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Christopher Wijaya Tan

Professor Jason Peters

ENG 133

20 March 2018

Changing Public Epistemology

Indonesia has always been known as a beautiful country made up of thousands of islands,

with its most famous island called Bali, and its richness in spice. Behind this beauty is the vile

overshadow of Indonesian politics that is corrupt and unjust. Indonesia is the world’s largest

Muslim-majority country that governs the majority of people’s day to day activities.

The thought of Islamic Politics in Indonesia has various epistemology, either being viewed

from political parties and its politicians or the public, who are both Muslim and non-Muslim.

Islamic political parties and organizations have always won votes and the public’s support. They

have capitalized upon economic grievances and religion, as the role of Islamic party ideology has

been used on economic appeals so that uncertain voters can oversee the parties’ economic policies

and just recognize the parties’ religiosity ties. This is the religion influenced politics that Indonesia

is currently facing.

Religion and Politics in Indonesia

Indonesia has a current population of 265 million people and 89% of them is a Muslim,

predominantly Sunni which was originally founded by Imam Syafii. Indonesia has a lot of political

parties such as PDIP, Golkar, Democrat, PKB, Gerindra, Nasdem, PKS, PAN, Hanura, PBB, PBR,

PPP and PMB. These parties have different ideals and visions, though not all are influenced heavily

by religion as they have their own agenda. We can see this as according to Muhammad Azhar
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(2015), in his study of the reconstruction of epistemology and thoughts of Islam politics in

Indonesia, “Partai Islam yang secara jelas mencantumkan atau memiliki idealisme keislaman dan

kaitannya dengan penegakan syariat Islam antara lain: PBB, PPP, PKS, PBR, dan PMB.” (2). This

translates to, from Indonesian to English, Islamic parties which clearly includes or has Islamic

idealism and its relation to the enforcement of Islamic Shari’ah among others are: PBB, PPP, PKS,

PBR, and PMB.

With these parties in mind, high ranking political figures are limited to what they can

address because it can be tied back to religion. According to Saiful Mujani (2004), in his study of

politics, Islam, and public opinion, said in his article “As the Times stories suggest, the behavior

of Indonesia's leading politicians is one of the main sources of confusion about the political

strength of Islamism in the country. President Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the secular

Indonesian Democracy Party of Struggle (PDI-P), rarely comments publicly on any issue, seeming

especially concerned not to polarize the country by taking stands on religious questions. Vice-

President Hamzah Haz, leader of the pro-Islamic-state United Development Party (PPP), is more

than willing to speak his mind” (2).

Why is that political parties with a clear Muslim idealism have more freedom regarding

freedom of speech while others don’t? Well it’s just that whatever they say can’t be used against

them with regard to the offence of Muslim religion.

The Influence of Indonesian Islam to Political Usage and Issues

There are advantages of using religion to disregard political issues and advantage. First is

that any major political issue against non-Muslims, they can use the religion card against them.

Second is that they can use this as an absolute and conditional advantage of support.
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An absolute advantage means that Muslim voters would always prefer an Islamic party to

a non-Islamic one. In the words said by Thomas Pepsinky (2012), where he studied, tested, and

surveyed Islam’s political advantage, “To make this idea concrete, imagine two kinds of policies

and two kinds of parties. The first policy is to increase fuel subsidies for the disadvantaged in a

country such as Indonesia, Pakistan, or Iran, where such subsidies are deeply popular. The second

policy is the opposite, a cut in fuel subsidies, which is just as unpopular as subsidies are popular.

The “absolute advantage” view is simply that an Islamic party offering either of those policies is

always more popular than a non-Islamic party offering the same policy. In this view, voters have

consistent non-instrumental motives for voting for Islamic parties” (15).

A conditional advantage, however, is dependent on the party’s economic status and

policies. When voters are to choose between two parties, Islamic and non-Islamic, that oppose

both of the voter’s preferred policy then both parties would not have any advantage but if both

parties favor a policy that a voter wanted, then the Islamic party would have an advantage. A

party’s economic status also plays a role because voters may see the success of the party

economically and that the party can also play in some unfavorable briberies to the voters, that can

be see if you were to experience it during election period in Indonesia.

A political Issue here that I would like to address is the recent blasphemy case of Basuki

Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian and a Governor and also known as Ahok, was sentence to two years

in prison and lost his re-election in April to his Muslim rival, Anies Baswedan, who is now the

current governor of Jakarta where he took over last October. Anies Baswedan was recently fired

from his job as the minister of education and culture, due to reasons of lack of responsibility and

priority to his job. With this in mind, why would the people of Jakarta elect him to be the governor.

Fast forward a bit, Jakarta was safe from the constant flooding that occurred every year through
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the efforts of Ahok and Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s current president, but now it has went back to

it’s original state where different places are beginning to experience flood again, which they had

not experienced for two to three years.

Islamic political figures ensured his arrest with their bribes to the Muslim extremist social

groups and judge that convicted Ahok. They threw a series of huge protests drew hundreds to

thousands of members to the streets of the capital city for days. He was convicted base on

blasphemy which they did not have much evidence on, but was sentenced due to, according to the

judges, “the defendant did not feel guilt, the defendant’s act has caused anxiety and hurt Muslims”

and “the defendant should be careful to not use words with negative connotations regarding the

symbols of religions, including the religion of the defendant himself”, that was recorded by Kate

Lamb from the guardian.

Public Opinion

You would probably be thinking that voters would have voted for the largest Islamist

parties, the PPP and PBB, but, according to Saiful Mujani, “in all the years only 14 percent of

voters cast their ballots for such parties”. Why is that you may ask. The answer to that question

goes back to economic power and public influence. Muslims only wants a government that can

improve their economy but that also establishes, as their priority, Islamic Law – that promotes, for

example, fasting during Ramadan and five daily prayer.

With the current modern world, the public must adopt new ideas and philosophies that they

were not once exposed too and thus public opinion changes. With the exposure to technology,

culture, and religion Indonesia is striving to be a more secular country. The minds and opinions of

the new age are not as restricted as the adults and are now more open to new ideas.
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Conclusion

Islamic ideology and messages, some would say play a central role in the rise of such

parties and power, while other say the opposite. There are many factors that play.

The values and practices of modernity that have been adopted from the west due to their

colonization of the country may play a big role because due to introduction of industrialism,

capitalism, politics, secular education, separation of religion and politics, and democracy.

Economic development in Indonesia has been slow or possibly worsened, where officials remain

in power due to repression and excessive use of religion.

Though we may have seen the overuse of religion in any political issue, the idea of power

and money of one’s own benefit may not have been considered. The greed of political figures that

just uses these issues and religion for their own personal own benefit of power and money play the

biggest role in such cases. Political figures may easily bribe high ranking figures in an Islamic

social group or an Ustad or Habib, because they have high influence to their followers as they are

regarded to be more knowledgeable.

To some extent, Islamic teachings and tradition may influence the public opinion and favor,

it does not impact a country so majorly that it would worsened economic development.
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Works Cited

Mujani, Saiful and Liddle R. “Politics, Islam, and Public Opinion.” Journal of Democracy,

vol. 15, no. 1, 2004, pp. 109–123.

Pepinsky, Thomas, et al. “Testing Islam's Political Advantage: Evidence from Indonesia.”

American Journal of Political Science, vol. 56, no. 3, July 2012, pp. 584–600.

Dewi, Kurniawati. “Religion, Politics and Gender in Indonesia: Disputing the Muslim Body.”

Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, Aug 2013, pp. 425–429.

Muhammad Azhar. “REKONSTRUKSI EPISTEMOLOGI PEMIKIRAN POLITIK ISLAM

INDONESIA KONTEMPORER.” Profetika, vol. 16, no. 1, June 2015, pp. 71–82.

Mohamad Latief. “Islam Dan Sekularisasi Politik Di Indonesia.” Tsaqafah, vol. 13, no. 1,

1 May 2017, pp. 1–24.

Lamb, Kate. 9 May 2017. “Jakarta Governor Ahok Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for

Blasphemy.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/09/jakarta-governor-ahok-found-

guilty-of-blasphemy-jailed-for-two-years