Pesantren progressives defend constitutional religious freedoms
by
Joanne McMillan
It is a sweaty April afternoon, and the community hall in Cangkol, a
fishing community on the outskirts of Cirebon on Java's north coast,
is packed to the gills. People have come to see former first lady, Ibu
Sinta Nuriyah Wahid. Ibu Sinta, the wife of former president
Abdurrahman Wahid, is touring halls like this around the country ahead
of next year's election, listening to ordinary people talk about the
problems they face in their everyday lives.
Today, however, there are some technical difficulties in hearing those
voices. The sound system is playing up, and while technicians fiddle,
the MC, a popular and charismatic young kyai, KH Maman Imanulhaq
Fakieh, keeps the crowd entertained. The captive audience presents a
perfect opportunity for him to push his favourite issue of the moment:
freedom of religion, a hot topic in Indonesia thanks to recent attacks
on Ahmadiyah mosques and calls to outlaw the sect.
`Is Islam a religion of violence?' he cries, raising his fist in the
air. `No!' The crowd, largely comprised of jilbab-wearing housewives,
responds with enthusiasm. `Does Islam permit violence by anyone?'
`No!' `Towards anyone?' `No!' `On any grounds?' `No!' `Do we want the
government to uphold the rights guaranteed in the constitution? ' `Yes!'
Kyai Maman, 35, is the spiritual leader of Al-Mizan Pesantren in
Jatiwangi, West Java. Outside Indonesia, thanks to coverage of
terrorism cases, Indonesian pesantren, or Islamic boarding schools,
have earned a reputation as extremist havens where young students are
indoctrinated in fundamentalist teachings and groomed to become
terrorists. While it is true that many pesantren teach conservative,
literalist interpretations of Islam, only a tiny number have links
with terrorist organisations and in fact the pesantren world is the
source of some of the most progressive Muslim voices in Indonesia and
indeed the Muslim world.
The best known progressive kyai is former president Abdurrahman Wahid,
but surrounding Wahid are a number of increasingly vocal and
influential progressive pesantren leaders. Kyai Maman is a protégé of
a group of kyai and pesantren alumni in West Java that includes KH
Syarief Usman Yahya, head of Kempek Pesantren and KH Husein Muhammad
of Dar al-Tauhid Arjawinangun Pesantren. The late KH Fuad Hasyim of
Buntet Pesantren and KH Yahya Masduki of Babakan Ciwaringin Pesantren
were role models for this group. They preach values of pluralism and
encourage their students, or santri, to reread religious texts
contextually. The vision of Islam that they promulgate is grounded in
the Qur'an, Sunna and classical Islamic texts and advocates justice
for all human beings.
Rallying point
Earlier this year, the Ahmadiyah issue became a rallying point for
progressive Muslim leaders. While fundamentalist groups such as the
Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Indonesian Mujahidin Council
(MMI), along with many moderates, called for Ahmadiyah to be outlawed,
progressive kyai, including Kyai Maman, were organising community
events with Ahmadiyah in order to emphasise a message of tolerance and
pluralism. When police and local government failed to protect
Ahmadiyah from increasing incidents of vandalism and violence,
progressive kyai offered NU paramilitaries, known as Banser, to
protect Ahmadiyah mosques and homes.
For those like Kyai Maman who defended Ahmadiyah, the issue was never
really about Ahmadiyah, but about upholding the rights of citizens,
guaranteed in the constitution, to practice their respective religion
and beliefs. The issue also had the potential to set a precedent for
the religious beliefs of the majority to become the basis of laws that
discriminate against other groups. This potential looked set to be
realised when in April, a government-appointe d body of prosecutors,
religious scholars and government officials recommended that the
government outlaw the sect, declaring that its members `had deviated
from Islamic principles'.
While fundamentalist groups and many moderates called for
Ahmadiyah to be outlawed, progressive kyai, including Kyai Maman, were
organising community events with Ahmadiyah in order to emphasise a
message of tolerance and pluralism
Whether Ahmadiyah members have deviated from Islam is not the point,
argues Kyai Maman: `I have never defended Ahmadiyah's teachings,' he
says. `What we are defending is their rights as citizens, as set out
in the constitution. I would defend FPI if they were being oppressed
and terrorised. This issue is not about Ahmadiyah but about people
whose rights as human beings, as citizens, have been denied.'
For their defence of Ahmadiyah's rights, progressives have themselves
become targets of violence by extremist groups. The most high profile
incident occurred at the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta on 1
June this year, the anniversary of Sukarno's famous 1945 speech where
he formulated Indonesia's state ideology, known as pancasila. With the
government's decision regarding the fate of Ahmadiyah due to be handed
down any day, dozens of demonstrators, among them Kyai Maman, held a
peaceful rally in support of religious freedom. `We came to Monas for
two reasons,' Kyai Maman explains. `One was to celebrate pancasila,
our national philosophy, which is all about living in a plural
society. The second was to urge the government to uphold the
constitution. '
`We were just about to get started,' Kyai Maman recalls, `when
suddenly a group of people wearing white robes and carrying FPI
banners arrived, shouting "Allahu akbar!" (God is great).'.The FPI
supporters attacked the demonstrators with sharpened bamboo stakes and
stones. Nineteen people were injured, some seriously. Kyai Maman was
among the most badly hurt. He recalls being beaten on the head with
bamboo stakes until he fell to the ground where he was repeatedly
kicked and stamped on by at least ten people. He was hospitalised with
concussion and head wounds.
The incident shocked many in the Indonesian public. The attack on Kyai
Maman in particular was significant in swaying public opinion because
FPI had, deliberately or unwittingly, dared to attack a kyai, the
moral equivalent in Muslim Indonesia to attacking a priest or a nun.
In the days after the incident, calls to disband Ahmadiyah were
replaced in the headlines by calls to disband FPI. Fifty-seven members
of FPI, including leader Rizieq Shihab, were arrested following the
incident, and the group is now seriously weakened.
The government's eventual decision on the Ahmadiyah case was neither
an outright victory for anti-Ahmadiyah campaigners nor a win for
pluralism. The joint ministerial resolution, released on 9 June, did
not `ban' Ahmadiyah per se but demanded that they stop practising
their beliefs and strongly encouraged them to `return to mainstream
Islam'. Kyai Maman sees the decision as an excessive and ambiguous
form of intervention by the government, designed to get them out of a
difficult political situation. `The government's job is to guarantee
freedom of religion,' he argues, `not to meddle in matters of belief.'
From puritan to progressive
Kyai Maman has not always defended the values of pluralism. There was
a time when he supported, rather than opposed, violence in the name of
religion. Kyai Maman grew up in a puritanical pesantren where he mixed
in narrow circles and studied only traditional religious texts. His
understanding of the world, he explains, was black and white, and
anyone different from himself was a sinner. Just seeing a church or a
Christian cross, he confesses, would make his blood boil. He was
involved in militant groups that participated in `cleansing' gambling
and prostitution dens in the Majalengka area. In 1998, he stood by
while members of his congregation destroyed churches, shops and houses
belonging to Chinese Indonesians in Jatiwangi. `At that time,' he
says, `I thought that there was only one truth: only we were right and
everyone else was wrong.'
But the violent events of 1998 proved a turning point in his life.
Witnessing the effects of violence perpetrated by Muslims convinced
him that there had been something wrong with his readings of religious
texts
But the violent events of 1998 proved a turning point in his life.
Witnessing the effects of violence perpetrated by Muslims convinced
him that there had been something wrong with his readings of religious
texts. The texts, he explains, always refer to Islam as a blessing for
the whole universe, not just for Muslims. The goal of Islam, he
reasoned, could not be to make people afraid of it.
On this basis, he says, he decided to start listening to the voices of
`the other'. He began inviting leaders of other religions to his
pesantren – priests, pastors and Buddhist monks – for inter-religious
dialogue. He also invited them to come along to religious and cultural
ceremonies at his pesantren, and even to teach classes to his pupils.
It was a move that initially met with disapproval in his community and
in his own family. `My father didn't like me associating with
non-Muslims, ' says Kyai Maman. `They were dirty unbelievers (kafir).
But eventually my family began to see that, "Oh, it turns out priests
are cool, and Buddhist monks are cool."'
He also began to read from a variety of sources including philosophy,
socialist thought and Christian liberation theology, and mixed with
artists, writers and musicians. He dabbled in writing his own poetry.
In his view, art has values that are congruous with religious values,
such as freedom from contamination by worldly power or earthly
desires. `From art,' he says, `people can understand how to live a
more harmonious life, not just see in black and white.'
Politics and public image
Despite having what he claims is a fundamental disinterest in
politics; Kyai Maman has recently become an active member of the
National Awakening Party (PKB). `I was invited [to join the party] by
Gus Dur [Abdurrahman Wahid], so I decided to see whether politics
could be made into a tool to fight for pluralism.' Certain goals, he
realises, can only be achieved through parties and through policy: `We
must take steps that push our friends in the legislative assembly to
ensure that pluralist values continue to be upheld and defended.' The
Ahmadiyah case, he says, has reinforced this conviction in him.
However, he continues to see his main work as being at the grassroots
level. This is not just a matter of seeding pluralist values, he
maintains, but about improving people's welfare. `Who can be
influenced or provoked by radical groups?' he argues. `Usually they
are people who have trouble making ends meet, so our job is not to
oppose those groups with violence but to try to create community
prosperity and end poverty.'
The Ahmadiyah case and his own brush with celebrity following the
Monas incident have also taught him the power of the media in shaping
public opinion. `The failure of progressive Muslims, in my opinion,'
he says, `is that we don't dominate the media. Maybe this is a problem
with the media itself: you know "bad news is good news". So it means
that if a priest eats in my pesantren, or I break my fast in a church
or a monastery, that will never get in the newspaper. But if a priest
beats me up, or if I poison a priest's altar wine, that's the kind of
thing that makes the newspaper.
About Author:
Joanne McMillan (jo_mcmillan@ yahoo.com) works as a translator and
editor for Fahmina Institute in West Java and is currently completing
a Masters of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development at the
Australian National University.
Source: http://insideindonesia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1145&Itemid=47
