back their political support.
There are in many ways in which Muslim common sense at play in fostering the dynamics of Islam in this region, together with all ranges of its discrepancies. More specifically the cultural and political economy of Islamic courts in Malaysia and the cultural logic of both ordinary and elite Muslims (Peletz 2003: 26), despite all differences in ideas, norms and values, to develop a potential common good for the idea of living peacefully in a multi-cultural societies like Indonesia. A rationalization process which include the reconsidering and reconstructing possibilities that has been quite successful, at least in its positive terms. From this perspective, then we can move on our discussion on the reconstruction of Islam and modernity, Islam and civil society, Islam and multiculturalism (Bowen 2002: 12-13).
I am going to concentrate and thus would be more interested to elaborate some parts of the book which discuss more contemporary issues. It is a kind of issue that challenges Muslims in contemporary Southeast Asia. The question is what to be modern, and what to be Islamic. But then, there are many problematic issues here. Modernity as a Western concept and being modern is simply regarded as being captivated by the West. And, being authentic Muslim is also plainly regarded as being a part of the Middle Eastern perception of Islam. So, the whole question here would be how to “rationalize” and how to raise and develop proper and qualified “public reasoning”. There have been debates about it. It seems to me that, for many Muslims, modernity is about being at the forefront of the highest achievement, but at the same time on the brink of deterioration.
In the case of Malaysia, Michael Peletz has suggested that the Islamic courts are not “backward looking” and in fact in many ways supportive to the rational modes of government, economy and social government, and all Malaysian project of “modernity” (Peletz 2003:112) Just like in Indonesia, I guess the question would be something like: how are we supposed to think about this more deeply at the more practical level? Many people have confirmed and verified that. But how authentic is this?
It was said that “the Islamic courts encourage modernity and civil society by valorizing the contractual responsibilities, although not so much the rights.” The rights, I guess that is exactly a key concept here. How do we locate this notion of Islamic courts and then somehow relate it with some fundamental rights of the people; help ensure much more freedom, democratization, egalitarianism in Malaysia—how long we can maintain modernity without these concerns? While the younger generations of Muslims, especially the more educated ones apparently prefer more conservative rather than moderate views of Islam? Likewise, where the control of government to, for instance, mass media is so pervasive like in Indonesia in the New Order?
Some middleclass Malay Muslims might say that we do not want unexpected change really, first of all that Mahathir Mohammad has been considered quite successful in building Malaysian economic development. Likewise, largely the supporters of the moderate and open-minded views of Islam apparently come from the elite and government background? And yet, Indonesian Islam has been commonly cherished for the tolerant and progressive views of its proponents, despite the unresolved economic crisis hardship?
What am I missing here? Having said that, we are now beginning to realize that, at least in my perspective, that there is really a striking contrast, and yet we cannot really define what it is all about because each society has its own tenets. At some point, I wanted to see how this problem of the state as highly being ambivalence its commitment to civil society, something is not peculiar to either Indonesia or Malaysia but elsewhere in the Muslim world.
The second point I want to make is, while I agree that, in Indonesian context, some people have reasoned about difficult problems of law, religion, and ideals of equality, those apparently incompatible ideas and yet somehow people still manage to find the way toward workable arrangements to run everyday social life in such a pluralistic country as Indonesia. How people can live in mutual co-existence, while acknowledging their deep differences of values and forms of life, and yet forging ways to tolerate and accept those differences. And necessarily within the framework of reasonable conception of justice that is both public and Islamic. Not in liberal politics, not an Islamic state, also not a totally adat-based society, let alone in the provincial level. The cultural logics that elucidate, in the context of a plural society, many Indonesians wanted to become and continue to become committed Muslims, a religious person, someone who believe in and posses of God, embrace religion; but not possessed by God or embraced by religion. Or in the case of Malaysia, to be a self-consciously committed Muslim in this ever-changing world, and at the same time to be modern in its most splendid sense possible.
Bowen’s book mentions that there is the importance of fiqh of Umar, there is a concept of Maslahat al-ammah or the general interest, or even the reaktualisasi, but was not quite strong as I hoped to emphasize that, unlike the general perception of the rigidity of fiqh, it was also the fluidity of fiqh that make Indonesian Muslims possible to do a public reasoning. That is the fiqh which has been widely followed by and practiced within the Sunni tradition, especially those of followed by the NU and Muhamadiyah.
The example of solving an issue with fihi qaulani, literally means “…in this respect there are two competing opinions…” has created a multilayered and multifaceted possibilities of answers. In that way, “fiqh is truly regarded as fallible; it is the human knowledge of a divine law”. Otherwise, the more kind of rigid fiqh will not tolerate and support “public reasoning”. I think in this way too, the concept of law is created and recreated as a normative object; therefore, we can come to conclusion that the practice of law are shaped and reshaped by religious, political and moral values and forces.
Unlike James Siegel’s The Rope of God, in this book Bowen certainly does a lot more elaboration of possible interlink and interconnection between what happened in Aceh and possibly beyond Indonesia (Bowen 2002: 20). I like the idea that this work has shown a tremendous effort to see if the Acehnese type of reasoning has been found elsewhere. Although Acehnese experience cannot be regarded as a representative of Indonesian experience in general, nevertheless the process and mechanism happened there is insightful for looking at the national context, and perhaps international, or elsewhere.
This is also interesting to see that, like in various examples of women leadership, that “Islam became politicized” and yet it is not clear to whether acknowledge that such public reasoning was not only used for the sake of “multicultural society” but also for the sake of “self-interest”. That is the ironic side of it. And I wanted to see if those paradoxical aspects of public reasoning also more appropriately elaborated. Like in the case of the implementation of shari’ah ion Aceh as ‘unwanted gift. Or even in the case of Confucianism when it was granted a formal status as one of ‘recognized religions’ in Indonesian during President Wahid, the immediate disapproval not come from the Muslims, but rather largely from the Buddhist religious bodies. During the New Order era, Confucianism has long formally been under the government’s Buddhist-Hindus administration. Or in the case of inter-religious marriage policies: still some confusion. Some people now find their way to get married: find a “neutral places” like Hong Kong, Australia, or even Timika in Papua—to get away from somewhat confusing, and more importantly, inflexible marriage policies.
Despite the fact that some people in Indonesia have embraced the belief that it is necessary to move upwards their public reasoning to a level of determination and deliberation, I note that some public reasoning efforts sometimes also have to face difficult situations because many people basically are not ready for social change. So, they need some kind of ‘twist’ and require once again the religious authority with all its persuasive approaches—like the participation of Gus Dur or Ibu Shinta Nuriyah Wahid in such campaign of gender equity among the pesantren communities. I am reminded by the fact that so many, so many NU’s women activist eventually ended up working with Ibu Nyai (the wife of kiyai), or the daughter of the kiyai, often in smaller pesantrens in order to get their messages across. Otherwise, there are some sentiments towards everything coming from Barat (the Western). And sometimes, gender equity program in pesantren largely avoids the usage of western terms such as “marital rape” or even “gender analysis”. Sometimes it is only a matter of explanation, and style of delivering and conveying the messages. It was not surprising that even someone like Amien Rais is unenthusiastic about gender issues.
Despite the fact that such efforts of public reasoning is so real, but can we ask: how genuine and authentic is it? Several scholars such as Martin van Bruinessen (2001) are often a bit skeptical about it. Given the fact that the enormous financial support from international funding agencies. So, the public reasoning projects cannot avoid the international factors that might help create such atmosphere.
My questions to both books rely on the new approach they employ to understand the current development of Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia. The question is exactly what Michael Peletz has questioned in the book: Are we convinced to believe that the entire Muslim population of Southeast Asia is significantly participated in this whole notion of Islamic resurgence? Or “is it that those who participate in the development by and large make up a small minority of the whole Muslim population?”
Last but not least, I will discuss Robert W. Hefner’s newest work, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia (2000). In this book, Hefner explicitly aims to make a contribution to the dynamics of contemporary Islam in Indonesia. Hefner tries to show that the Muslim's role in democratizing, if not civilizing, Indonesia is very significant. Throughout the book, he tells the process of Islam and Muslims in dealing with democratization in Indonesia. Not only challenging to many scholars of Indonesian studies, in the book Hefner consciously challenges many scholars of Islam as well. He questions the stereotypes of Islam as antagonistic to democracy, which I assume the very basic questions of the book, and he further suggests some possibilities for democracy in the Muslim world and beyond.
Against portrayals of Islam as inherently anti-pluralist and undemocratic, Hefner explains that mobilized religiously ecumenical support, promoted women's rights, and championed democratic ideals. More importantly, and this appears to be the most important reason, Indonesia's Islamic reform movement rebuffs the goal of an Islamic state. By doing so, Hefner deliberately places Indonesia at the center of our efforts to understand what makes democracy work in a Muslim country. Being the largest Muslim nation in the world, Hefner mentions that Indonesia has gone under tremendous pressure to prove itself to the outside world that Islam, being a major force within its society, is compatible with the universal values of current global politics.
Hefner begins his elaboration with examining the seeds of democracy in Indonesia in the early 1950s, something he says as “rich precedents for tolerance and civility”. After that, he acknowledged, Indonesia give way to political violence, filled with hostility and aggression both from the state and society. He mentions one clear example of the slaughter of half a million communists in 1965 by Muslim parties. Following this mayhem, a new regime called "New Order” came to power, overturning those democratic forces and setting up dictatorial controls that held for thirty years.
Nevertheless, from this violence confusion, restrained by the state and deplored by many conservative Muslims, Hefner points out that an “Islamic democracy” movement emerged and strengthened. He says that one of the most significant roles of this movement was the overthrow of the Soeharto regime in the 1998. Consequently, Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid was elected President of a reformist, civilian government in 1999. But, we may ask how this achievement was possible? Robert Hefner explains that this was possible mainly because the emergence of civil institutions and public civility. And yet he argues that neither democracy nor civil society is possible without a civilized state.
This book clearly offers an alternative view on the cross-cultural study on democracy and civil society in the Muslim context. To a significant portion, the book appears to be Hefner’s enthusiasm for the cultural, political and intellectual efforts made by liberal Muslim leaders in Indonesia. Throughout the book, I read many implicit efforts of the author to explain how those liberal Muslim leaders try to secure Islam from being dictated and run by the power struggle during the New Order (Hefner 2000: 22-36) .
There maybe some validity to Hefner’s assertion that liberal Muslim leaders such as then President Abdurrahman Wahid was able to bring his major conservative constituents of Nahdlatul Ulama, believed to be more than 30 millions in number, into a more liberal ideological position, independent of the authoritarian state. But the explanation he offers fails to establish convincingly that it was so. President Wahid administration fails to maintain its rule because of political slackness, internal conflicts within the government and public confrontation.
What then happened was political confrontation between supporters of Wahid (he simply calls them the “liberal Muslims”), mostly in alliance with civil society, against conservative Muslims with political agenda (he calls them the “regimist Muslims), in coalition with the ultraconservative wing of the Indonesian army or TNI (Hefner 2000: 128-132). For the Muslim liberals, secularization was thus a mere detour to prevent a recurring pattern of Indonesian history in which religious violence was no stranger in the land. Because of his restricted predisposition of the Nahdlatul Ulama, in which he has studied in the last decade, I have the sense that Hefner was unable to achieve a deep considerate view of the opponents of democratic movement, so to speak. I think this movement was also multifaceted, and to some degree, far-fetched to simply explain in his dichotomy of “Civil” and “Uncivil” Islam.
In writing the book, Hefner correctly assumes that in all religious communities, without the exception of the Islamic ummah, there are always uncivil elements stalking and even disrupting the democratic march in any given state. The Indonesian experience has many lessons to be drawn upon, and the most important one is that while society can be violent and uncivil, the state itself is often an essential sponsoring agent that spurs societal and cultural devastation. And when such political machination is in place, true democracy and civil society will only prevail via an all-encompassing reform movement or social revolution.
Other than some “old” major names in the study of Islam in Indonesia, recent development of anthropological study of Islam has received a significant attention from other anthropologists and ethnographers whose works were previously in the Middle East. I should mention here the contribution of such scholars as Anne K. Rasmussen and Michael Gilsenan. Like Kenneth M. George, Rasmussen (2003), whose previous work notably focuses on Middle-eastern ethnic music, is interested to examine the intermingle of politics and culture as seen in the Musabaqah Tilawatil Al-Qur’an (the National Qur’anic Recitation Contest). She argues that both the government and Muslim communities have interpreted the event as the advancement of Islamic distinctive religious splendor, while the government maintains their support of the event for the seek of power over the Muslims. Meanwhile, Gilsenan (2003), shifted the bulk of data he got from his previous study of Islamic modernity and power in Egypt and Lebanon, to study the Arab diaspora in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
It is also important to note that, throughout the years, a number of PhD theses about Islam in Indonesia have been written in the anthropological field. In 1996, Hyung-Jun Kim wrote a thesis on Muhammadiyyah and its Islamic transformation in the contemporary social and religious landscapes. Ronald Lukens-Bull writes his dissertation on pesantren as an Islamic education system and its roles in building and strengthening identity among Muslim students in Java.
And, recently, to mention some of them, I find the work by Peter Just (2001), Philipus Tule, SVD (2001) and Lany Prabojo (2000) very interesting. Their work provides notable contribution to the study of religion and culture in the eastern parts of Indonesia, the region that has been fairly neglected in the study of Islam in the archipelago. Their works, therefore, fill in the gap and raise questions for the future investigation.

Why Anthropological Study of Islam in Indonesia?

by Dadi Darmadi

Why anthropological study of Islam in Indonesia? Some scholars insist it that had long been ‘obscured’ when compared with other studies of anthropology, economics and history, especially its pre-Islamic civilization in the region.

There are several reasons for this: first, Islam had been obfuscated because the history of Islam had been already ‘identified’, and more importantly, it was already attached to Western imagination since the Crusades to European imperialism and colonialism. Second, the marginalization of Islam in Indonesia, as part of Southeast Asia, may be seen as connected to the concept of “centre” and “periphery”. In this context, Islam is supposedly peripheral to Southeast Asia, while Southeast Asia peripheral to Islam.

On the other hand, such a connection may have its heritage in colonial discourse as well. Anthropology’s romantic yet somewhat ambivalent relationship to the study of Islam in Indonesia has existed ever since the late 19th and early 20th century, when several Dutch scholars went to the field and worked for colonial government. Many features of the anthropological accounts of Islam are not familiar in one way or another to many Indonesian readers like me, except some hearsay told to us that the Dutch government was not that akin to Islam. I was told that, among the four major world cultural traditions—Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity—Islam since the colonial times appears to have the most pervasive role in politics. I was also told that, even when the Dutch scholars studied about Islam and Muslim communities, some Muslims were suspicious that the study will eventually be used to combat the power of Muslims.

I am not concerned with assessing whether the assumption is right or wrong, but the peripheral status of the study of Islam in Indonesia has for decades relegated. This customary appraisal was strengthened by general assumption that, by inclination, the Muslim majority world is antithetical to democracy. The vast and varied spectrum of the scholarly works that have addressed this distinctive phenomenon started with a tradition that presumed a conflict between Islam and political modernity, while noting the centrality and universality of the faith for Muslims.

A very important change, however, has occurred in the study of Islam in the archipelago since the publication of The Religion of Java by Clifford Geertz (1960). Nearly a decade after that, mostly intrigued and inspired intellectually by the book, some anthropologists continued Geertz’s study of religion and culture in Indonesia, including Islam. Now, more than four decades after that, especially driven by the current assertion of Islamic fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism in the region, the study of Islam appears like “mushrooms in the rainy season,” as Indonesian proverb says. Previously, there have been numerous anthropological studies of Islam that were frequently overlooked, especially by those who persist in viewing anthropology in terms of the conventionally defined subfields. I refer to the fact that the study of Islam in Indonesia has been reconstituted and partially subsumed under other (somewhat problematic and contested) subjects such as social history, legal anthropology, and political anthropology.

I am interested in surveying the development of the anthropological literature of Islam in Indonesia, paying close attention to its early works, theoretical advances and shifts in methodology and intent that have occurred since the 1960s. I am especially interested in examining how these works describe and portray that Islamic beliefs and practices are culturally situated in Indonesia, and how Islamic and religious authority is socially reproduced and contested in the region. And from that, I would like to try to see how these ethnographic and anthropological studies of Islam will likely be geared towards in the future, and see how this will be closely related to my own research project in the future.

I am also interested in highlighting the developments in various approaches, themes, and changes in the subject. Contemporary anthropological studies of Islam in Indonesia tend to be historically as well as very specifically grounded. They tend to focus on everyday experiences, understandings, and representations of gender, power, and difference; and tend to devote considerable analytic attention to themes of contradiction, paradox, and ambivalence of Islam as a new phenomenon in contemporary Indonesia.

Apa yang Salah dengan Parsel?

oleh Dadi Darmadi


Beberapa hari menjelang hari raya lebaran, semakin banyak pedagang keranjang parsel di tanah air mengeluh karena barang dangangannya tidak laku seperti tahun-tahun sebelumnya menyusul imbauan Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) bahwa pejabat dilarang menerima parsel lebaran (Kompas, 8/11/2004). Apa hubungannya keranjang parsel dan tindakan korupsi?

Pak Agus, Pak Didin dan Bang Masjhony di Bekasi, sedikit di antara pedagang yang kurang beruntung tersebut, barangkali tidak pernah berpikir bahwa upaya pemberantasan korupsi yang dilancarkan pemerintahan baru SBY-Kalla bukan saja merupakan ancaman bagi para koruptor kelas kakap, tapi juga sekaligus ancaman terhadap kehidupan ekonominya. Akibatnya, tak pelak ratusan pengrajin dan pedagang keranjang parsel berunjuk rasa dan mendesak KPK agar mencabut keputusannya yang dianggap merugikan (Tempointeraktif, 4/11/2004).

Apa yang salah dengan memberi, mengirim dan menerima hadiah seperti parsel? Sebelumnya, Menteri Koordinator Pemberdayaan Aparatur Negara Taufiq Effendi mengatakan bahwa “parsel merupakan awal terjadinya praktek suap di kalangan para penyelenggara negara” (Tempointeraktif, 30/10/2004). Ia lalu melarang kebiasaan mengirim dan menerima parsel ini karena ada indikasi “pamrih” yang bisa mengarah ke “suap”. Sebelumnya Presiden Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono menjelaskan kepada para pedagang parsel di Cikini dalam kunjungan mendadaknya beberapa hari lalu, bahwa sebenarnya parsel tidak dilarang, hanya alangkah baiknya kebiasaan mengirim parsel tidak ditujukan bagi orang yang mampu. Kenyataannya, budaya mengirim parsel lebih sering dilakukan orang yang tidak sederajat, dalam hubungan hierarkis yang jomplang seperti bawahan kepada atasan.

Sebelum kasus ini mencuat, mungkin masyarakat kita cenderung menerima “parsel”, “hadiah” atau bentuk pemberian lainnya, khususnya menjelang hari raya atau pesta besar sebagai sebuah kelaziman, dan secara luas diterima secara taken for granted. Dari sudut pandang antropologi yang saya pelajari, ternyata kebiasaan gift exchange yang sejatinya dimaksudkan sebagai perekat ikatan sosial antar warga dan masyarakat, sebenarnya memang tidak pernah murni seperti itu. Selalu ada nilai dan makna lain di balik perilaku yang tampaknya sukarela ini. Dan, dalam konteks masyarakat moderen, alih-alih sebagai perekat ikatan sosial, perubahan makna dan perilaku gift exchange tersebut malah menjadi sumber pelanggengan hierarki sosial dan, lebih jauh lagi, khususnya dalam konteks kehidupan birokrasi kebijakan publik, hal ini menjadi masalah karena dianggap menjadi sumber korupsi.

Gift Exchange: Tak Ada Hadiah yang Gratis
Padahal, mungkin hampir setiap masyarakat di dunia mengenal kebiasaan saling memberi, menerima dan tukar menukar barang. Bahkan Adam Smith (1759), pemikir sosial dan ekonomi Skotlandia, mengatakan bahwa kebiasaan saling memberi, barter dan menukar barang merupakan bagian dari kecenderungan alamiah (natural propensity) manusia. Bahkan, manusia bukan hanya saling tukar menukar barang, hadiah dan jasa bahkan juga manusia, seperti yang terjadi dalam “marriage exchange”.

Beberapa ahli antropologi telah meneliti berbagai bentuk budaya tukar menukar barang sebagai hadiah ini berdasarkan nilai sosial yang dikandungnya. Marcel Mauss (1954), seorang antropolog Perancis, menamakan fenomena ini sebagai “gift exchange”. Salah satu temuannya yang menarik untuk didiskusikan dengan konteks kita adalah bahwa memang terdapat hubungan antara nilai ekonomis hadiah yang diberikan atau ditukarkan dengan hubungan sosial antara kedua pihak yang terlibat. Dalam perspektif ini, kebiasaan memberi dan menerima hadiah berfungsi menciptakan atau menguatkan ikatan sosial (social bond) antara masing-masing individu dan kelompok. Oleh karenanya, demikian Mauss, orang merasa “wajib” bukan saja ketika memberi, tetapi juga ketika menerima dan mengembalikan “budi baik” pemberian itu.

Boleh saja orang berpikir bahwa memberi hadiah sebagai bentuk kasih sayang, perhatian, dan dilakukan dengan tanpa pamrih. Namun, bagi Marcel Mauss, barang yang dihadiahkan bukan lagi sebuah barang biasa. Sekali ia disampaikan sebagai hadiah, ia sebenarnya membawa “pesan” pribadi sang pemberi, dan dengan sendirinya mejelaskan fungsi dasarnya sebagai perekat solidaritas sosial. Meskipun hadiah pada awalnya dianggap perwujudan kegiatan yang “sukarela” dan mungkin “tidak dibuat-buat”, pada hakikatnya tidak lagi bisa dianggap demikian. Tidak ada hadiah yang gratis, demikian kata antropolog Mary Douglas (1990). Malah sebaliknya, hadiah itu sebenarnya menjadi kewajiban, khususnya manakala orang yang menerima hadiah juga berpikiran sama: ia harus memberikan dan mengembalikan rasa terima kasihnya, dalam bentuk apapun semampunya.

Beberapa suku asli Amerika seperti Haida dan Tlingit memiliki tradisi saling tukar menukar barang yang mungkin terbilang ekstrem. Kebiasaan tukar menukar hadiah adalah sebuah rivalitas: menurut peraturan yang berlaku, mereka harus membalas hadiah melebihi apa yang mereka terima. Kegagalan membalas hadiah berarti hilangnya kehormatan. Dan di Melanesia ada kebiasaan yang disebut potlatch, yang kemudian juga dilestarikan oleh orang Amerika sekarang untuk membawa makanan masing-masing dalam sebuah pertemuan. Juga, sebagian masyarakat Muslim Indonesia sudah lama mengenal kebiasaan tukar-menukar barang. Pada awal tahun 1980-an, di berbagai tempat di Jawa Barat masih cukup banyak ditemukan kebiasaan saling mengirim rantangan, makanan yang tersusun rapi dalam wadah rantang, khususnya menjelang bulan puasa tiba. Namun, sejalan dengan perubahan sosial, di mana makna gift exchange menjadi lebih commodity, kegiatan seperti ini lambat laun memudar.

Orang Islam percaya bahwa memberi makan bagi orang yang berpuasa adalah perbuat terpuji dan berpahala. Lagipula, jika dikaitkan dengan persoalan memberi, konsep property atau harta milik dan kekayaan dipahami sebagai bukanlah seutuhnya milik manusia, tapi titipan Tuhan. Agar senantiasa menjadi suci, barang itu harus didistribusikan kepada orang lain lewat proses ‘pencucian’ zakat. Di samping pemberian yang sifatnya wajib seperti zakat, orang Islam dianjurkan untuk memberi sedekah—yang dari asal kata Arabnya sadaqa dan juga Ibrani zedaka mengandung makna “keadilan”—suatu ibadah yang sebenarnya lebih menekankan kepada aspek spontanitas, sukarela dan menekankan natural propensity manusia kepada sesamanya. Akan tetapi, budaya filantropi, khususnya dalam bentuk nyata bersikap dermawan kepada orang lain, tidaklah begitu banyak berkembang di kalangan umat. Mengapa? Karena bukan hanya banyak masalah dalam hal pemilihan dan distribusi kegiatan sosial, tapi juga karena secara tidak langsung banyak kalangan terjebak ke dalam bentuk gift exchange yang sempit seperti itu. Tapi hal itu bukanlah hal yang unik bagi masyarakat kita. Orang Amerika, misalnya, juga suka memberi bantuan sosial tetapi sebagian di antaranya diembel-embeli untuk pengurangan atau terbebas dari pajak.

Tapi, “kami sungguh-sungguh ikhlas memberinya,” barangkali demikian sebagian kita berkilah. Keikhlasan? bagaimana kita harus memulai penilaian terhadap sebuah keikhlasan? Bukankah ketika kita mengadakan selamatan atau berkorban, secara tidak sadar kita sering tergoda untuk berpikir bahwa “kami memberi dengan harapan Tuhan juga memberi, bahkan lebih dari yang kita berikan”? Kalau sudah persoalan hati, kata orang, itu mungkin hanya Tuhan yang tahu. Tapi, dari sudut pandang antropologis, di mana sikap, perilaku dan respon masyarakat menunjukkan pola pikir dan kebiasaan—dan oleh karenanya ‘budaya’—ukurannya adalah sejauhmana kebiasaan menerima dan memberi hadiah memberikan sebuah petunjuk bagi nilai dan norma yang dianut, dan berdampak pada sikap kebudayaan masyarakatnya.

Memberi sebagai Upaya Pelanggengan Hubungan Hierarkis?
Justru, ironisnya, yang semakin berkembang adalah kebiasaan saling memberi, tukar menukar hadiah yang sifatnya lebih mengarah ke commodity, di mana perhitungan ekonomis barang dan pesan yang dikandungnya melebihi dari aspek sejati dari budaya saling memberi tersebut. Jadilah, setiap hari raya, pesta dan upacara besar lainnya disesaki dengan kebiasaan memberi, mengirim dan menerima parsel: dari mulai makanan dan minuman kalengan, berubah menjadi alat rumah tangga, alat-alat dapur, bentuk pakaian, hingga barang yang bercita rasa tinggi seperti gelas kristal, yang biasa dikirimkan oleh (dan di antara) para anggota dan pimpinan lembaga ke lembaga lainnya. Pemberian yang menunjukkan kelas dan citra sang pemberi, dan secara disadari atau tidak, terdapat pikiran dan harapan serupa yang dibayangkan secara resiprokal akan didapatkannya dari si penerima, yang nanti pada siklus berikutnya berubah menjadi sang pemberi selanjutnya.

Orang sering keliru memahami bahwa karena tujuan utama gift exchange adalah ikatan sosial, lalu melupakan aspek ekonominya. Tepat, tidak ada dan bahkan tidak seharusnya ada hadiah yang gratis, seperti kata Mary Douglas tadi. Humphrey dan Hughes (1992) mengemukakan pendapat bahwa belakangan justru lebih banyak perhitungan ekonomi melatarbelakangi gift exchange, jelas-jelas lebih dari apa yang dibayangkan Mauss. Misalnya, jika seseorang mendapatkan hadiah yang nilainya berbeda mencolok, maka hal itu akan mempengaruhi si penerima, dan mungkin di masa yang akan datang ia akan menimbang-nimbang untuk melakukan adjustment, perubahan sesuai dengan apa yang diterimanya jika memberikan hadiah. Jika demikian, bukankah nyata-nyata ini bukan lagi soal harga dan nilai barang hadiah itu, melainkan pikiran yang masuk ke dalam barang tersebut?

Makanya, kegiatan yang sedianya sukarela seperti memberi hadiah lebaran berupa parsel pada hari raya bisa menjadi bermasalah. Ya, pada kasus di mana dua pihak yang terlibat kirim mengirim parsel adalah dua orang yang tidak sederajat, seperti seorang bawahan kepada atasan atau sebaliknya, yang terjadi bukanlah peningkatan hubungan sosial, melainkan penggelembungan hubungan patron-klien yang jomplang. Di situlah, seperti yang diisyaratkan Menko PAN Taufiq Effendi, benih-benih Korupsi, Kolusi, Nepotisme—dengan demikian juga penyalahgunaan jabatan dan wewenang lainnya—bisa bermula dari sebuah keranjang parsel. Sekali lagi, bukan karena wujud dan nilai keranjang yang biasanya terbuat dari rotan itu, melainkan pikiran dan makna yang masuk ke dalam benda “sial” bernama parsel itu.

Jika demikian, adalah wajar belaka kalau pemerintah dan juga berbagai pihak seperti Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi melarang pejabat menerima parsel. Karena, dalam konteks seperti itu, pemberian parsel menjelang hari raya, seperti Idul Fitri atau Natal, khususnya yang dilakukan oleh orang yang tidak sederajat seperti yang telah berlaku umum sebelum ini, memang lebih tepat disebut sebagai alat pelanggengan hubungan hierarkis ketimbang sebagai perekat sosial.

Oleh karenanya, perlu pemahaman dan pemaknaan ulang kepada kebiasaan gift exchange tadi sebagai benar-benar tindakan bermakna dan disadari sepenuhnya akan konsekuensi-konsekuensi baik dan buruknya di dalam kehidupan bermasyarakat yang semakin konsumtif ini. Dengan demikian, para pengrajin keranjang parselpun tidak terkaget-kaget karena munculnya ‘gerakan moral’ dadakan ini.