Jakarta – The ongoing campaign to revitalize the state ideology, Pancasila, has put some Muslim hard-liners, currently working to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state, on the defensive.

It turns out, however, that leaders of the groups say that they too accept Pancasila – but they have the right to interpret its meaning the Islamic way.

Pancasila is the philosophical basis of Indonesia. It comprises five principles that are held to be inseparable and interrelated.

The five tenets are: Belief in the one and only God; just and civilized humanity; the unity of Indonesia; deliberation for consensus; and social justice for the whole of the people of Indonesia.

"Every religion has the right to interpret Pancasila according to it religious teachings," said Ma'ruf Amin, chairman of the fatwa commission of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).

The MUI came under attack when, at the end of its 7th congress in July 2005, it issued 11 fatwas, one frowning upon secularism, liberalism and pluralism, which are essentially the spirits of Pancasila.

Pancasila lost credibility among militant Muslims when the authoritarian Soeharto regime used it to suppress them and stop them from trying to turn Indonesia into a theocratic state. Many Islamist activists and leaders were sent to jail for their political beliefs.

At the 61st commemoration of Pancasila on June 1, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said abandoning Pancasila for narrow religious or ethnic-based ideologies would only jeopardize the unity and diversity of the nation.

Ma'ruf said, "Islam that has lived in this country for 500 years, regulates all aspects of human life," he said. He said Islamic values were better than human rights. "We know that Islam comes from God. We don't know who created human rights," he said.

Commenting on the fatwa rejecting pluralism, he said people had interpreted it incorrectly. "As far as religion is concerned, we appreciate co-existence but we reject the idea of mixing the teachings of various religions."

Many Muslim groups, such as the militant Hizbut Tahrir, regard MUI's fatwa on pluralism as a non-negotiable issue. "Different ethnic groups and religions already exist here," said the group's spokesman, M. Ismail Yusanto. "But religions should not be mixed up."

He said that the most important thing about Pancasila was its manifestation. "I think every group has the same understanding about the social justice prescribed by Pancasila. However, everyone has the freedom to decide how Pancasila should be put into practice."

Yusanto pointed out that Sukarno and Soeharto also had different perspectives about Pancasila. "Sukarno believed in socialism and Soeharto believed in capitalism," he said.

The Yudhoyono administration had a similar interpretation of Pancasila, Yusanto said. "The government is now afraid of multinational corporations. For instance, the government handed over the operation of the Cepu block (a potentially lucrative oil field in Central Java) to Exxon," he said.