Islamic challenge to Indonesia’s democracy

At an individual level, personal decisions are surrendered to the collective: All women must don the headscarf and embrace segregation. Men are forbidden gold, silk, cigarettes and alcohol.

PKS leaders, aware that their imported ideology goes against the grain of Indonesia’s traditionally open and inclusive ethos, downplay their pedigree by emphasising their anti-corruption credentials. Nonetheless, the party’s claims of moderation are belied by its record.

It has been full-throated in support for Jemaah Islamiyah kingpin Abu Bakar Bashir, who spent 26 months in jail for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings. It consistently backs sharia values over human rights, supporting the persecution of the Ahmadiyya and stoutly opposing attempts to have sharia-inspired bylaws declared unconstitutional. It displays a self-conscious attachment to pan-Islamic causes from Palestine to the southern Philippines.

In Indonesia, the PKS project sends a disquieting signal to religious minorities, non-conformist women, and secular and heterodox Muslims. For the region more broadly, where economic development has long been based upon political predictability and a pro-Western outlook, it signals a period of uncertainty and flux.

Nor does the PKS need to claim formal power to diminish Indonesia’s prospects. The examples of Egypt and Pakistan, where the Islamist movement has gained social and political clout over the past 35 years without ever taking office, serve as a caution. In both countries, as in Indonesia, Islamists consistently stoke anti-Western sentiment. Scriptural certainty has gradually stifled science and the spirit of inquiry. Foreign investors shy away from long-term commitments, especially in manufacturing. Non-Muslims live circumscribed and, at times perilous, lives. Terrorism and periodic outbreaks of religious violence are facts of life, and the state’s response is often ineffectual.

The crux of the problem lies in Islamism’s incompatibility with modernity.

In the PKS version of women’s rights, for instance, the decision whether or not to wear the headscarf is made by society or the state rather than the individual. Similarly, when it comes to minorities, the party ideology replaces the modern ideal of equality for all with the medieval concept of de facto second-class status as “protected peoples.” And though the party, packed with engineers and doctors, cultivates a technology-savvy image, its ethos is in fact antithetical to scientific advancement.

PKS cadres show not the slightest scepticism toward the unverifiable claims of religion. They overwhelmingly reject the theory of evolution in favour of the crackpot creationism espoused by the Turkish pamphleteer Harun Yahya.

In economics, though the party leadership makes the right noises about free markets, the rank and file is overwhelmingly suspicious of the largely non-Muslim ethnic Chinese business community. In foreign policy, the rise of PKS signals a shift of focus from South-East Asia toward largely symbolic pan-Islamic concerns. The early signs are already visible in high profile visits to Jakarta by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and the use of Indonesia’s place on the UN Security Council to water down criticism of Iran’s rogue nuclear program.

The jury is still out on whether Indonesia will evolve into a benign liberal democracy or an Islamist-dominated state that permits elections but suppresses individual rights, whether it will regain its focus on the economic betterment of its people or dissipate its energies on the emotive politics of pan-Islamism, whether it will emulate manufacturing-driven Vietnam or commodities-dependent Nigeria.

Unlike most Muslim-majority nations, Indonesia can draw on the strengths of a non-sectarian constitution, a secular elite, an essentially open-minded population and examples of successful multicultural neighbours such as Singapore and Australia. Unfortunately, as recent history shows, these may not be enough to blunt the rise of a shrewd and disciplined movement determined to remake the nation in its image.