Tag: pluralism

Jakarta Election Results A Victory For Prejudice Over Pluralism?

The long, divisive campaign for governorship of Indonesia’s capital city Jakarta is finally over, with unofficial results showing a decisive victory for the challenger Anies Baswedan over the controversial incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (popularly known as Ahok).

The election was the most politically significant regional election in Indonesia’s history because it wasn’t just about choosing the chief executive for the city’s 10 million citizens.

Rather, it became a referendum on the future of Indonesia’s ethno-religious diversity and tolerance after unwanted intervention by a number of radical Islamist groups, most notably the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

The blasphemy campaign against Ahok

These groups accused Ahok, a Chinese Indonesian who is Christian, of blaspheming last September by mocking a Qur’anic verse that allegedly calls for Muslims to reject non-Muslims as their leaders. Ahok criticised unnamed religious clerics (ulama) for using verse 51 of the Surah Al-Maidah that advises Muslims to avoid aligning with Christian and Jews.

FPI and its allies managed to obtain a religious ruling (fatwa) from the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) declaring that Ahok was guilty of committing blasphemy against Islam. They then sponsored a number of anti-Ahok rallies in Jakarta, the largest of which, held in November 2016, attracted approximately 2.5 million protesters.

Under pressure from these groups, the Indonesian government opened an investigation against Ahok and tried him for blasphemy. The trial was adjourned a week before the election.

Anies, a very astute politician, quickly capitalised on anti-Ahok accusations, by seeking and receiving an endorsement from Habib Rizieq Shihab, FPI’s supreme leader. He also started to portray himself as an “Islamic candidate” to win the support of Jakarta’s Muslims, who comprise 85% of registered voters.

The strategy seems to have worked, as an Indo Barometer poll in February indicated more than half of Jakarta’s voters would not vote for Ahok because they believed he had committed a blasphemous act against Islam.

They reached this conclusion despite a number of Islamic scholars saying that the Qur’anic verse in question must be seen in the context of warfare between Muslims and non-Muslims during the early Islamic period. And that it had nothing to do with how Muslims should choose their leader.

The race between the two contenders was very tight, as indicated by a reputable Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) poll, which showed Anies leading Ahok with a margin of 1% (47.9% vs 46.9%), with up to 5.2% of voters still undecided.

The campaign took an ugly turn when an elderly woman, who had voted for Ahok during the first round and subsequently died, was allegedly denied a Muslim burial. And an Islamist activist made a Facebook post stating it would be religiously permissible for any women voting for Ahok during the run-off election to be gang-raped.

Police had to tear down a number of banners placed in mosques across Jakarta discouraging their members to vote for Ahok during the runoff.

Implications of the election results

The election has serious implications for the future of Indonesian politics. Anies’ victory means he is in a stronger position to mount a challenge against President Joko Widodo in 2019, as a candidate of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), or with another opposition party.

A young, telegenic politician who has widely touted his Islamic credentials, Anies is perceived by Jokowi as a more formidable opponent than “old guard” elite figures, such as retired General Prabowo Subianto and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who are both widely expected to be contenders during the 2019 presidential election.

But more importantly, Anies’ victory is another sign of the growing Islamisation of Indonesian politics, which has been on the rise since the country made its democratic transition in 1998.

This phenomena can be seen throughout Indonesian society, from the promotion of Islamist prayer groups (pengajian) and study circles (halaqah) in public university campuses throughout the country; the proliferation of Indonesian women wearing Islamic veils (hijab); and the rapid increase in local regulations restricting alcohol consumption and the rights of religious minorities.

There seems to be an ideological and political convergence between Islamist groups such as FPI (an association of approximately 100,000 hardline Islamists with close ties to the Indonesian security apparatus) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia. This latter is known for its advocacy for a global caliphate.

Members of both groups are developing a close relationship with the conservative elements of the Nahdlatul Ulama NU) and Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s two largest Muslim organisations with generally moderate political leanings. They claim membership by 60 million and 30 million people respectively.

The MUI fatwa against Ahok was signed by Maaruf Amin, who, apart from being the council’s general chairman, is also NU’s supreme leader (rais aam).

The groups have also cooperated to demand the implementation of shari’a regulations (perda shari’a) by local governments throughout Indonesia. And there are now 442 such regulations in place in over 100 cities and districts.

These regulations require women to wear hijab in public, prohibit the consumption of alcohol and prostitution, and declare a number of Islamic minority sects, such as Ahmadis and Shiites, to be illegal within their respective localities. The groups have also encouraged acts of violence against both minorities over the past decade or so.

Rising Islamism and the renewed prejudice against ethnic and religious minorities pose a danger to the pluralist outlook enshrined in Indonesia’s official founding principles, which are collectively known as Pancasila. Made from the Sanskrit word for “five”, panca, and the Javanese for “principles”, sila, Pancasila states: “The one God system (monotheism), just and civilised humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy and social justice for all.”

These principles have underpinned equality for all Indonesia’s ethnic and religious groups since the country’s founding in 1945. Indonesian founding fathers who created Pancasila meant to give equal political and economic opportunities to all Indonesians irrespective of their ethnic and religious background.

Unlike Indonesia’s neighbour Malaysia, Pancasila grants no special status to Muslims and instead gives official religions status to a number of religions (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism). It gives them equal legal recognition, and grants their members full religious freedom. Most significantly, adherents of all religions are free to run for and occupy any public office.

By creating these accusations against Ahok, the Islamists have refused to recognise the legal rights of Indonesia’s ethnic and religious minorities to run for public office. Ahok’s loss means that Indonesia’s ethno-religious diversity is the biggest casualty of this highly polarising election.

Alexander R Arifianto, Research Fellow, Indonesia Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University

Source: www.theindependent.sg

April 22, 2017
What Are Religious Leaders Doing To Promote Pluralism?

I applaud Dr Yap Kim Hao’s call for “religious pluralism” ( Need for those who can teach religious pluralism; April 11).

It is a reality that religious communities, even in Singapore, remain in their silos.

It is not uncommon for religious organisations and businesses to place emphasis on recruiting those who are of the same faith, even for roles not directly religion-related.

Of course, it is their prerogative to do so.

But it is sad that instead of living and working side-by-side with non-religious affiliated parties to forge mutual understanding and friendships despite their differences, these groups choose exclusivity and isolation.

I have seen it even in charity and volunteer organisations, where one can overhear remarks like “this person will not have genuine compassion because he does not share our faith” or “he is an outsider, so he cannot fully understand our religious goals”.

Rhetoric like this from any religious organisation or individual is disconcerting. Such comments are dangerous and not to be accepted here.

With the City Harvest case and the one in which an imam made insensitive remarks, it is clear that religious leaders have a big influence over their followers.

But what are they doing to promote religious pluralism?

In this age of heightened consciousness of one’s religious identity and of religious diversity, Singapore can never deviate from our pledge of “regardless of race, language or religion”.

Wong Lai Chun

Source: www.straitstimes.com/forum

April 13, 2017
Negotiating Singapore’s New Pluralism

In the space of three short months recently, Singaporean society witnessed outpourings of concern over the planned public performances of two major international stars: Adam Lambert and Madonna.

Last November, an online petition that objected to Lambert’s “promotion of a highly sexualised lifestyle and LGBT rights” collected about 20,000 signatures. In February, it was reported in the news that eight pastors representing various Christian denominations met Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam to express concerns over possible religiously offensive content in Madonna’s planned concert.

In each case, heated discussions followed everywhere online as ordinary Singaporeans argued for and against the merits of these objections.

These events point to two interesting features of current Singaporean politics.

First, while once communal concerns over issues of public morality were largely dealt with behind closed doors, over the past 10 years or so we have begun to see public lobbying over moral and cultural issues such as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) rights, “sanctity of life” issues including abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia and others like the decision to build integrated resorts.

Second, social media platforms have become part of our public political space – an important outlet for people sharing political news and opinions – but some of this public interaction has historically been less than civil.

It was a product of these two observations that the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) recently carried out a study on “The New Singaporean Pluralism”. This involved closed-door focus group discussions and individual interviews with many prominent public advocates on all sides of the issues of LGBT rights and the “sanctity of life”.

We attempted to identify the specific basic points of contention and the objectionable advocacy tactics that have been used in recent years. But more importantly, we attempted to tease out the potential principles and practices of governance that may help maintain the civility of our shared political space so as to be able to apply them to future disagreements.

Some of the points of contention were expected. For example, LGBT rights advocates want the LGBT community to have protective rights because having an LGBT identity is not a choice, whereas anti-LGBT rights advocates think otherwise. They believe that even if same-sex attraction is not a choice, same-sex sexual behaviour is inescapably a choice. Whether LGBT identities are choices is an empirical question that scientists all over the world are still trying to answer, but since the issue is shifting towards behaviour rather than attraction, in the eyes of anti-LGBT rights advocates, even finding the gay gene may not be sufficient to convince them that LGBT persons deserve protective rights.

As for “sanctity of life” issues, it was perhaps also no surprise that each constituent issue revolved around contentions about how to measure the value of a life against other goods like autonomy or public safety, or how to measure longer lives against better quality lives. Of course, unsurprisingly, the role of the government and its ability to make final decisions in these areas is contentious as well.

These findings point towards a need for further research on the empirical claims of all sides of the two topics, but whether empirical evidence will settle these issues is an open question, because these types of disagreement are at bottom based on differences in how we value certain goods and principles. In order to maintain the civility of our political space, what we need are ways to manage these cleavages without either suppressing them or letting them boil over into violence.

Thus, it is heartening to note that there was a consensus against using hate speech, dehumanising speech and name-calling in public advocacy. It is interesting to note, however, the difficulties in the details.

First, there is little agreement on what exactly constitutes such unacceptable speech. Second, different groups and organisations have different levels of tolerance for these practices. And third, advocates can easily offend their opponents without meaning to. For example, the word “lifestyle” is intended by anti-LGBT rights advocates here to neutrally describe LGBT identities; however, the term is considered offensive in the LGBT community because the word implies that their identities are choices and it is taken as trivialising their identities.

Despite the kind of unsavoury language that might be used in online political discussions regarding moral and cultural disagreements, the majority of our participants valued the freedom of speech and information made possible by social media too much to try to institute further controls – though how effective communal self-policing can be going forward remains an open question.

It was nevertheless suggested that we would do well to teach civic and democratic values in schools. Our youth would learn not only how to comport themselves civilly in the unmediated realm of social media but also how to honestly negotiate democratic practices such as debating and lobbying for support. All these require them to develop the type of empathy needed to understand the perspectives of opponents even while fighting their own corner.

Additionally, the experiences we had in organising the focus group discussions were instructive on how we may be able to minimise the hostility and demonisation that often accompany such moral and cultural cleavages.

Beyond the more obvious principles such as having discussion platforms that are neutral as well as sufficiently authoritative to guarantee privacy and security, we learnt that having face-to-face meetings and the telling of stories help humanise each side to the other, impeding the tendency to demonise opponents and project sinister motivations on them. After all, in the new era of value pluralism, we cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Unlike the socio-economic issues that continue to dominate much of our local politics, we are seeing more and more disagreement regarding moral and cultural issues for which objective rational consensus is impossible.

In order to negotiate this new politics, we need new democratic tools. The sooner we learn how to talk among ourselves as well as with the authorities in multi-logical processes, the healthier our political space will be. We have to learn how to treat new laws and policies as provisional decisions still open to future challenge, because only then can losing sides have hope for the future and remain justifiably committed to the democratic process instead of using force. We have to learn to agree to disagree and take every loss on the chin, knowing that there will always be a rematch.

These new democratic practices are not perfect, but against a background of irreducible pluralism, they can help reaffirm a unity of purpose where a unity of views is impossible.

•The writer, Johannis Bin Abdul Aziz, was a co-investigator in the Institute of Policy Studies’ 2015-2016 project on The New Singaporean Pluralism. He has a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Source: www.todayonline.com

April 20, 2016