ABSTRACT
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim majority country, is a good example, and constitutes the focus of Chapter 9. Trodden by anthropologists more than by sociologists, its study in the recent decades has been relatively spared from many of the very normative and essentially political issues that have characterised the study of Islam in the Middle East. Incidentally, research has paid attention to trends that are important from the perspective of Indonesians and do not fit the secularisation mould. From colonisation to independence to Sukarno’s socialist-inspired secularist republic to Suharto’s capitalist-friendly New Order to IMF-guided neoliberal reforms to the current situation, Indonesia presents a singular yet ideal-typical pathway in which the National-Statist and Global-Market regimes of religion are clearly visible. Starting with a portrait of Indonesia also shows how the nationalisation and statisation of religion have been historically more important than the variables of secularisation and secularity. Recent trends show a profound remodelling of Islam within the marketisation mould, with the formidable return of Sufism and the emergence of a score of phenomena which blur former distinctions between religion and business, entertainment, fashion, etc. The example shows the remarkable novelties which the Global-Market regime introduces, as well as how Islam and the Islamic revival have been key to the enculturation of consumerism and neoliberalism in the Global South.
