Civil Islam - Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia by Robert Hefner - Book Report/Review Example

Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia by Robert Hefner Civil Islam presents a discussion of Indonesian politics in relation to Islam and democratization. It challenges the notions that Islam is antagonistic to democracy and shows possibilities of democracy in Indonesia in what he calls Civil Islam. Robert Hefner, an anthropologist and a teacher in Boston University, is considered a highly respected observer of the Indonesian politics and society in general. The main question in this book is whether democracy and Islam are compatible. Robert Hefner grapples with the issue of Islamic states’ ability to tolerate civil societies. Using Indonesian political history, Hefner argues that Islamic states and civil societies are compatible. In essence, he reveals the unfolding of the evolution of moderate Muslim politics. Indonesia is important a mirror when looking at Muslim politics since it is the world’s largest majority-Muslim Country. This book according to Hadiz (2001) is considered a major reference in regards to the contemporary Indonesian Islamic politics. Looking at this book, it is evident that for Hefner, Civil Islam is more than a scholarly interest. He seems passionately committed to the issue of Islam and democracy. As much as this book gives an account of the efforts that have been made to bring civility and democracy to Indonesia it is apparent that Hefner’s core focus is to give the principles that governs civil Islam as well as discuss the principles that lead to civil Islam. Civil Islam is set between 1945 and 1999 and it details how Indonesia was democratic; its politics were both tolerant and exuded values of civility in the 1950s. However, in 1965, it yielded to violence in which many communists were killed. After this, there emerged the ‘New Order’ regime which instituted dictatorial controls and suppressed the democratic forces in Indonesia. However, even with this kind of violence, a new movement of Islamic democracy emerged which supported and pushed for overthrowing of Soeharto’s regime and later in 1999 Abdurrahman Wahid became the president of what can be termed as a reformist government. There has been a long-held notion that Islam and democratization are incompatible. However, Hefner concerns himself with showing how Islam itself can be a democratising force in Indonesia. In doing this, he faces and challenges the Western-world-held assumptions on the contradictions that exist between democratic politics and Islam. The Western world has argued that there is no cultural basis for democracy in Islamic societies, for instance the Samuel Huntington’s thesis, ‘Clash of the Civilians’. Thus Hefner examines the political thinking of the traditionalist Muslims and the Modernist Muslims during Soeharto’s rule. He shows how both groups rejected the Western argument of relegating religion out of politics and the state. In addition, he shows how both the traditionalist and modernist Muslims reject the notion of an Islamic state. Thus, this leaves the path for ‘Civil Islam’ as the favourable one. Hefner posits that civil Islam is ecumenical, democratic, pluralistic and reformist in its ideology and practice (Huxley, 2002). In this book, Hefner appraises how Indonesian Muslims participate and reject democratization in the country’s post-colonial era. He shows how the two Muslim parties Nahdlatul Ulama and Masyumi defended Islamic ideals in Sukarno and Suharto’s authoritarian rules. Hefner demonstrates how a large number of Muslims have embraced the culture of tolerance and pluralism to develop a culture of civil Islam. His analysis is well developed because despite the challenges, which he acknowledges quite well, he shows that democratisation has had its successes. The events that have been taking place in Indonesia serve to illustrate that there is a clash of cultures between those who promote Muslim civil society and democracy and those who support an anti-pluralist Islamic state and this situation is likely to remain a major feature of Muslim politics for a long time. A keen look at the world’s politics will reveal a resurgence of religious issues in the way public affairs are run; for instance, “the Christian coalition in the US, Hindu nationalism in India, militant Buddhism in Sri-Lanka or Islamist movement in the Muslim world” (p. 491). One issue is evident; “most Muslims continue to look to their religion for principles of public order as well as personal spirituality” (p. 491). Although Muslims have political ideals that are derived from their traditions, they vary in a way that depicts views as to how they respond to the challenges they face in the modern world. As Hefner notes, some Muslims hold the notion that “religion is state”, however, there is an emerging democratic tradition. Those who support this tradition argue that concentrating huge power in the hands of rulers increases the probability of making the ideals of Islam authoritarian. Some scholars, like Martin (2002), are of the view that democracy and the ideas of a civil society are Euro-American and do not have much to do with the Islamic political experience. Hefner tackles this issue in this book. He uses the political history of Indonesia especially in the 1990s to show that the political foundations for a civil Islam were in place during that era. Hefner observes that some factors hindered the development of an Islamic civil society in Indonesia. Some of the factors include machinations of former president Soeharto. Some modernist Indonesian Muslim leaders and organizations have been using a design of power sharing with social groups and other religions to establish democratic social institutions. However, the Indonesian Islamist Muslims have been reluctant to work with non-Muslims to create a civil society in Indonesia. The book is divided in eight chapters. Chapter one; ‘Democratization in an age of globalization’ seeks the address the reappearance of religious and ethnic issues in public affairs. In this chapter he describes the understanding of the notions of democracy being linked with education, industrialization, development of a middle class collapsed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and increase in ethno-religious conflicts. His research is positioned in “a heightened awareness of the multicultural nature of the contemporary world and the need to attend to this pluralism when considering democracy’s possibility” (p. 5). Pluralism is a constituent of Muslim politics since it merges Western political norms with those of the traditional Islam. Civil Islam is a tradition that is emerging which takes different forms. Most of the forms begin with by denying the support of a monolithic Islamic state and embracing voluntarism, democracy and balancing the countervailing powers in a state. Embracing the ideal of a civil society demands that the government should be checked by strong civic associations. In the same right, a democratic culture and the existence of these civic associations demands for the protection of a state that respects the rule of law. By recovering and amplifying some of the elements of Islamic tradition, Hefner makes it clear that ‘Civil Islam’ is not a copy-paste of the Western Original. Rather it is a situation specific to Indonesia that arose out of a multi-ethnic nationalism. One thing stands out in the conclusion to this chapter, a healthy civil society demands a civilised state. This chapter serves to criticize the views of scholars that argue that Islam political culture cannot accommodate democracy. Islamic states are hospitable, he says, but this is possible with the presence of some cultural-political favourable conditions. Chapter two; ‘Civil Precedence’ furthers the social theory discussion. Here Hefner develops a theory of a civil society that can be used across different cultures. Hefner uses the analytic model of Robert Putnam to explain the factors he considers favourable to democratization in Muslim societies; institutions, political phenomenon of the society and cultural attitudes. Democracy in a Muslim society requires tolerance, trust and respect to business associations. Democracy thrives where the civil state leadership is keen on protecting the networks of civil engagement. The reason why democracy did not thrive in the past is because the political culture in Indonesia lacked protective and civil leaders. According to Hefner, the leader abused the precedents of pluralism and civility rather than consolidating them. Chapter three; ‘Contests of Nation’, basically nationalism, delves on how the political and social changes in many Muslim countries brought about the issue of nationalism in the twentieth century. He discusses how this happened in Indonesia when the Dutch colonisation was destroyed under the leadership of former president Soekarno. Its main focuses on the development of Muslim mass movement right from the Islamic Union and the ‘Muhammadiya to the end of President Soekarno’s regime. Between 1945 and 1965, the first period of post-colonial politics introduced in 1945 by Soekarno, shows a political competition between traditionalists, secular, communists and modernist Muslims. This chapter is an appraisal of the different debates of Muslim groups that have been a cause of division between them. One particular group; the nominal Muslims are cast across as supporting pluralism and a religiously tolerant state. This group mixed both the Western ideas of democracy and socialism with their own pluralist cultural resources as a basis for their organizational principles and sense of nationalism. This group was opposed by a conservative Islamist group that sought to convert Indonesia into an Islamic state. In chapter four, ‘Ambivalent alliances: Religion and politics in the early New Order’ Hefner interprets the events and hardships during the early years of Soeharto. He shows how the Muslim political and national ambitions contended with Muslim organizations that were emerging as well as those external organizations like the secular modernizers, the nationalists and communists. This chapter examines Soeharto’s New Order. Hefner shows Soeharto pushing aside and eliminating the communists and any other threat to his power. He presents a paradox where Soeharto eliminated different forms of political Islam while at the same time promoting Islamic religious education and building programs. The chapters that follow detail how President Soeharto played these groups against each other for his own agenda. Chapter five: ‘The modernist travail’, Hefner looks at the activities of a group of Muslims; modernist Muslims during the earlier periods of New Order. This group was linked to the Masyumi political party, a party that illustrated the tension between two groups of political Islam. One of the groups is the older group that that believed in the Islamic state that enforces the Islamic law. The other group is the younger generation which insisted on “an effort not to repudiate politics (as their critics charged) but to recraft a relationship between religion and politics in a civil pluralist manner” (Hefner 2000, p.126; Brodeur 2002, Online). The chapters that follow Hefner focuses on the events that led to Soeharto’s fall. Chapter six: Islam deferred: ‘Regimist Islam and the struggle to the middle class’, looks at the New Order period during which Soeharto built alliances with regimist Muslims. This period saw the creation of ICMI (Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals), an association used for the participation of political Islam. It has three streams of intellectuals, activists and bureaucrats, and Soeharto used divide and rule strategy on these groups for his own political ambition. In chapter seven: Uncivil state: Muslims and violence in Soeharto’s fall, Hefner focuses on Soeharto regime’s fall. Soeharto used three efforts to try and retain power; destroying Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), removing Wahid from as the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama and pushing the Javanists to the political margins. His strategy resulted in state terror that led to violence between 1990 and 1997. Soeharto resigned in 1998, one year after his re-election due to violence and demonstrations. Chapter eight; ‘Muslim politics, global modernity’ offers his conclusion. He provides that, democracy can only triumph if the “creation of a civilised and self-limiting state” (p. 215). Two major issue emerge in Hefner’s conclusion; there cannot be one kind of democracy, rather, there are several forms but linked to each other. Secondly, a civil society is dependent on the state’s civilization. The bulk of the book elaborates the changing nature of the relationship between political Islam and the state in Indonesia. Hefner argues that, like all other civilizations, Muslim politics are plural and not monolithic. Thus there has evolved different strands of Islam modernism in the process of responding to contacts with the western world as well as the global domination. Hefner’s notion of ‘civility’ gives the book some optimism for democracy. According to Hadiz (2001), there has been the development of ‘un-civil’ groups like the militia units. Therefore, as much people would take different positions in relation to democracy in Islam, the random and unjustifiable actions of such militia groups seem to blur the hope for democratization cast by Hefner in this book. Hefner comes up with a subjective definition and treatment of ‘uncivil Islam’. According to him, Islam has to be tolerant and pluralist to be civil since he denotes that militant variants of faith are misguided. The fact that he equates ‘civil Islam’ with true Islam gives the book a partisan tone (Fealy 2001). Hefner (2001) says that Muslims consider their religion a model of personal ethics as well as public order. This is the reason a major part of Muslims have advocated for the fusion of the state and society. He is of the view that, “According to this political formula, the only way to enforce the high standards of Muslim morality is to dissolve the boundary between public and private and use the disciplinary powers of the state to police both spheres” (Hefner 2001, p. 497). In his arguments, Hefner shows that a people’s voluntary and associational contribution to public life is not the only ingredient to the development of a civil society; there is need for a self-limiting strong state that supports a democratic society. He says that “however much we might pin our hopes for democracy on civil society and a democratic public sphere, Indonesia reminds us that there can be no genuinely civil society without an equally civilised state” (Hefner 2001, p. 510). Civil Islam shows how Indonesian Muslims and leaders developed ideals that can support a democratic pluralistic civil society. However, he does not show how the country and its leaders contented with the ‘uncivil state’. Hefner concludes that just like many other countries in the Muslim world, the case of Indonesia shows that there is no unitary Muslim politics. The book serves to remind us of the pluralism of contemporary Muslim politics. Muslim politics have been tailored by a myriad of changes especially in the areas of urbanization, mass education, socioeconomic differentiation and public participation. The discussion about Islam and democratization has attracted a big amount of scholarly scrutiny, but as Hashemi (2003) argues this discussion should leave the theoretical aisle and come to an examination of actual case studies, something Hefner has done in his inquiry of Indonesia. Hefner appraises the complex and shifting relationship between the state and the Islamist leaders. Hefner offers a decisive response to the Indonesian Islam relationship with Islam. The Muslims that have embraced ‘civil Islam’ have in a big way contributed in Indonesian democratization (Sutley 2001). He underscores the fact that the achievement for the hope of ‘civil Islam’ and a democratic government were not possible without public civility and civil institutions. More so, he emphasizes that the existence of both a civil society and democracy is dependent on the presence of a civilised state. Huxley (2002) notes that the optimism with which Civil Islam ends does not last long; two and a half years after he came into power, “Abdurrahman proved inadequate to the task of managing his rainbow coalition and setting Indonesia on the path of recovery from its wide-ranging national crisis” (Huxley 2002, p. 153) In his later article Public Islam, Hefner (2001) says that Civil Islam is “an emergent and highly unfinished tradition associated with broad assortment of social movements”. This kind of movement claims that “the modern ideals of equality, freedom, and democracy are not uniquely Western values, but modern necessities compatible with, and even required by Muslim ideal” (p. 498). Hefner observes that not all societies are likely to develop into democratic institutions because the principles that guide democracy contradict the cultures and traditions most of which are embedded in their religions. Hefner (2001) leaves it to time to tell if a civil society and a democratic state can be achieved in Indonesia and in the rest of the Muslim world. Transition to democracy is dependent on a society that is pluralistic and has differentiation, equally, a state whose powers are separated. References Fealy, G 2001, 'Civil Islam (Book Review)', Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal Of International & Strategic Affairs, 23, 2, p. 363. Gade, AM 2002, 'Civil Islam (Book)', Journal of Religion, 82, 3, p. 491. Hadiz, VR 2001, 'Civil Islam (Book)', Asia Pacific Business Review, 8, 2, p. 184 Hashemi NA 2003, ‘Review: Inching towards democracy: Religion and politics in the Muslim world’, Third World Quarterly, 24, 3, pp. 563-578. Hefner, RW 2001, ‘Public Islam and the problem of democratization’, Sociology in Religion, 62, 4, 491-514. Huxley, T 2002, 'Civil Islam: Muslim and Democratization in Indonesia', Survival (00396338), 44, 3, pp. 153-154,  Martin, RC 2002, ‘Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in Indonesia by Robert W. Hefner’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 61, 2, pp. 774-776. Pye, LW 2001, 'Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia (Book Review)', Foreign Affairs, 80, 2, p. 185. Sutley, S 2001, ‘Civil Islam: Muslim and democratization in Indonesia by Robert W. Hefner’, Pacific Affairs, 74, 3, pp. 459-460. Read More