INDONESIA: Concern grows over religious conservatism

Concern is growing in Indonesia over the strength and influence of conservative and right-radical forms of Islam among university students. A debate is taking place against the background of increased local applications of elements of the Islamic sharia code and other perceived threats to the country's constitutionally mandated religious pluralism.

The 1945 Independence Constitution pronounces Indonesia to be a secular state which guarantees freedom of religion. The Pancasila doctrine on which this is based acknowledges the existence of five religions: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. In practice, various forms of animism are also tolerated.

The growth of religious conservatism and fundamentalism since the end of Suharto's 32-year New Order dictatorship in May 1998, when university students played a very large role, has been more and more reflected on campuses. Well-networked and strongly motivated Islamic groups are active.

At the country's top higher education institution, the University of Indonesia (UI), groups such as Salam, Women Muslims and Acehnese Students have taken on increasingly higher profiles.

Hera Diani, a local observer writing in the English-language daily The Jakarta Globe, says, "At UI, the growing Islamic right-wing has already caused a deep division between conservative and moderate Muslim students."

Although still only a small proportion of UI's 38,000 students, the Islamic right is vociferous in promoting sharia and in trying to enforce a Muslim dress code on female students. In particular, this means use of the jilbab cowl.

Professor of Medicine at UI Agus Purwadianto has spoken out against religiously conservative influences among medical students: "There were," he says, "instances where some medical students discriminated against patients on the basis of their religious convictions."

Other cases have seen conservative medical students refuse to treat patients of the opposite sex. These refusals have clear echoes of a mid-1980s controversy in Malaysia where Malay Muslim medical students were refusing to touch non-Muslim patients and those of the opposite sex.

Malaysia's then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, himself a former general practitioner and universally known as Doctor Mahathir, stepped into the breach and reminded such students they had taken the Hippocratic Oath. Further, he was angered the expensive training provided appeared to be going to waste.

In regard to Indonesia, Purwadianto says, "There are few such cases but I think they should be acknowledged as they are against the medical creed."

More alarming has been a display of support on the UI campuses, one in Central Jakarta and one at Depok in West Java, for the thugs who violently broke up an inter-faith rally in May in Central Jakarta in the name of the fundamentalist action groups Islamic Defenders Front and Hizbut-Tahrir.

Pro-FPI literature and posters were reported on the campuses. Courts subsequently sentenced FPI leaders to prison for their roles in this assault which hospitalised men and women alike.

Recent surveys in Indonesia have shown increased support among young people for application of the sharia code, so it comes as little surprise that this is reflected among university students.

But what does it purport for Indonesian academic life and campus culture? UI Rector Gumelar Sumantri is one who believes that while a challenge is being posed, the universities can still nurture critical inquiry and a diversity of opinion. However, he says, "There is no room for fundamentalism." the Globe reported.

Indonesia faces the serious problem of whether or not 'fundamentalism', however defined, can in fact be rooted out by proscription. During the Suharto years it was simply driven underground.

Perhaps one should look to the various Islamic universities, both state and private, for a clue. Some, such as the Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta (UMY), have very powerful connections - in the UMY case to the nationwide Islamic body of the same name claiming tens of millions of members.

Komaruddin Hidayat, Rector at the State Islamic University in Jakarta is optimistic, declaring: "If the academic tradition is nurtured and research is encouraged, radicalism will subside."

It has not escaped the attention of some Indonesian observers that about half the elected members of the national assembly's most influential Muslim political party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a grouping known for a religious conservatism that is not fundamentalist, are former UI activists of the student generation that led the 1998 street rallies that brought down Suharto.

The current crop of UI conservative Muslim students may well wish to follow in their footsteps.