Steven Gutkin, Jakarta – Women in miniskirts gyrate in all-night discotheques, where designer drugs circulate as freely as alcohol. Friday, the Islamic sabbath, is a regular work day. Pork is widely available in restaurants and supermarkets.
These and other violations of Islamic law – or sharia – are the norm in Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic country, where secularism has long held sway in national legislation.
Although some religious parties asked for sharia law to be included among a set of constitutional amendments adopted Saturday by lawmakers, the measure was dropped because of overwhelming opposition within the national legislature.
Yet voices calling for sharia are growing louder at the very time the United States is seeking to promote Indonesia as a bulwark against Islamic extremism and an ally in the war on terror.
"There is no God but Allah!" chanted thousands of pro-sharia demonstrators outside Parliament this week. Women in headscarves waved banners saying "We long for sharia!" while pushing their babies in strollers. Boys wore T-shirts with photographs of Osama bin Laden.
The crowds cheered wildly as Abu Bakar Bashir, a militant singled out by neighboring Singapore as the leader of an al-Qaida-linked terrorist network, entered Parliament to make his case for sharia to legislators. "The US government has evil intentions with regards to Islam because it is controlled by Jews," he told reporters on his way out.
Voices like Bashir's remain in the minority in this nation of 220 million people – more than 80 percent of whom are Muslim. Yet Indonesia's tumultuous transition to democracy following the 1998 fall of ex-dictator Suharto is opening up politics to unknown possibilities – and the battle is on for the country's soul.
"This is one of the ways we can save this nation," said Rusjdi Hamka, chairman of the United Development Party's parliamentary faction, which supports sharia law. "This is how we can rebuild the morale and character of the country."
Attempts to make Indonesia an Islamic state are not new. Bloody battles were fought over the issue in the 1950s. During his 32-year reign, Suharto alternated between cracking down on Islamists and courting them for political ends. Even today, certain aspects of sharia are obligatory for Muslims, such as laws governing marriage.
Yet sharia's more draconian features – the so-called "hudud" mandating hand amputation for thieves and stoning to death of adulterers – are not imposed here and are unpopular among the majority of Indonesians who practice a moderate form of Islam.
For Azyumardi Azra, president of the State Islamic University of Jakarta, sharia has no hope of becoming law in Indonesia. The parliamentary debate on the issue, he says, is an opportunity for politicians to show their Islamic credentials ahead of national elections in 2004.
"The Islamic sharia issue is only a card, a political commodity," he said. Azra asks how it would be possible to impose one set of laws for Muslims and another for non-Muslims in a country with large populations of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.
"If you cut off the hands of Muslim thieves, what about non-Muslims who steal? It would be discrimination against Muslims. All citizens should stand in equal footing before the law," he said.
Still, Islamic parties favoring sharia for Muslims are stepping up grass-roots organization and providing schooling, clothes, rice mills, tractors and other services in areas where government assistance is absent.
Muslim parties now control about a quarter of Parliament, and the country's vice president, Hamzah Haz, is an Islamic leader who raised eyebrows by visiting a jailed militant charged with inciting violence against Christians. Widespread corruption and an inept judicial system appear to be fueling the growth of Islamic fundamentalism.
"People who steal chickens are sent to jail," said Bachtiar, a 40-year-old woman who was among the demonstrators calling for sharia outside Parliament this week. "But the corrupt politicians are free." Six months ago, sharia became law in the independence-minded province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island. But so far the new edicts are not being enforced.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a visit to Indonesia last week, called for quicker action in reforming the justice system – and praised Indonesia for cooperating in the anti-terror war.
Many Indonesians see the attempts to impose sharia as an affront to the pluralistic vision of the country's founding fathers, who pointedly avoided including sharia in the 1945 constitution.
The country's two largest Muslim organizations – Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama – oppose state-imposed sharia.
Said Haris, a 57-year-old building inspector who like many Indonesians uses a single name: "We prefer a private form of Islam, not a state form. It's between a human being and God."