ABSTRACT
Islam in Indonesia has always been defined by tolerance, moderation, and pluralism. In Indonesia Islam helped create the foundations of civil society that made the transition to democracy possible whereas in the Middle East Islam has been seen as anathema to democratization. As Robert Hefner has eloquently argued, Islam was the force that facilitated Indonesia’s transition to democracy.1
Most Indonesians eschew literal interpretations of Islam and violence perpetrated in its name. Indeed, Muslim thinkers in Indonesia have made some of the greatest intellectual and theoretical contributions to the debates over Islam and human rights, Islam and democracy, and Islam and women’s rights. Most Muslims in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, support the secular state, and only a small minority advocates the establishment of an Islamic regime governed by sharia, or strict Islamic law. Even fewer advocate this through violence, although their numbers appear to be growing.2 The famed anthropologist Clifford Gertz divided Muslims into three categories: Santri, Priyayi, and Abangan. The Santri represented a more Salafist Islam, but were a distinct minority compared to the Priyayi, whose Islamic faith was built upon very deep-seeded Javanese-Hindu culture and mysticism, and the Abangan, whose Islam was also tied to pre-Islamic culture and beliefs. In the New Order era, the “Santri-ization” of Islam occurred as the Priyayi and Abangan tended to support secular institutions and culture. During the New Order period, political violence was primarily perpetrated
by the state. Since Suharto’s fall in May 1998, political and sectarian sub-state actors have racked the country with violence.3 The causes of this are numerous, and include the breakdown of the overly centralized and authoritarian New Order regime, decentralization, as well as the abolition of the dwi fungsi (dual function) role of the military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI), which previously played a direct part in politics and civil administration. This increase in violence has been exacerbated by competition between the Indonesian National Police (INP) and the TNI, which split in 1999 as a result of disputes over scarce resources.4
