The Radical Islamization/Arabization of Indonesia; a loss of identity?

June 15, 2008 in Asia, Indonesia, Love, Malaysia, Malindo, Politics, Public, Scandal, Singapore, Social, World
Tags: Arab, Arabization, FPI, Indonesia, Indonesian, Islam, Islamization, Malaysia, Nationalism, Singapore

There are many things that I’m worried about Indonesia.

I worry about the flood that hits parts of Jakarta annually, and why the flood canals are taking long to be built.

I worry that the 2009 Presidential Elections will result in a change of government (again). At the same time, I also worry that SBY will still choose JK as his running mate.

I worry that another natural disaster might struck Indonesia again, killing many of my fellow Indonesians.

But the thing I’m worried about is the thing that a few would only notice, and even embrace.

The fast growing democracy of Indonesia is bringing Radical Islamization (Arabization?) into the picture.

Habib Riziq – an Indonesian playing dress-up as an Arab.

During the time of Suharto of pre-reformasi, Indonesia was simply Indonesia, Islam was just Islam, and religions were simply faiths that everyone held in silence.

Ironically, it was Suharto himself(during his falling out) that made Indonesia more than Indonesia, Islam more than just Islam, and religions became faiths that needed to become reality.

I feel that there is a drop among the people of Indonesia to feel Indonesian, and more to the fact that they are Muslims.

I feel that this slow-but-steady process of radical islamization is hampering our spirits of Nationalism.

Our neighbor, Malaysia, is a classic example of rapid Islamization.

The concept of Islam as a religion is a blessing, but when it enters the realm of politics, that’s when it becomes a problem.

Mahathir Muhammad, who claimed to be frontier of all the modern-Muslims, started the whole race-card dilemma in Malaysia, using Islam and the Malay race.

He pushed Islamic reforms into Malaysia, which resulted in the race-based politics and discontent among the so called “Malaysians”.

The engulfment of Islam as a national concept has devoured the very idea of Malaysian among the people there.

Through my observation, in recent years, the concept of being Malaysian has been pushed by the new government, and especially by the Opposition parties in Malaysia.

DAP (Democratic Action Party) uses Malaysia for Malaysians as their motto of politics. The same goes with PKR (People’s Justice Party) with similar concept.

Their current government has tried to make a nationalistic concept of Malaysian by using one national language, like Indonesia. Thus, they changed the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu) to Malaysian (Bahasa Malaysia).

But it has proven to be unsuccessful.

Imagine someone saying “He’s speaking Malaysian.”

It sounds awkward, and even grammatically incorrect.

The problem lies within the fact; the Malay language has been specifically associated to the ethnic Malays and not other ethnics in Malaysia, and even in Singapore.

It’s become almost like a dialect, not a language. And as we know the national language of Malaysia and Singapore is not Malay, but English.

The language of those who colonized both of these countries.

Mahathir is partly responsible for that.

“Build the Malay, not Malaysia” – I would assume is his silence code of politics.

My fear is that, is Indonesia slowly becoming like Malaysia? Will the minority of Indonesia still be called Indonesians and speak Indonesian?

Will the people in Indonesia take more pride to be called Muslims than Indonesian?

Will one day our very own Indonesian constitution of Pancasila, be replaced with Arab-style Shariah laws?

The Islamic organizations in Indonesia have been growing immensely in term of their vocal strengths. MUI has some degree of influence in the governmental decision making, despite their promise to stay out of politics. Radical FPI reigns for ten years with violence as their practice and only recently were they caught due to mounting public pressure.

Ahmadiyah, a branched-out Islam sect, has been issued a decree to propagate their ‘misled’ practices to other Muslims/people, due to the pressure by the mainstream Muslims.

It is an obvious trait of the Indonesian government that they bow to anything that is perceived as true Islamic values, forgetting the fact that religions should be kept outside of politics and national agenda.

It is also noticeable that, anything that batters the name of Islam will be taken into national matter (especially by the people) and anything that praises Islam will surely be a national pride.

This can be seen in the condemning of the movie Fitna, in comparison to the celebrated Indonesian movie, Ayat Ayat Cinta (Verses of Love).

Ayat Ayat Cinta was even watched by the President, along with his 107 high-ranking politicians and 53 foreign diplomats at a bustling entertainment center in busy Jakarta.

Many see it as an act of supporting local film industry, but some critics say it is a political act of getting votes among the devout Muslims of Indonesia.

So as we can see, Islam has even been used to gain support in politics.

Indonesia has successfully battled terrorists, and often preaches that the Islam of Indonesia is moderate and peace loving (which I agree), but it seems like there is more focus to bringing the name of Islam to a better spotlight than actually bringing Indonesia, as a nation, as a respectful country and identity.

If you have read my posts before, and if you are a regular reader here, you would know that I absolutely have nothing against Islam.

I have many Muslim friends (most of them moderate Indonesian Muslims) who share the same perception like me about Indonesia.

It is great to have a religion and be peaceful in mind, spirit, and physical entities, but I think it is inappropriate when a religion is brought into the laws of a country, or when it starts to have dominance in the supposedly objective minds of the leaders of our country – especially not in this time around.

I hope Indonesia will realize this and escape this route of de-Indonesianization.