Political Islam and Religious Violence in Post-New Order Indonesia

• Main Author: Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universitas Indonesia 2016-01-01
• Series: Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi
• Subjects: political islam; post new order indonesia; religious violence; political-economy
• Online Access: http://journal.ui.ac.id/index.php/mjs/article/view/4796

<div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">This paper tries to understand why religious violence increasingly occurs in post-New&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Order Indonesia. There are two dominant views in understanding this. First, the security&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">approach that perceives the violence as a result of the emergent of &ldquo;radical&rdquo; agent of&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">political Islam in the more open political space. In this regard, the state is considered&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">weak because the iron hand as used by the authoritarian regime in the past New Order</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">has disappeared. Thus, the strong security instruments are needed as a solution, such as&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">the law on anti-terrorism and the police force of anti-terrorism (Densus 88). Second, the&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">cultural approach views violence as caused by the inability of society to build the religious&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">tolerance. Society is considered weak. Religious expression in the political arena is believed</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">as the source of the emergent of intolerant acts. To conquer this, intensive inter-religious&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">dialogues are required. The author argues that those two approaches are not adequate.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The historical fact shows that the emergence of political Islam today is the result of the&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">oscillated relationship between Islam and the authoritarian state during the New Order&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">period. In addition, the Indonesian historical experience also clearly illustrates that the&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">presence of political Islam is nothing but a form of response to the critical social-politicaleconomic&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">situation. Political Islam does not appear in a vacuum, but it emerges from the&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">crisis where another populist response from the left is absent.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">Tulisan ini berupaya memahami mengapa kekerasan agama meningkat di Indonesia pasca&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Orde Baru. Selama ini, ada dua pandangan dominan dalam memahami persoalan di atas.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pertama, pendekatan keamanan yang memandang kekerasan agama sebagai hasil dari&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">munculnya agen Islam politik yang radikal dalam arena politik yang semakin terbuka.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dalam konteks ini, negara dianggap lemah karena kehilangan tangan besinya seperti&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">yang sebelumnya digunakan oleh rezim otoriter Orde Baru. Konsekuensinya, dibutuhkan&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">negara yang kuat dengan membentuk instrumen-instrumen keamanan semacam undang-undang&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">anti-terorisme dan satuan khusus kepolisian anti-teror. Kedua, pendekatan kultural&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">yang melihat meningkatnya kekerasan disebabkan oleh ketidakmampuan masyarakat&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">dalam membangun toleransi keagamaan. Dengan kata lain, masyarakat dianggap&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">lemah. Solusinya, dibutuhkan dialog antar-agama yang intensif. Menurut penulis, dua&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">pendekatan tersebut kurang memadai dalam memahami meningkatnya kekerasan agama&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">pasca-Orde Baru. Fakta sejarah menunjukkan bahwa kemunculan kelompok-kelompok&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">Islam politik merupakan hasil dari hubungan yang fluktuatif antara Islam dan negara&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">sepanjang Orde Baru. Dan, kehadiran eksponen Islam politik juga merupakan bentuk&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">respon terhadap situasi sosial-ekonomi-politik. Artinya, Islam politik tidak hadir dalam&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">ruang kosong, melainkan muncul sebagai respon terhadap krisis di tengah absennya respon&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">populis lain dari kelompok kiri.</span></div></div><!--[endif] -->