Indonesia: On road to Talibanization | Indonesia watches people power of worst kind

They shout that they want to destroy Ahmadiyah and their noisy demonstration this week came in the wake of a brutal lynching, in which hardliners killed three Ahmadis in a mob attack on a home in western Java.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: ABC News | Australia
By Matt Brown, Elizabeth Jackson | March 6, 2011

Indonesia watches people power

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Indonesia has been confronting a rising tide of religious intolerance.

Local governments in the Muslim majority nation are banning an Islamic sect and Islamic hardliners want the national government to make the ban country-wide.

While their fellow Muslims struggle to overcome the dictators of the Middle East, Indonesians have learned that people power isn't always a good thing, as our Indonesia correspondent, Matt Brown, reports.


MATT BROWN: More than a decade after Indonesians forced their own despot, Suharto, from power they're watching the push for freedom in the Middle East intensely.

(Crowds chant "Allah hu Akbar!")

Amidst the convulsions in the Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, some have pointed to Muslim majority Indonesia as a place where would be reformers could learn a valuable lesson.

But these days the cries from the streets of Jakarta have taken on a different tone.

"If God wants us to die defending Islam," this speaker says, "We will be there in the front line to defend our religion, agreed?"

"We agree! We agree!" the crowd replies.

These are hardline Muslims who want Indonesia's president to ban an Islamic sect called Ahmadiyah. Ahmadis are accused of heresy because they believe an Indian preacher from the late 1800's was a Muslim prophet, which would mean that Mohammad didn't deliver the final word.

The hardliners claim that's such a blasphemy they're willing to die to oppose it.

These aren't people you'd typically call terrorists but they're vocal and active and willing to kill others in self righteous certainty.

They shout that they want to destroy Ahmadiyah and their noisy demonstration this week came in the wake of a brutal lynching, in which hardliners killed three Ahmadis in a mob attack on a home in western Java.

(Sounds of people in mob shouting)

Video of the men being clubbed to death was swiftly posted on YouTube. The mob was as filled with puritanical certainty as it was confident it is overwhelming numbers.

The scenes of a large crowd shouting "God is great!" as young men bashed the naked, bloodied bodies into the mud caused many Indonesians to recoil.

It's a crisis of faith, in more ways than one: the episode also renewed debate about the nature of Islam, and it cast a different light on the mantra, repeated by American presidents, Australian diplomats and Indonesian leaders alike: that Indonesia is a tolerant, pluralist place.

The religious affairs minister, from a religious party, agrees with the hardliners and backs a ban.

And the killers claim legitimacy by citing a government decree made in 2008. Back then the hardliners attacked Ahmadis and staged rallies to demand a ban. Instead of defending the right to worship the government brokered a deal and issued a decree to stop the Ahmadis from spreading their beliefs.

The hardline activism's proved to have a sort of ratchet effect of pandering, people power and religious intolerance which has undermined Indonesia's pluralist credentials.

To be fair, three police who failed to oppose the murderous mob have been charged with negligence causing death. Twelve members of the mob have been charged, along with one Ahmadi.

That said, the whole episode has highlighted the fact that Indonesians are not free to worship.

Here the government decides what is and isn't allowed, defining just six official religions: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Confucianism. Officially, the Jews aren't welcome. In addition, Christian proselytisers are bashed and churches burned with near impunity.

There are lessons to be learned here and Indonesia's economic success and stability after years of tyrannical rule by a steadfast western ally can't be ignored. Nor can the importance and fragility of religious tolerance.

This is Matt Brown in Jakarta for Correspondent's Report.

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