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Islam, Indonesian
style
By Richard S Ehrlich
JAKARTA - Washington has linked al-Qaeda to the
bomb attacks on Bali and the JW Marriott Hotel, but
Muslim extremists' demands for a strict Islamic society
are not popular in Indonesia. Many Indonesian Muslims
prefer to meld religious tradition with modern
lifestyles and have overwhelmingly rejected
fundamentalist candidates in local and national
elections.
Suicide Muslim bombers also do not
enjoy much support.
"I hate the terrorists. The
fanatics are crazy," said a Muslim office worker as he
studied photographs published by police of two men
wanted in connection with the car bomb blast on August 5
in front of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.
The explosion killed 11 people, including the
bomb-packed van's alleged driver Asmar Latin Sani, 28,
whose bloodied severed head was thrown by the blast on
to the Marriott Hotel's fifth floor. Police spent
Tuesday searching for the two men who earlier bought the
vehicle second-hand after it was advertised in a
newspaper.
"Indonesia is 90 percent Muslim, but
we have many styles, many different groups of Muslims,
and I think we should all live together, not just one
fanatic style. We also want to live with the Christians
and Buddhists and others," the office worker, in his
20s, said.
"Indonesia is not the same as Saudi
Arabia," he added.
Proof of Indonesia's Islamic
tolerance and forward-looking style are displayed in the
strangest places. Behind him, for example, a muted
television beamed a local broadcast of MTV, highlighting
an Indonesian teenage girl wearing a traditional Islamic
head-cover, which cloaked her hair, ears and neck -
allowing only her oval face to appear. She mischievously
grinned and introduced to Indonesia's avid MTV audience
the latest steamy video by Britney Spears' ex-boyfriend
Justin Timberlake.
On the street, meanwhile, a
ramshackle bookshop offered tiny bumper stickers for
sale, including several stating: "I Love Islam" and
"Islam is the Best". The shop, trying to be trendy, also
sold stickers illustrated with a hip icon - the yellow
smiley face - wearing a flat, college graduation cap and
proudly captioned: "Muslim Intellectual".
Serious Islamic items also appear on sale
throughout Indonesia, often liberally displayed near
Christian, Buddhist and animist images and statues.
Such mixing of religions and respect is
commonplace, and is being updated to a globalized 21st
century.
In a typical middle-class department
store, one-third of an upper floor sells Islamic
clothing, prayer carpets and embossed holy Koran books
under a big wooden sign that says: "Muslim Corner". The
women's Islamic clothes are modest but label-conscious,
separated on racks under the names of local dress
designers. "On sale" signs try to tempt customers. Each
portable prayer carpet comes with a large, sewn-in
plastic compass that tells the direction to Mecca when
the rug is plunked on the ground, because Muslims must
bow toward that holy Saudi Arabian city when praying.
While the devout ponder a purchase, they can hear saucy
hip-hop songs by Missy Elliot and other American singers
pumping through the department store's public sound
system.
Outdoors, five times a day, countless
Muslim mosques broadcast their muezzins' lilting, Arabic
call to prayer through electric loudspeakers that echo
throughout this muggy, urbanized capital above the din
of traffic. The mosques are crowded. Muslims are allowed
to take a break from work each time the muezzins call,
even while working in hospitals or other emergency
services. But many other Muslims attend only once a
week, on Fridays.
Across Indonesia, however,
thousands of Muslim men and women have openly demanded
an Islamic regime with harsh sharia laws drawn from the
Koran and rooted in their ideal of a society more than
1,300 years ago. "We have made up our minds not to stray
from our ultimate goal of establishing Islamic law in
the country," Irfan S Awwas, executive chairman of the
influential Mujahideen Council of Indonesia, recently
told reporters.
The council, also known as MMI,
is led Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, currently in prison while on
trial for alleged involvement in a string of Christmas
Eve church bombings in 2000 that killed 19 people and
for attempting to assassinate President Megawati
Sukarnoputri when she was vice president.
"I say
do not be afraid of being labeled as trying to overthrow
[the government], or as terrorists, when you are
carrying out Islamic sharia in full," Ba'asyir said in a
speech relayed from prison and read out to 3,000
enthusiastic followers on Sunday at the start of a
three-day MMI rally.
Washington insists Ba'asyir
is a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a "foreign terrorist
organization" in Southeast Asia linked to Osama bin
Laden's al-Qaeda network and the Bali and JW Marriott
Hotel bombings. Ba'asyir insists Jemaah Islamiyah does
not exist and he claims to be innocent of all
wrongdoing. He blames the US Central Intelligence Agency
for inventing Jemaah Islamiyah to stoke anti-Muslim
propaganda and persecute the faithful.
Amid the
rhetoric, violence, fear and confusion, many Indonesians
have become leery and resentful of Ba'asyir and other
Islamic hardliners, especially after the bombings killed
fellow Indonesians who lived and worked at the targeted
sites.
For many Indonesians, the Marriott Hotel
attack was especially galling because 10 Indonesians -
most of them taxi drivers - and one foreigner died when
the car bomb gutted the hotel's entrance. In Bali, 202
people died in blast last October 12 and while most of
them were Australian and other foreign tourists, many of
the dead included working-class Indonesians.
Meanwhile, the beat of goes on for moderate,
modernizing Muslims. Boosting people's spirits at a
recent televised dance, broadcast nationwide, a popular
singer named Zwesty mangled the lyrics to "Say a Little
Prayer" - but her song was not religious. It was made
famous by American soul singer Aretha Franklin.
While Zwesty crooned, Indonesian adults in suits
and other formal attire danced in cocktail-lounge
ambiance, including a few mature women wearing Islamic
head-coverings who did their best to
boogie.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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