JAKARTA — Apit Abdullah does not believe in Santa Claus.
That is not surprising, considering that he is 18 years old. But Apit, a Muslim, was wearing a red Santa hat at the cafe where he works, inside the largest upscale shopping mall in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
“It’s showing respect for the holiday,” he said of his Christmas-themed hat as he cleaned a window. “It’s no problem.”
Others, however, are trying to make it one.
This month, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s largest body of Islamic clerics, issued a religious edict barring Muslims from wearing Christmas-themed clothing, specifically those working in shopping malls, department stores and restaurants.
The council’s edict, known as a fatwa, is not legally binding, but it is nonetheless adding to growing political, ethnic and religious tensions prompted by the prosecution of Jakarta’s popular governor, who is Christian and ethnic Chinese, for blasphemy.
Analysts as well as supporters of the governor, Mr Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, said that the case against him was orchestrated by opposition political parties to sideline him before a hotly contested election scheduled for February. The blasphemy accusations set off street protests in Jakarta in recent weeks that drew hundreds of thousands of conservative Islamists demanding that Basuki be jailed or killed.
Although Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, it has a secular government and influential Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities. Christmas decorations, including trees, Santa statues and light displays, are common at shopping malls and hotels across the country each December.
On Sunday (Dec 18), members of the Islamic Defenders Front, a hard-line group with a long history of violence against religious minorities, conducted sweeps on stores in Surabaya, the capital of East Java province and Indonesia’s second-largest city, to check that Muslims were not wearing Christmas-themed clothing.
Analysts said they fear the edict could provoke religiously motivated violence.
“The Islamists are pushing boundaries and gaining ground,” said Mr Rainer Heufers, executive director of the Centre for Indonesian Policy Studies, a nongovernmental think tank.
While the Indonesian National Police said that they would not enforce the religious order, officers made no effort to arrest the Islamists who visited stores in Surabaya, and in fact escorted them to prevent clashes with non-Muslims. There were no reports of altercations or anyone being injured, but there were accounts that the Islamists sought to intimidate shop managers and workers into obeying the edict.
On Wednesday, police killed three people suspected of terrorism in a firefight on the outskirts of Jakarta. They arrested three others armed with explosives who were believed to be planning suicide bombings on Christian targets on Christmas, further heightening tensions.
The arrests and supposed plots have prompted foreign embassies, including that of the United States, to issue security warnings to their citizens living in or travelling through Indonesia.
The Indonesian Ulema Council has defended its edict against Muslim workers wearing Santa hats, fake reindeer antlers and other Christmas-style clothing, saying it was “based on feedback from Muslim congregations”. The feedback asserted that Muslim shop workers were being compelled to wear clothing associated with Christianity, according to Mr Ma’ruf Amin, the council’s chairman.
Many Indonesians, however, think the edict may be politically and racially motivated. Some note that in October, the council issued an edict forbidding Muslims from voting for non-Muslim candidates such as Mr Basuki.
The governor is on trial over comments he made during a speech to fishermen in late September, when he lightheartedly cited the Quran and said it would be perfectly acceptable for Muslim voters to choose a Christian in the February election.
“Recently we’ve seen politics mixed with religion, which is very dangerous,” Ms Alia Syarifiah, 28, a marketing professional, said as she waited for her order at a doughnut shop at a mall in central Jakarta. “People are thinking harmful thoughts.”
Ms Alia, who is Muslim, was wearing a Christmas-style red dress in preparation for a holiday office party with her Christian colleagues. “I’m dressed up for Christmastime, but I don’t celebrate Christmas,’’ she said. “It’s about showing respect.”
Her server, Ms Fharas Basmallah, 19, a Muslim who was wearing a Santa hat, said that she did not particularly like it but was asked by her employer at the doughnut shop to wear it.
“I’m not pro-hard-line,” she said. “Lately, these mass Muslim organisations are getting more strict. Maybe they want to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state.”
For decades, some political parties and hard-line Muslim groups have pushed to turn Indonesia into an Islamic nation like Saudi Arabia or Iran. The most recent push, analysts say, started after the country began moving toward democracy and decentralisation after the ouster of Suharto, the authoritarian president, in 1998.
Autonomous provincial, district and city governments have over the past decade passed hundreds of bylaws inspired by Islamic law, or Shariah. The majority of the regulations single out women — enforcing dress and morality codes — while others are aimed at religious minorities or gay, lesbian and transgender Indonesians.
There is also anecdotal evidence of “creeping Islamisation” in Indonesia, which recognises six official religions and whose national motto is “Unity in Diversity”. An increasing number of women, particularly younger ones, wear the traditional Islamic head scarf, or hijab, researchers say, and there has been an explosion of religiously oriented television talk shows and Quran study groups.
Analysts say the edict against Muslims wearing Christmas-themed clothing is another example of the conservative agenda of Indonesian Islamist groups.
“They’ve seen a new space that they’ve got and are trying to push forward,” Mr Heufers said. “Unfortunately, it’s a very smart move.”
Mr Azyumardi Azra, a prominent Islamic scholar and a member of the advisory board to the leadership of the Indonesian Ulema Council, said he did not believe the council was seeking to make the country an Islamic nation.
“The problem is the MUI leadership has no workable coordination and strategy to deal with sensitive issues related to the pluralist Indonesian nation,” he said, referring to the council by its Indonesian acronym.
“The MUI is very prone to infiltration by the radicals, who are taking advantage of its position,” he said.
For Ms Lia Ramhawati, 36, who sells perfume at an upscale department store in central Jakarta, the uproar over Christmas clothes is much ado about nothing.
Although she and her colleagues have never been asked by management to wear Christmas attire, Ms Lia, who is Muslim, said she would have no problem doing so.
“If the bosses tell us, we really don’t have a choice,” she said. “But I don’t care. It’s just about showing respect for Christians.”
Source: www.todayonline.com
