Amid Indonesia’s Turmoil, Hope

As Indonesia lurches toward revolution, the Islamic factor looms as an important element in the evolving crisis. Will Islamist (fundamentalist) movements in the largest Muslim country in the world seek to take advantage of the crisis and imbue it with a more general anti-Western character--a la Iran?

After all, one of the remarkable features of Indonesia, and Malaysia as well, is that these are virtually the only two Muslim countries that have moved seriously into the economic globalization process (beyond the single-product petroleum states), to become part of the “little tigers” of the East Asian economic miracle of the last decade. Now that ideal is crumbling, mainly due to mismanagement. Islamists could nonetheless argue that this is the inevitable price of surrendering to the Western agenda, which has led to the corruption and autocracy of Suharto, the loss of national sovereignty to the International Monetary Fund, the privileging of a tiny, rich (non-Muslim) Chinese elite and weakening of the nation’s Islamic values.

The good news is that this has not happened and probably will not. However much fear of Western dominance of the globalization process has influenced many Islamist movements across the Muslim world, such thinking has not been prevalent in Indonesia. During my recent research in the country, I was struck by the fact that even as IMF austerity measures contribute to the severe deterioration of living standards in Indonesia, few people seem to blame the IMF itself for the crisis. Indeed, most segments of society seem to welcome the intervention for the simple reason that for the first time, it provides Indonesian civil society with a blunt instrument to force Suharto to abandon his crony capitalism and move toward reform. Most seemed willing to bear the pain, at least so far, if it would lead to significant change or even the fall of Suharto.

Ironically, it has been Suharto and his entourage who have taken refuge in the rhetoric of “economic nationalism” and “national sovereignty” to limit the damage to themselves.

As we look at the forces for change--even for revolution in Indonesia--in the coming months, Islam is going to figure prominently. But even in revolution, it will not be an Iranian scenario. Apart from the badly divided nationalists, the main opposition groups are Indonesia’s two huge Islamist organizations, the Nahdlathul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah. Their followers number nearly 30 million each. Both are moderate organizations. The Muhammadiyah in particular stands for modernist Islam with an emphasis on the expression of religious faith through social programs, education and moral guidance. Neither organization calls for an Islamic state, and neither expresses much interest in the literal implementation of Islamic law. In the face of what they perceive as massive political, social and economic challenges, they find little relevance in focusing on juridical arguments over details of Islamic clothing or punishments.

Although neither of these organizations is a political party, both possess unquestionable moral authority and base their critique of the state and the Suharto regime on moral as well as practical policy foundations. Neither seeks revolutionary change, but they do insist on democratic process as part of Islam.

In any “legal” succession process, newly appointed Vice President B.J. Habibie would take over. Habibie is distrusted in Western economic circles for grandiose economic visions that could be damaging to the economy. He is a technocrat, however, and interestingly, has close ties with the Islamic intellectual elite of the country. If he took power, the chances are that the role of Islamic ideas, at least in the form of broad principles for a moral society, would figure more prominently than before.

There is no doubt that Islam increasingly is perceived as the philosophical and ethical foundation for good governance of Indonesia in the future. It may be that we are witnessing in the modernist Islamist ideas of Indonesia a glimpse of the future of political Islam elsewhere in the Muslim world. This view above all insists that Islamic law must be understood not literally, but in the historical context of its appearance and thus reinterpreted according to modern conditions. (Indonesian Islam distinguishes, for example, between usury, which it rejects as un-lslamic, and modern bank interest, which it sees as entirely acceptable.)

Islam is not, of course, the only source of future leadership ideas. The nationalist opposition is primarily represented in the figure of former President Sukarno’s daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri. She is charismatic and the family name works magic, but she has no political experience and the regime has skillfully sidelined her. She remains a wild card in the equation. Finally, the army may attempt to maintain its dominant role in politics and choose one of its own to succeed Suharto. The military option would negate hopes for the political growth of the country.

One would hope that Washington will push hard for a democratic future for this important Islamic country so that such a process could positively affect necessary transitions elsewhere in the Muslim world.