The good, the bad and the hopeful - reflecting on Indonesia

I was asked to lead a session on occupational health and safety to women trade unionists in Bogor. A veiled engineer in charge of a major power plant in Java asked me about the problems of noise and electromagnetic radiation and an equally veiled air traffic controller asked me about excessive aircraft noise in the tower at Soehkarno Hatta airport. Others came from a range of manufacturing businesses, only one fitting the stereotype of a garment worker. These were feisty, professionally and technically trained women who defy the stereotypes of submissive cowed Muslim women.

Soeharto, in effect, turned Indonesia into one huge franchising operation from which he and his family profited; and continue to do so. The recent Bali Climate Carnival was held in Soeharto-owned hotels. While Sadam killed thousands and was hanged, Soeharto stole from and killed millions, and lives on. Justice is not a notable feature of Indonesia, or of American patronage.

The most public of Australian concerns focuses on Islamic influences in Indonesia. There are many estimates about the number of Muslims in Indonesia. The government would like to insist it is more than 80 per cent but that includes what are known as KTP Muslims - literally ID Card Muslims - who convert for marriage or for social convenience.

And the hopeful

The ABC Asian news services recently trumpeted that Jema’ah Islamiya had a membership of 9,000, no doubt promoting shocked outrage and “I told you so” nodding in Australian suburban lounge-rooms. What they failed to add was that in a population of 260 million, 9,000 does not represent recruitment success. Repeatedly Islamic parties do poorly in the elections. Radical Islam is less popular than Family First.

But that could change. Officials in the Ministry of Religion are beginning to acknowledge that Indonesia could soon be an Islamic state given current Western inspired wars, impoverishment of Muslim communities, ongoing judicial corruption and mismanagement of community conflicts and misdirected aid.

What is of great concern is the amount of money in the form of Zakat (alms) and Wakaf (wills and legacies) coming into Indonesia every day, on the ever increasing number of flights from other Islamic nations. Most of this money does not go though formal government channels and is thus not visible in the system on national accounts. It also goes to the poorer villages which have fallen through the system infected by corruption and ineptitude of the development agencies such as the World and Asian Development Banks.

Amrozi came from such a village. His mother - a widowed peanut farmer; his house - dirt floored and with no reticulated water. Wahabiism finds fertile soil in the powerless and bottom-dwelling poor.

Muslims have religio-financial obligations to give alms to others and where possible to bequeath land and money for the promotion of, and tributes, to Islam. In this way, huge amounts enter Indonesia from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan (yes), Morocco, Bangladesh (yes) and the Philippines. That the latter two, plus Sudan, are themselves poor and themselves targets of development assistance should not go unnoticed, nor should the political and ideological affiliations of each contributor.

Saudi Arabia in particular promulgates the puritan form of Islam known as Wahabiism. Increasingly nations such as Egypt are proponents of Ibn Qtub, the anarcho-Islamicist whose spitfire word inspire the murderous Algerian groups.

Australia’s front line defence has been a blindingly successful long term aid project that seeks to improve Islamic schools. At this point I have to declare interest and say that in 2004 I was part of the evaluation team which found that virtually all the project components were incredibly successful. Students opened and managed libraries where none existed before, parents were involved in fund raising for schools, students were getting scholarships: the secret was that few Australians were involved, the being project largely managed and run by Muslim Indonesians.

However the Bali and Embassy bombings hardened Australian hearts and honed, to a vicious point, official reaction to aid for Islamic programs. It felt like collective punishment. The ignorant media fed this anti Islamic feeling by calling Amrozi the "Smiling Assassin" - ignorant of the cultural norms that make Indonesians respond to anxiety, death, injury, shame and guilt by smiling.

Australian SWAT-like auditors found a Muslim member of the team had downloaded porn. Rather than seeing this is a sign of humanity and an indicator of success, they turned into a swarm of paternalistic Grundys slapping restrictions on computers, installing nanny programs and sacking the well known local consultant. Fundamentalism indeed.