Bill Guerin – Al-Habib Muhammad Rizieq bin Hussein Syihab, leader of the pro-Suharto radical Muslim group FPI (Defenders of Islam), and his storm troopers may, after two years of apparent immunity from the process of law and order, be about to be brought to account.
Police over the weekend arrested 13 members of the FPI after violent attacks on several of the capital's nightspots by an estimated 600 members. A discotheque was stoned and the equipment at two late-night pool bars destroyed.
Although the FPI has been consistently vandalizing and looting such entertainment venues for at least two years, there have never before been any arrests.
There is no evidence yet that the pivotal arrests and police action are related to the palpable nervousness here about the effect this domestic violence has on the image of Indonesia as seen by the outside world.
FPI aggression and violence in numerous attacks on places deemed to be "immoral", including nightclubs and restaurants, radical Islamic groups continuously voicing resentment toward perceived threats to Islam, "sweeps" for US nationals in Central Java, and other such incidents have had an as yet uncalculated effect on tourism and foreign investment.
A visibly angry national police chief General Da'i Bachtiar confined his public comments to warning anyone or any group against taking the law into their own hands. "I remind all groups, whoever they are, to respect the law, and the law can only be implemented by institutions or officials empowered to do so. Anyone else should not take the law into their hands, because that is a violation of the laws," Bachtiar warned.
Reining in the FPI will be no easy task. The movement was founded in 1998 and is said to be funded by rich anti-reformist generals intent on protecting the vested interests of the elite.
It is, though, a dangerous fallacy to say that political parties or members of the old Suharto crowd intent on destabilizing the capital and the country manipulate the FPI or to dismiss them as "Rent-a-Jihad", fanatics for hire by the police and the military.
The New Order government under Suharto always restricted the political rise of Islam for the same reasons as the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno.
Realizing the potentially explosive force of a highly politicized Islam, especially at a time when Islamic fundamentalism was radicalizing politics from North Africa to Malaysia, Suharto foresaw a danger that the emergence of a politically dominant Islam would cleave Indonesian political society along religious lines.
Thus the national ideology, Pancasila, was to be the glue that held this large nation together. But is this glue still sticky enough?
It is hardly surprising, given the political turmoil since Suharto stepped down, that Islamic movements have seized the opportunity to be seen and be heard. The two largest Islamic groups, the 35-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), whence PPP originated, and the Muhammadiyah with some 28 million members, neutered during the Suharto era, quickly regained their manhood and achieved a new and substantial political stature.
NU chairman Abdurrahman Wahid formed the National Awakening Party (PKB), and his most bitter foe, Muhammadiyah leader Amien Rais, founded the National Mandate Party (PAN).
For the first time in more than 30 years Muslim parties are represented in the Indonesian parliament, and are now conscious of their strength. Does this mean that Indonesia could become a Muslim theocratic state in the future, like Iran or Pakistan?
The Islam-based United Development Party (PPP), authorized by Suharto to represent all Islamic political factions, had a full makeover and broke its links with the establishment. Vice President Hamzah Haz, who was adamantly against Megawati Sukarnoputri becoming president in October 1999, heads the PPP, which, with another Islamic party, the Crescent Star Party (PBB), has long been campaigning for the revival of the Jakarta Charter. This calls for the adoption of syari'ah (Islamic law) for Muslims, and needs an amendment to Article 29 of the constitution which was rejected by the MPR at its annual session in August.
A keystone of the FPI demands is also reformation of Islam by imposing Islamic law in Indonesia, in an attempt to appeal to fellow Muslim citizens. They strive for publicity, however bad, to make up for the fact that they are extremely small in numbers, though they claim to have thousands of "warriors" ready to take up arms as it were.
Most of their followers are from the lower strata of society, poorly educated and usually unemployed.
Wielding vicious homemade spears everywhere they went, the FPI forces of repression were earlier ill-received by a reformation movement determined to fight. Nowadays though, when these white-robed "warriors" go on the march, most civilians get out of the way.
Just prior to the latest attacks, the hardliners toured Central Jakarta in a convoy of vehicles, bawling and screaming aggression, and even the police admitted they were unable to stem the violence because they were outnumbered.
Although some 80 percent of Indonesia's 215 million people Indonesia are Muslim, the vast majority are moderates. According to Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) chairman Amidhan, Muslim hardliners make up only 1 percent of the country's population.
Asked whether FPI was a competitor to the mainstream Islamic groups, Al-Habib admitted, "NU is wiser, more polite and softer. Muhammadiyah is critical, intellectual. FPI is more physical, we fight immorality. NU plants the seeds of the paddy, because it has the seeds. FPI doesn't have the seeds, we only have the sickle. Our job is to clean up the mice, the pests that ruin the paddy. It's just a division of labor. There is no competition between us."
Syafi'i Ma'arif, chairman of Muhammadiyah, however, has frequently warned that mainstream Islamic groups need to stay close to their members and listen to their aspirations, so that the voice of the "silent majority" of mainstream Muslims is heard, at least in the background.
The latest incidents and the subsequent arrests have attracted little attention in the foreign media but if the establishment backs off caging the violent fringe elements, the perceptions will be of a significant political shift toward a more aggressive groundswell of Islam in Indonesia.
The FPI and other radical groups may not yet have won over disaffected mainstream Muslims, but unless the weekend arrests signal a crackdown on their violence, threats and intimidation, the outlook could rapidly deteriorate.
The real defenders of Islam in Indonesia are the Islamic masses that mainly belong to the NU and Muhamaddiyah, who see Indonesia as safer within its traditional plurality. These organizations have consistently warned that the introduction of Islamic law is not acceptable to the spirit of the national state of Indonesia.
The NU, for example, speaks for a membership in excess of 30 million and an unparalleled, grassroots, village-based system of traditional religious schools or pesantren that covers the whole archipelago.
The modernist Muhammadiyah, on the other hand, is largely middle-class-based, and its philanthropic success in building universities, hospitals, orphanages and foundations inspires the loyalty of an equally important sector of modern Indonesian society.
Together, the two organizations reach out and touch the hearts and souls of most of Indonesia's "ordinary" Muslims.
The extremists are not acting with the blessing of the NU, the Muhamaddiyah or the government of Indonesia. With their actions they not only threaten the image of Islam but also pose a danger to the preservation of Indonesia as a secular state governed (more or less) in line with the all-inclusive and tolerant Pancasila ideology.
Though Megawati has been able since September 11, 2001, to juggle support for the US-led global "war" on terrorism and the sensitivities of the Muslim majority in Indonesia, this was largely due to senior officers in the Indonesian military (TNI) holding fast to their predominantly moderate and secular views so as to avoid alienating the wider Muslim community.
But now the new military paradigm, and the consequent hardline stance on any protests or disturbances that threaten security or stability, may encourage once again the use of excessive force in controlling anti-US sentiment. If US President George W Bush goes ahead and bombs Iraq, the situation on the ground in Indonesia could deteriorate very quickly and Americans may have to be withdrawn to safety.
Suharto, like his predecessor Sukarno, feared that fundamentalist Islamic elements, the "extreme" right, posed as much of a threat to the unity and security of the state as the communists, the "extreme" left. Unrestrained Islam was not something Suharto and the military would ever allow.
Later, Abdurrahman Wahid tried hard to move toward separating religion from the state but found that Islam is too embedded in Indonesian culture to be taken out of politics.
Mainstream Indonesian Muslims also fear a new secular Indonesia that would take away the right of their religion to be afforded state protection.
Al-Habib and his radical Islamic FPI, on the other hand, which wishes to see Indonesia become an Islamic state and is most keen on taking the law into its own hands to protect Muslim "values", represent a clear and present danger to Indonesia.
The agenda is clear. Two months after Megawati was sworn in as president last year, Al-Habib was interviewed by a local media consultancy firm and had this to say: "When a policy is issued to castrate the rights of FPI, or oppress Muslim people, we will fight. So, we warn the government not to try to oppress Muslims. As long as they do not, FPI will have no reasons to act. But if the government acts against Muslims, then we will take real action! So, we will watch the behavior of the government. You can say that FPI is practicing social control towards Megawati's government and the policies it makes. So we would like to warn the present government under Megawati: Don't mess with Muslim people or try to oppress them! We will be watching! This is a warning!"
Though the FPI thugs have waged a relentless campaign of destruction of property owned by those they say are sinners, to the radicals the sin of the president is just that of being born a woman. Al-Habib has said FPI will not recognize a female president and, according to him, under syariah a woman cannot be president.
The continued violence and unrest in the regions, economic turmoil and the scrabble for political clout before the elections in 2004, as well as the general lawlessness, all creates a ripe battlefield for those who abuse the law and openly defy the authorities in the name of Islam.
There is little of more fundamental importance to Indonesia than the attainment of religious harmony in these multiracial, secular states, whose people find their spiritual strength in various religions and live amid such a diverse cultural tradition.
Religious sensitivities, more often than not, have created havoc in the community. Religious and sectarian killings in Ambon and the rest of the Spice Islands have claimed many hundreds of lives.
Islam is a religion of love and peace, and those who resort to destruction and violence are blackening its image and discrediting its message. The FPI, however, portrays the religion as a violent and fierce creed, and demonstrations and violent behavior only tarnish the image of Islam. Confiscating beer and spirits, smashing nightclub signs, windows, and security posts, accosting people, shaving the heads of women, and other acts of intimidation have nothing in common with believers of any faith.
The demonstrators say they are acting on behalf of Islam, so it is fair to ask how they interpret the Islamic religion, which teaches the virtues of wisdom, patience and mutual respect, by showing their disrespect for the law and for the authorities.
They want to show their antipathy toward immoral activities, but they fail to convince that they are of high morals themselves, or that they have any respect for the law.
Further adverse publicity and any perception of unrestrained Islamism of the sort Suharto so carefully caged will set Indonesia even farther back on the road to economic recovery. Continued weakness in law enforcement against Muslims who are committing such offenses threatens the growth of even more Islamic extremism and even a potential economic collapse that would destabilize the entire region.