civil islam revisited - asia research institute, nus · 2019. 3. 18. · philanthropy, islam and...

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Civil Islam

Revisited Indonesia and Beyond

23 October 2017

© https://www.flickr.com/photos/izzyxizzy/

Civil Islam Revisited: Indonesia and Beyond (23 October 2017)

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Robert Hefner’s landmark work, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia (2000), argued that democratization in Indonesia hinged upon the emergence of a civil pluralist discourse among Muslim elites and activists. Indonesia’s successes in democratic consolidation within the context of a religiously pluralist state uphold that proposition in significant ways. Yet, as the twentieth anniversary of transition approaches, it is unclear whether civil pluralist voices retain their pre-eminence within discourses on Islam’s relationship to state and society. Nor is it clear how Indonesia will reconcile the growing influence of Muslim conservative politics to the pluralist framework of the Pancasila state. These questions are not unique to Indonesia; rather, they animate intersections of Islam and democracy more broadly, and are evident in a diverse set of cases: from Tunisia to Turkey, and from Bosnia to Bangladesh. This workshop re-examines Hefner’s concept of civil Islam, and its relationship to democratization and pluralism, from the vantage point of 2017 — nearly two decades on from transition. It examines the diverse and evolving role of Muslim activists, elites and organizations in democratization processes, both in Indonesia and comparatively. Conference panels will make reference to the work of Robert Hefner and the broader public religion literature, of which Civil Islam is a prominent example. Presentations in the workshop will explore various forms and manifestations of civil Islam (in politics, among social organizations, and in everyday life), as well as countercurrents among Indonesian Muslims. It will also consider the relevance of civil Islam to discourses on democracy and pluralism in other Muslim-majority states, such as Turkey, Tunisia, and Malaysia. The workshop focuses on the following questions:

How prominent or influential is civil Islam today, some two decades after Indonesia’s transition to democracy? What are the implications of an apparent conservative turn among Indonesian Muslims, as theorized by scholars and seemingly demonstrated in the recent Jakarta gubernatorial election, for the concept of civil Islam?

How do Indonesian political institutions and social organizations generate, sustain, or potentially undermine civil Islam as an approach or perspective on democracy and pluralism?

How relevant is the concept of civil Islam to discourses on democracy and pluralism in other Muslim-majority countries?

Given democratic setbacks in Turkey and Egypt, as well as ongoing debates over the limits to religious pluralism in Indonesia (most notably in the recent Jakarta gubernatorial election), this workshop is also extremely timely. This workshop is an opportunity for scholars to share their research, debate key concepts in the study of Islam and politics, and draw out implications of this research for Indonesia and other Muslim democracies. This workshop will contribute to a novel understanding of how civil Islam has transformed, been challenged, and contributed to democratization and the maintenance of religious pluralism in Indonesia and elsewhere. This workshop will serve as a novel and timely contribution to comparative scholarship on Islam, democracy, and pluralism. It will deepens understandings of Islam’s relationship to democracy and pluralism, as well as civil Islam’s place within a democratic society that is paradoxically more stable and more prone to destabilizing identity politics. CONVENORS Dr Gustav Brown Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore E | [email protected] Dr Amelia Fauzia Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore E | [email protected]


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23 OCTOBER 2017 (MONDAY)

09:00 – 09:15 REGISTRATION

09:15 – 09:30 WELCOME REMARKS & INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Kenneth Dean| National University of Singapore

Amelia Fauzia | National University of Singapore

Gustav Brown | National University of Singapore

09:30 – 10:30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS 1

Chairperson Kenneth Dean | National University of Singapore

09:30 Robert W. Hefner

Boston University, USA

Whatever Happened to Civil Islam? Islam and Democratization in Indonesia, Twenty Years on

10:15 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

10:30 – 11:00 TEA BREAK

11:00 – 12:30 PANEL 1

Chairperson Nurfadzilah Yahaya | National University of Singapore

11:00 Ali Munhanif

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Indonesia

Civil Islam in Formation: The Tradition, the State, and the Transformation of Society

11:20 Alexander R. Arifianto

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

From Civil Islam towards NKRI Bersyariah? Understanding Rising Islamism in Post-Reformasi Indonesia

11:40 Colm Fox

Singapore Management University

Personal Votes and Ethnic or Religious Election Campaigns: Evidence from Indonesia’s Democratic Transition


12:30 – 13:30 LUNCH

13:30 – 14:30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS 2

Chairperson Gustav Brown | National University of Singapore

13:30 Azyumardi Azra

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Indonesia

The Rise of ‘Islamic Populism’: Challenge to Civil Islam in Indonesia


14:30 – 14:50 TEA BREAK


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14:50 – 16:20 PANEL 2

Chairperson Deasy Simandjuntak | ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore

14:50 Jeremy Menchik

Boston University, USA

Implications of L’affaire Ahok, or, How Indonesian Democracy Dies

15:10 Gustav Brown

National University of Singapore

Civic Islam: “Big Tent” Organizations and Political Consensus Making

15:30 Eva F. Nisa

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Muslim Women in Contemporary Indonesia: Narratives behind the Women Ulama Congress


16:20 – 16:30 TEA BREAK

16:30 – 18:00 PANEL 3

Chairperson Alexander R. Arifianto | Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

16:30 Amelia Fauzia

National University of Singapore

Philanthropy, Islam and Inclusivity in Contemporary Indonesia

16:50 Ahmad Najib Burhani

Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Indonesia, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore

From Civil Islam to Conservative Turn: Transformation and Contestation of Religiosity in Indonesia

17:10 Prashant Waikar

Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The Rise of Un-civil Islamic Movement as a Challenge to the Indonesian Democracy


18:00 – 18:10 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Amelia Fauzia | National University of Singapore

Gustav Brown | National University of Singapore

18:10 END OF WORKSHOP

18:45 – 20:30 WORKSHOP DINNER (For speakers, chairpersons and invited guests only)


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KEYNOTE ADDRESS 1

Whatever Happened to Civil Islam? Islam and Democratization in Indonesia, Twenty Years on

Robert W. Hefner Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA), Boston University, USA

[email protected]

In attempting to do justice to the ethical ideals and political aspirations of a certain portion of the Muslim-wing of Indonesia’s democracy movement in the 1990s, I devised the term “civil Islam.” Civil Islam referred neither to an organized movement nor to a variety of “civil society organization.” The term was instead meant to identify and support a political and ethical ideal entertained by Muslim activists and thinkers both in Indonesia and in other Muslim-majority countries, including most notably Iran (as in the scholarship and activism of Abdolkarim Soroush and his supporters) and Malaysia (as in the political ideals of Anwar Ibrahim). Civil Islam was first and foremost a modern Muslim normative aspiration in search of a social movement. As a normative project, civil Islam as I understood it had three emphases. First, while not eschewing “collaborations across the state-society divide” (to use Peter Evans phrase), civil Islam nonetheless sought to promote a significant separation of powers between state officials and religious society, so as to avoid what Soroush and Nurcholish Madjid described as the profanation of religious ideals by state instrumentalities. Second, even while providing ethical sanctions for a significant differentiation of state and religious authority, civil Islam took exception to assertive secularist (in Kuru’s terms) attempts to relegate religious values and practices to the private sphere. A civil Islam could support state-societal collaborations that scaled up and socialized Islamic values resonant with the citizenship norms of freedom and equality across ethno-religious difference. Third, civil Islam emphasized that democracy is not an entity of uniquely “Western” provenance but a transcultural instrument for negotiating social participation and civic engagement in a modern, differentiated world. “Atlantic-liberal” varieties of democracy, with their emphasis on individual autonomy to the exclusion of what Michael Sandel has referred to as other “encumberments,” are but one variety of democracy, unlikely to resonate with the ethico-political aspirations of many Muslim democrats. Having expanded on its general intellectual contours, in the remainder of this paper I assess how and where this normative ensemble actually influenced Indonesian politics in the Reformasi era and, conversely, just where its ideals were ignored. I also discuss several important developments in Indonesian Muslim politics – especially the rise of conservative Islamist transnationalism – that I failed to sufficiently anticipate. I conclude by suggesting that, however difficult its realization, the civil Islam ideal remains as powerful as ever, not least in the face of populist and radical Islamist efforts to subordinate Islamic ideals to their own statist ends. Robert W. Hefner is Professor of Anthropology, Professor of Global Affairs, and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at the Pardee School for Global Affairs at Boston University. He was the director of CURA from 2009-2017 and associate director from 1986 to 2009. Hefner has led CURA’s program on Islam and civil society since 1991. Hefner has published twenty books and authored seven major policy reports for government and private policy centers. His primary research interests have to do with the imbrications of Islam, Christianity, and secularism with the contemporary challenge of social citizenship and plural coextistence. Hefner has worked on questions of Islam, plurality, and citizenship in Indonesia for more than thirty years; more recently he has also been conducting research on Muslims and the challenge of pluralist citizenship in North America and Western Europe. In conjunction with the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, he is currently conducting research on plurality and coexistence in Indonesia, and completing a book on Islamic public ethics and citizenship contests in post-Suharto Indonesia. During 2009-2010, Hefner served as the elected president of the Association for Asian Studies. During 2008-2009, he was invited by Stanford University and the National University of Singapore to be the first Lee Kong Chian Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies. He also serves on the executive board of the “Contending Modernities” project at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace, and taught as an invited Senior Professor in the Summer Graduate Program on Religion, Culture, and Society at the University Centre-St. Ignatius, University of Antwerp, Belgium (2007-2014).


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KEYNOTE ADDRESS 2

The Rise of ‘Islamic Populism’: Challenge to Civil Islam in Indonesia

Azyumardi Azra Faculty of Adab and Humanities,

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Indonesia [email protected]

There is no doubt that the Pilihan Kepala Daerah (Pilkada), Daerah Khusus Ibukota (DKI) Jakarta 2017 was the most heated, very bitter and hotly contested since the local elections—as a part of decentralization programs implemented beginning in 2005--were introduced in Indonesia. The unintended effects of the Jakarta Pilkada can be observed not only in the area of Capital City or Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Bekasi), but also in various parts of the country. Ahok was controversial figure. He was perceived by many as one of the most successful DKI Jakarta governors. But at the same time he has been subject of strong criticism from certain circles for his heavy handed policies and harsh statements—that in some cases very careless, particularly when during a visit in the Kepulauan Seribu he cited Qur’anic verse Surah al-Maidah 51 that he perceived had been used by his opponents to spread lies. As a result, a number of massive peaceful demonstrations of Muslims took place from early November 2016. And Islam as identity politics clearly came about against Ahok, a ‘double minority’ person—a Christian and Chinese. Big demonstrations have been regarded by some among Muslims and outside observers as the indication of the rise of ‘Islamic populism’ in Indonesia. The rise of Islamic populism is regarded by some observers as a serious challenge to civil Islam. My presentation will discuss the Jakarta Pilkada in the context of ‘Islamic populism’—its viability and possible impacts on the 2018 Pilkada in other provinces and cities/districts, and not least important in the 2019 Presidential Election. In addition I will also outline some suggestion to revitalize civil Islam. Azyumardi Azra is a Senior Professor of Islamic History and Culture at the Faculty of Adab and Humanities, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) of Jakarta. He studied at Columbia University, USA, and received an MA in Middle Eastern Studies, and a PhD in history. He is prolific writer among his magnum opus is The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia (2004). He received several outstanding awards for his contribution as a scholar, a progressive educator and an leader who has earned high esteem for his advocacy of a centrist, moderate understanding of Islam and Muslim societies. One of the awards is The Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), an honorable title from the British Empire.


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Civil Islam in Formation: The Tradition, the State, and the Transformation of Society

Ali Munhanif Political Science Department,

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Indonesia [email protected]

My research project seeks to examine patterns of social transformation in Muslim society, especially in Egypt and Indonesia. It seeks to explore the development of social organizations formed in both countries whose initial goal is the establishment of Islamic state and their visionary leaders for Muslim social transformations. By focusing on these organizations, I expect to explain an analytical puzzle: why Egyptian and Indonesian Muslims develop along divergent patterns of social transformation? Most of literature on the study of Islam, politics and democracy focuses on the central role of cultural tenets of Islam and the structure of Muslim society. Robert Hefner’s (2001) path breaking study Islam and civil society during the Indonesian transition to democracy has revealed to explicate the relationship between cultural settings of Indonesian Islam and Muslim civic development over time. Here, in contrast, I analyze the history and institutional designs of the state as conditions that both constrained and yet enabled the interests and goals of leaders in Islamic movements. I use periodization—defined broadly as the historical sequences of organizational formations—to capture critical moments and actions of the competing groups, especially between Islamist leaders and the state elite in response to a particular set of changes over a defined period of time. By tracing these various paths of Islam and the state contestation, this project seeks to offer a more nuanced and persuasive explanation of the various routes to the making of civil Islam, in terms of political formation and transformation. I situate the idea of an Islamic state as a site of contest between political class of state elites and leaders of Islamist movements. Visionary leaders have sought to use the modern organizations, including in Islamist movements, as the institution through which they could transform their society. However, external political forces largely beyond the control of such leaders have greatly affected their success in using the organizations to bring about intended social transformations, which constitute the core of their visions. My hypothesis on the variety of outcomes of Muslim transformation is that, three such forces have affected internal environment the Islamic leaders face, and have influenced their risk calculations as they decide whether to confront groups of people in the Islamist organization resisting the leader’s desired changes. Three hypotheses concerning these forces of Muslim internal conflict, the threat of repression by the state, and the opposition to change by leading vanguards of Islamist politics help explain the necessary conditions for a visionary leader’s success. The cases of Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia, Hasan al Hudaybi and Sayyid Qutb of Egypt’s Islamists illustrate the important influence whether the ideology of Islamic state developed and transformed in the making of civil and uncivil Islam. Ali Munhanif is Senior Lecturer in the Political Science Department, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP), State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta. Ali has been appointed as the Director of the Center of the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM, Pusat Pengkajian Islam dan Masyarakat), UIN Jakarta (2011-2015). His research interest is concerned with topics of Comparative Politics, especially in relation with the formation of nation-state, Muslim democracy, good governance, and the politics of identity. This particularly focuses on the experiences of the politics of Middle East and Southeast Asia. After finishing his BA in the State Islamic University (UIN), Jakarta, Ali continued his MA at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA, in Religious Studies (1996). In 2009, he completed his PhD from the Department of Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, with the dissertation on Alternative Roads to Islamism: Democratization and the Politics of Islamic State in Egypt and Indonesia. Ali is currently trying to finish his research project on Varieties of Democracy: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Muslim Democrats in Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia.


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From Civil Islam towards NKRI Bersyariah? Understanding Rising Islamism in Post-Reformasi Indonesia

Alexander R. Arifianto S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

[email protected]

The successful Defending Islam campaign against former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is clear evidence that Islamism is rising in post-Reformasi Indonesia, something that is not well-analyzed in recent scholarships on Indonesian Islam. Influenced strongly by Civil Islam thesis, they have failed to study hardline Islamic movements due to its premises that: 1) the dominant mode of Islamic discourse in Indonesia is the moderate Islam represented by organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, and 2) hardline Islamism represents a fringe element to the moderate theological discourses embedded in Indonesian Islam. I argue that rising Islamism in Indonesia is attributed to the following factors: Hardline Islamist groups are able to promote their exclusivist public theologies using the following mechanisms: 1) Appealing for solidarity and common experiences as Indonesian Muslims to persuade more moderate Muslims to join their activities, 2) Using religious propagation (da’wa) institutions such as campus da’wa groups, state companies and bureaucratic institutions, and social media outlets to promote their theological viewpoints to Indonesian Muslims, and 3) Seeking out allies in national and local government in order to have their policy agenda (e.g., restrictions against religious minorities) implemented at both national and local levels. Meanwhile, moderate civil Islamic groups are losing their appeal because these groups (particularly NU and Muhammadiyah) have moved their central focus from religious propagation to social activism and politics. Alexander R. Arifianto is a Research Fellow with the Indonesia Programme at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is an expert in Indonesian domestic politics, especially on political Islam and regional politics in Indonesia. His PhD dissertation from Arizona State University is on Indonesia’s two largest Islamic organizations, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. His recently completed research project is on the role of hardline Islamist youth groups such as the Indonesian Muslim Students Islamic Union (KAMMI) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) in promoting Islamist agendas among university students at Indonesian public universities. He has published his works in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations and Asian Politics and Policy.


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Personal Votes and Ethnic or Religious Election Campaigns: Evidence from Indonesia’s Democratic Transition

Colm Fox School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University

[email protected]

In ethnically diverse societies, scholars have frequently emphasized the dangers of democratization. In particular, there are high expectations that candidates will politicize ethnicity during transitions. This however, is not always the case. In an analysis of election campaign before, during, and after Indonesia’s transition in 1999 I show that the politicization of indigenous and religious groups actually declined during democratization. To explain this, I argue that in 1999 a national economic crisis, coupled with party-centric electoral rules, fostered incentives for candidates to campaign on broad national platforms of reform and development—appealing to the poor, rather than to indigenous or religious groups. Surprisingly, the politicization of indigenous and religious groups actually increased during the 2009 elections, well after the transition. This, I argue, can be explained by a move to a more candidate-centric electoral system which freed candidates from national party platforms, and offered them incentives to campaign on personal attributes and local connections with indigenous and religious groups. For empirical support, I develop a coding system to quantify campaign events, endorsements, group appeals, and candidate attributes from election newspaper reports between 1997 and 2014. A key contribution of this research is to show how candidate-centric rules can affect ethnic politics, something that has largely been overlooked in the literature. Colm Fox is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Singapore Management University. He received his PhD in Political Science from George Washington University. His research interests are focused on political organizations and parties, comparative politics, elections, public opinion and voting behaviour.


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Implications of L’affaire Ahok, or, How Indonesian Democracy Dies

Jeremy Menchik Fredrick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, USA

[email protected]

For much of the 2000s, scholars and activists lauded Indonesia’s surprisingly successful transition to democracy. Unlike Yugoslavia’s disintegrating into smaller ethno-nationalist states, Indonesia witnessed the political marginalization of the military, the moderation of Islamists, the resolution of some regional rebellions, and the resurgence of a vibrant, plural, civil society. Recent years, however, have made imperfections in Indonesian democracy visible to the point where the death of Indonesian democracy is imaginable if not yet underway. This paper outlines the role that Indonesian Islamic civil society, specifically Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), may play in the death of Indonesian democracy. Drawing on original survey data and interviews, as well as four case studies in which the preferences of NU leaders have become visible, the paper argues that NU’s values are compatible with both democracy and authoritarianism. While NU exemplifies the civic associational ties and democratic culture that are necessary for making democracy work, civic pluralism is not NU’s only value. NU has a hierarchy of values that it promotes and defends, and NU is willing to forgo civic pluralism in order to defend against the blasphemy of Islam. As a result, if Indonesian democracy dies, it will likely be a result of a coalition of Islamists and autocrats using appeals to populism and the defense of Islam in order to capture the lower classes and moderate Muslims, including many members of NU. Jeremy Menchik is Assistant Professor in the Fredrick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and faculty affiliate in Political Science and Religious Studies. His teaching and research focus on comparative politics and the politics of religion. His first book, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explains the meaning of tolerance to the world’s largest Islamic organizations and was the winner of the 2017 International Studies Association award for the best book on religion and international relations. His research has appeared in the academic journals Comparative Studies in Society and History, Comparative Politics, and South East Asia Research as well as in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and elsewhere.


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Civic Islam: “Big Tent” Organizations and Political Consensus Making

Gustav Brown Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Robert Hefner defines civil Islam as a civil pluralist tradition within Indonesian Islam, and describes the role it played in the dénouement of the New Order, emergence of democracy, and maintenance of religious pluralism in Indonesia. Though not limited to civil society, this civil Islamic perspective emerged from within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, civic organizations that are routinely characterized (and characterize themselves) as embodying values of civic engagement, political moderation, and tolerance. Yet recent events — including a successful campaign against Jakarta’s Christian governor, enacted with the support of key figures within both organizations — have cast doubt on these framings. Both organizations, moreover, are deeply divided between progressive and conservative factions, the latter of which are ambivalent on — and sometimes hostile to — notions of pluralism. Thus it is questionable whether, today, either organization embodies the civil pluralist ethos. In this paper, however, I argue that NU and Muhammadiyah embody a different but equally consequential form of civil Islam, one defined less by ideological commitment to civic pluralism and more by their functionality as “big tent” Muslim organizations that are unique positioned to act as consensus makers at moments of political impasse. Drawing on two cases of political contention (over a controversial anti-pornography bill and an equally controversial bill to ban the minority Ahmadiyah sect), I argue that NU and Muhammadiyah engage in consensus making, first and foremost, to preserve balance and consensus among their own internal divisions. As this requires concessions to both those who seek to preserve religious pluralism and those who challenge it, the result is less a defense of pluralism than a structured renegotiation of its limits. In both cases under examination, consensus making both reaffirmed the primacy of pluralism at the level of the state, while legitimating expansive challenges to it at the regional and local levels. Gustav Brown is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Dr Brown holds a PhD and MA in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as an MA in International Studies from the University of Washington. His research examines the intersection of democratization, decentralization and Islamization in Indonesia — at the level of the state, in regional politics and in everyday life; the institutional roots of ethnic and religious conflict; and cooperation between religious NGOs in the field of development.


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Muslim Women in Contemporary Indonesia: Narratives behind the Women Ulama Congress

Eva F. Nisa School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies,

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand [email protected]

Recently, Indonesian Muslim women successfully convened the Muslim world’s first Congress of Women Ulama. The resulting euphoria has continued for months after the congress. Scholars have described the congress as a historic moment in the development of the Muslim women’s movement in Indonesia. This is only one segment of the story of Indonesian Muslim women. There are much more narratives regarding Indonesian Muslim women and their diverse agenda. The presence of women in varied movements upholding moderate, liberal and puritan understandings of Islam has added to the complexities. A careful and nuanced analysis needs to be conducted to understand how Indonesian Muslim women define and redefine their lives. This paper will analyse modes of expressions and the public experiences of Indonesian Muslim women living in today’s Indonesia. It argues that Indonesian Muslim women are active participants in celebrating the pluralism in religious expressions. They are important agents in the discussion of plurality within Islam. The agency of these women is evident in the way they negotiate their presence in the Indonesian public sphere and amidst the plurality of Islamic and Islamist actors. The diversity of women’s experiences can be seen from the various trajectories of their quest for gender justice. Eva F. Nisa is a lecturer of Religious Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Nisa received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology, Australian National University. She completed her Master’s degree at Universiteit Leiden (the Netherlands). Previously, she had completed her Bachelor’s degree majoring in Islamic studies, at the Faculty of Theology, Al-Azhar University (Egypt). Her research currently focuses on social media and da’wa (proselytisation) and diverse types of Muslim marriages, including mut’a (temporary) marriages, unregistered marriage, online siri (secret) marriage, and online Shari’a-compliant matchmaking platforms. Her other research interests are women in Salafi and Tablighi Jama’at movement, da’wa and literature, face-veiled women and Muslim activism, Muslim youth, Muslim fashion, migrant domestic workers, Muslim refugees and philanthropy, and halal business.


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Philanthropy, Islam and Inclusivity in Contemporary Indonesia

Amelia Fauzia Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Many studies on the third sector argue that philanthropy is an indicator of civil society and a form of social capital to democracy. Philanthropy is evidence of a passion for humanity, concern for the poor and needy, as well as efforts for the betterment of society. However, both political activism and religion challenge to what extent religious philanthropy provides strength as well as weakness to the contribution of civility. In Indonesia, Islamic philanthropy is a field that is both increasingly crowded and increasingly political, with progressive, moderate, and conservative organizations each offering contrasting views of Islamic philanthropy’s mission. In this paper, I analyze responses and activities of Islamic philanthropy organizations since 2000, especially in two cases where philanthropic activities have been influenced by politics and religious sentiments: the “212” movement against the Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, and humanitarian efforts to aid the at-risk Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Politics and religious sentiments challenge philanthropy’s values of humanitarianism, neutrality and inclusiveness. The two cases have offered rich views of how philanthropic organizations have dealt with politics and the question of the ummah (the Muslim community), as to whether they should prioritize for the ummah or for humanity. The article analyzes the value of inclusivity of Islamic philanthropy organizations, in the framework of Hefner’s model of “Civil Islam.” My article shows that even though Islamic philanthropy organizations have the potential for a conservative as well as a progressive direction, they continue to have a strong basis for values of humanitarianism and inclusiveness, and trying to avoid direct politics. I argue that the state has an indirect (shadow) power to enhance the civility and inclusivity within civil society organizations. The same way as civil society has power to challenge and change the state. Indonesian philanthropic activities is a site of contestation, which shows a balanced relationship between the state and Muslim civil society. I also argue that the Islamic philanthropy sector has strong potential to endorse civil Islam as a set of core values, as it provides a universal and inclusive, common platform that is also strongly rooted in religion and in philanthropy. Amelia Fauzia is a Senior Research Fellow in the Religion and Globalisation Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Dr Fauzia received her PhD from the University of Melbourne (2009), looking at contestation between state and Muslim civil society in the practice of Islamic philanthropy. Her dissertation was published by EJ Brill entitles Faith and the State, A History of Islamic Philanthropy in Indonesia (2013). She holds a Master in Islamic Studies from the University of Leiden (1998) on Islam and Javanese messianic movements of the 19th-20th century Java. She has taught and conducted research related to Islamic history of Indonesia, contemporary issues of Islam in Indonesia, and Islamic philanthropy. Dr Fauzia works on Islam, NGOs, and humanitarianism through the networks of Islamic philanthropy in Southeast Asia.


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From Civil Islam to Conservative Turn: Transformation and Contestation of Religiosity in Indonesia

Ahmad Najib Burhani Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Indonesia &

ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore [email protected]

This paper intends to study the contestation and transformation of religiosity in Indonesia since the 1990s to the present day. It will evaluate four works from four influential scholars: Wiliam Liddle, Robert Hefner, Martin van Bruinessen, and Jeremy Menchik. In analyzing continuity and and change of Islam, this paper classifies the works of those scholars on contemporary development of Islam into four categories: conservative-turn’s; civil Islam’s group, the group of “Indonesian Wasathiyya Islam is too big to fail”; and illiberal democratic’s group. This article intends to see the place of Hefner’s Civil Islam in the contemporary works on Indonesian Islam; to test whether Hefner’s thesis on civil Islam is still valid in the current context of Indonesia; and to speculate the future of religiosity after the Aksi Bela Islam (Defending Islam Action) in 2016. Ahmad Najib Burhani is Senior Researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta and visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. He received his PhD in Religious Studies from the University of California-Santa Barbara, USA. During the last year of his study, he won the Professor Charles Wendell Memorial Award from UCSB for the academic achievement in the field of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. His academic interests include religious minorities in Islam, urban piety and ufism, and religious movements in Southeast Asia.


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The Rise of Un-civil Islamic Movement as a Challenge to the Indonesian Democracy

Prashant Waikar S. Rajarantnam School of International Studies (RSIS),

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore [email protected]

Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman S. Rajarantnam School of International Studies (RSIS),

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore [email protected]

The protests against former Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in late-2016 and early-2017 for having allegedly blasphemed Islam has generated renewed interest in civil and political Islam in Indonesia. What began as a seemingly innocuous movement led by fringe Islamist groups calling for legal action to be taken against Ahok quickly gained significant traction across mainstream Indonesian society. The size and ferocity of the ensuing demonstration in central Jakarta on 4 November 2016 and 2 December 2016 (Aksi 212 or “212 Action”) – similar protests occurred across the country as well – triggered a groundswell anti-Ahok sentiment in Indonesia rooted in puritanical Islam. The role of these un-civil Islamic movements utilizing the democratic space in driving the anti-Ahok movement has raised questions over how un-civil Islamic movements fit within Indonesian democracy. Conceptually, this case study informs literature discussing the relationship between un-democratic non-state actors and democracy. The normative expectation of a democratic system is that it will allow plurality while negating the tendency towards violent discord, whether physical or non-physical. Violence towards various groups regularly adopts a symbolic dimension – most often reflected through language. Here, the paradox of a democratic system reveals itself. The very space that enables – and indeed enshrines – the right for groups across the political spectrum to voice themselves necessarily permits those who would adopt linguistic violence to exist legitimately as well. In this context, the space for undemocratic forces to use symbolic violence can proceed legitimately. This systemically enabled Islamic groups to carry anti-Chinese and anti-Christian campaigns using charges of blasphemy. Here, if the notion of civil Islam is defined as the construction of civil society groups that operate and promote democratic norms, values, and beliefs – but do so with an Islamic orientation – then groups which use symbolic violence reflect the unravelling of their ostensible civility. Prashant Waikar is a research analyst with the Malaysia Programme at the S. Rajarantnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). His research interests include Islamophobia, religio-political discourse, racial and religious identity politics, and the application of discourse analysis. Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman is an Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. His research interests include the domestic and international politics of Southeast and South Asian countries and transnational Islamic political movements such as the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and the Gulen movement in Southeast Asia. Nawab has written various papers, books and journal articles relating to his research interests. Some of these articles have been featured in prominent journals such as Southeast Asia Research, South Asia, Contemporary Islam, Indonesia and the Malay World and Contemporary Southeast Asia.


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ABOUT THE CHAIRPERSONS & ORGANISERS

Deasy R. P. Simandjuntak is a political anthropologist and Visiting Fellow at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute. Her main research interests are patronage democracy, identity politics and local politics in Indonesia. She completed her PhD in 2010 from the University of Amsterdam, with a dissertation on “patronage democracy in Indonesia”. Prior to ISEAS, she was post-doctoral fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) Leiden and Van Vollenhoven Institute at University of Leiden in 2009-2014 and guest fellow at University of Freiburg, Germany, in 2011. She was lecturer at International Relations Department of University of Indonesia in 2006. Some of her most important publications are “Gifts and Promises: Patronage Democracy in a Decentralized Indonesia” in European Journal of East Asian Studies 2012, and “Milk-Coffee at 10 AM: Encountering the State through Pilkada in North Sumatra” in Van Klinken and Barker (eds) State of Authority: The State in Society in Indonesia, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publication, 2009. Her most recent publication is “Doing Anthropological Fieldwork with Southeast Asian Characteristics? Identity and Adaptation in the Field” (with Michaela Haug), in Huotari, Rüland, Schlehe (eds) Methodology and Research Practice in Southeast Asian Studies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2014. Kenneth Dean is Raffles Professor of Humanities and Head of the Chinese Studies Department, National University of Singapore, and Professor Emeritus, McGill University. He is the Religion and Globalization Research Cluster Leader, Asia Research Institute, NUS. Dean is the author of several books on Daoism and Chinese popular religion, including Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plains: Vol. 1: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods, Vol. 2: A Survey of Village Temples and Ritual Activities, Leiden: Brill, 2010 (with Zheng Zhenman); Epigraphical Materials on the History of Religion in Fujian: The Quanzhou Region, 3 vols., Fuzhou: 2004 (with Zheng Zhenman); Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China, Princeton: 1998; Epigraphical Materials on the History of Religion in Fujian: The Xinghua Region; Fuzhou 1995 (with Zheng Zhenman); Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China, Princeton 1993; and First and Last Emperors: The Absolute State and the Body of the Despot (with Brian Massumi), Autonomedia, New York. 1992. He directed Bored in Heaven: A Film about Ritual Sensation (2010), an 80-minute documentary film on ritual celebrations around Chinese New Years in Putian, Fujian, China. His current project is the construction of an interactive, multi-media database linked to a historical GIS map of the religious sites and networks of Singapore. His most recent publication (with Hue Guan Thye) is entitled Chinese Epigraphy in Singapore: 1819-1911 (2 vols.), Singapore: NUS Press, 2017. Nurfadzilah Yahaya is a legal historian of the Indian Ocean. She is currently Assistant Professor at the History Department, National University of Singapore (NUS). She was a Research Fellow at Asia Research Institute till June 2016, NUS. She is the Editor of the World Legal History Blog on Humanities and Social Sciences Online (H-net). She received her PhD in History from Princeton University in 2012, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Studies in Washington University in St. Louis till June 2015. Her book, currently under preparation and tentatively titled Fluid Jurisdictions, explores how members of the Arab diaspora utilized Islamic law in British and Dutch colonial courts of Southeast Asia. In her next project, she will explore colonial regulation of Islamic religious slaughter during the twentieth century. She has published journal articles in Law and History Review, Indonesia and the Malay World, and The Muslim World.
https://networks.h-net.org/node/16794/blog/World%20Legal%20History%20Blog

civil islam revisited - asia research institute, nus · 2019. 3. 18. · philanthropy, islam and...

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