ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the scene. It explains the comments and circumstances that led to Ahok’s arrest and ultimate conviction, before providing a brief history of Indonesia’s Blasphemy Law (Law No. 1/PNPS/1965 on the Prevention of the Abuse/Sullying of Religion) and the way in which conservative Muslims in post-Soeharto Indonesia, whom I refer to as ‘Islamist majoritarians’, have used the Blasphemy Law and the edicts (fatwas) of Indonesia’s peak Islamic body, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), to suppress the constitutional right of people to publicly express criticism of, or mere doctrinal disagreement with, their prevailing understanding of Islamic orthodoxy. Using prevailing academic understandings of key terms, including ‘liberalism’, ‘liberal democracy’, ‘secularism’, and ‘pluralism’, the chapter distinguishes ‘Islamist majoritarians’ from ‘liberal democrats’ and explains their basic ideologies and respective understandings and interpretations of the human rights guarantees contained in Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution. The aim here is to essentially identify the competing narratives of the two competing camps, which I refer to as ‘discourse coalitions.’ It also outlines the key questions the book seeks to investigate and answer, namely:
Have the individual human rights guaranteed by Chapter XA of Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution been rendered ineffective by the Constitutional Court’s 2010 Blasphemy Law ruling, wherein the court ruled that the prioritisation of the protection of the religious sensibilities of Indonesia’s Sunni Muslim majority over the fundamental rights of the country’s religious minorities was necessary to maintain public order?
How has MUI acquired such de facto authority that, notwithstanding the constitutional guarantee of the rule of law, its religious edicts consistently lead to blasphemy convictions?
