Religious Response to Globalization:

The Rise of Indonesian Islamist Movement on Social Media

Khalimatu Nisa 18/435016/PMU/09527

Over the last few years, the phenomenon of religious purification, mainly in Islam –

which produced some kind of Islamist movements, is globalized. This also happens in

Indonesia, which causes a number of mental habits to emerge such as exclusivism, phobia of

something, conspiracy, movements of defending something and nostalgia for something that

imagined pure and fundamental. No doubt, fundamentalisms are shaping politics around the

world.

Along with the rapid advances in technology in the last few decades, the issue of

fundamentalism is now emerging and can be clearly seen in its tracks on social media. It is

interesting because there seems to be a relationship between religion and globalization. This

paper wants to see how the issue of fundamentalism can use new media as a phenomenon of

globalization. What is their response to globalization on the one hand and how they use it to

support their movements on the other side? This article will highlight the Islamic activism of

Muslim influencers on Instagram in disseminating their fundamental ideas.

Spirit of Fundamentalism in the Globalized World

Historically, the term “fundamentalism” has older history rather than “globalization”

which is a relative neologism. Fundamentalism can simply understood as a mean to bring the

notion to come back to the things or values which are believed or understood as the basic or

foundation. However, fundamentalism is closely related to the phenomenon of globalization.

According to Peter Beyer, religious movements that have been labelled fundamentalisms over

the past few decades are the sort of critical events that, for many, signaled the need to speak

about broader social world in new terms; “globalization” has become the term of choice in this

regard. (1994: 269)

 According to Kepel (1994) as quoted by Beyer, fundamentalism is not limited to the

sort of national, state-centered political-political movement, but includes any "strong" religion,

any religious movement that is as strong as "strong communal" boundaries against the

perceived "other", the "secular" world. (1994: 283) Still referring to Beyer, fundamentalism

refers to a particular kind of religious and usually also political movement. Fundamentalism

generally understood as reactions against the homogenizing and generally “secularizing” forces

of (economic) globalization, different but analogous to other anti-(or alternative) globalization

movements. (1994:269)

From this point it appears that the fundamentalist movement sees globalization as a

process of homogenization that they want to oppose. To understand this concept of

homogeneity we can refer to Huntington (1997:36) who clearly distinguished the world by

"Western-one" and "non-Western many" dichotomy. It means that Huntington assumed that in

the post-Cold War, there was a distinction among people which were not ideological, political,

or economic, but cultural. In that period, the terms "West" and "East" started to emerge. The

"West" refers to states like Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Germany and the United

States and others within Western civilization. The "East" is considered the rest of the "West".

According to Huntington why were they called as "one" and "many" is because the western

countries have a similarity on their dominant civilization so they are considered as one. On the

other hand, the non-western countries have more multicultural and "multicivilizational" to call

them as "many".

The clash of civilizations that made the West dominant was a concern for

fundamentalists. They are concerned about how the spread of Western-style values such as

secularism and neo-liberalism can become universal values that apply worldwide. This

judgement, which has become the fundamentalist framework, is exactly what Amartya Sen

(2002:A4) criticized that to see Western imperialism globalization as merely a suggestion of a

serious and costly error, in the same way that any European resistance to Eastern influence

would have been at the beginning of the last millennium. He argues that there are issues related

to globalization that do connect with imperialism (the history of conquest, colonialism and

alien rule today, in many ways) and a post-colonial understanding of the world has its merits.

But for him it would be a great mistake to see globalization primarily as a feature of

imperialism. It is much bigger and much greater than that, it is about global interdependences.

However, as Huntington’s thesis, the stress on and even anxiety about difference are

experienced by the “civilizations” that mostly have a presumed “religious” basis (Confucian,

Western Christian, Eastern Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and so on): what opposes

economic neo-liberalism (McWorld) is based in religion (jihad). On the other hand, this

fundamentalist or ”strong” religion, according to Beyer, is not necessarily a way of being “un-

modern”, of rejecting the modern globalized world and its strong secularity. Instead as is the

case with the vast majority of “communal” or even sectarian religious movements that in this

view would fall under the title of fundamentalism, they are ways of participating in this world

quite on a par with any other more clearly no-religious ones. Here, fundamentalism respond to

globalization in two ways. First it refuse the secularism perspective which is spread by

globalization but on the other hand it also adopt the idea of connectedness among countries

bring by globalization movement.

The fundamentalists are utilizing the phenomenon of globalization, primarily on

technological and communication developments aspects to spread their ideas. In Indonesia, the

development of media use among fundamentalists can be traced since the reform era until now

they have penetrated on Instagram and have a significant influence on the younger generation.

Islamist Movement on Social Media: Indonesian Context

The reformation era that took place in Indonesia after the end of Suharto's regime

became an important entry point for the emergence of fundamentalism to grow. The change in
the political system from centralistic to decentralized opened new spaces of participation for

all elements of society. This change was able to encourage the emergence of various parties,

non-governmental organizations, mass organizations, and so on. A number of fundamentalist

groups also took this opportunity to show their existence. Some of them are parties and mass

organizations based on fundamental Islam which was later referred as Islamist groups for

example Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (Prosperous Justice Party) and Front Pembela Islam (Islamic

Defenders Front).

According to David G. Green (2003:x), Islamism is the exact opposite of Western

liberal-democracy. It is a brand of totalitarianism rooted in a sacred text—the very idea rejected

in the seventeenth century after long years of bloodshed Islamism, supports the idea of making

understanding of religion (Islam) in the form of a country's order, namely an Islamic state.

Islamic groups idolized Islam at the time of the prophet Muhammad in Medina and they sought

to restore the practice of Islam in the present to return to the practice of Islam at the time of the

prophet, fourteen centuries ago. The main agenda of Islamism is to establish an Islamic state

order and mobilize Muslims in order to build a totalitarian order called Islamic nizam.

On the other hand, Bassam (2012:30) differentiate clearly between Islam and Islamism.

According to him, Islamism is about political order, not faith. Nonetheless, Islamism is not

mere politics but religionized politics. He that Islamism as a powerful instance of the global

phenomenon of religious fundamentalism. The notion of “religionized politics” means the

promotion of a political order that is believed to emanate from the will of Allah and is not based

on popular sovereignty.

In addition to the emergence of a number of parties and mass organizations, after the

reformation, the Islamist movement also started to penetrate the world of media, especially

online media. The beginning of the emergence of Islamic media in Indonesia in the early 20th
century was marked by the inclusion of Islamic reformation ideas from Egypt. The need for

Islamic media emerged, among others, to facilitate and disseminate the discussion of current

thinking. (Irawanto, 2006: 300) Interestingly, at the beginning of the emergence of Islam-

oriented online media in Indonesia, Islamist media actually more dominated. Islamist groups

appear to be more observant about the prospects of online media that are very strategic for the

spread of their ideology. Not surprisingly that from the beginning, a number of Islamist media

were not designed as business entities, but merely an extension of the "idealism" from the

management.

After the print-media phase (era media cetak), at the beginning of the second

millennium, many of Islamist medias used website as the platforms, including those that were

quite well-known and straightforward in articulating their fundamental ideology: www.ar-

rahmah.com, www.nahimungkar.org, and www.voa-islam.com. A decade later, when social

media became increasingly popular, many Islamist accounts appeared and actively campaigned

their ideas. Later, with the popularity of Instagram, a number of Islamist figures emerged and

actively disseminated fundamentalist ideas by self-branding. If the previous Islamist websites

did not target significant age of groups, Islamist accounts on social media mainly aimed to

attract followers of young people or millennials. The majority of the owners of this account are

former campus fundamentalist-activists.

One important phenomenon not to be forgotten after reformation era was the

widespread of the Islamic fundamentalism idea on various campuses in Indonesia. This

phenomenon, according to Azra, et al (2015:428) was the effect of globalization where Wahabi

ideas spread to various parts of the world. The development of technology due to globalization

has facilitated the mobility of people and facilitated massive availability of information, so that

an understanding and ideology can develop quickly and widely.

The Rise Indonesia’s Islamist Moslem Influencer in Instagram

Instagram became one of the most popular social media platforms. According to survey

results by WeAreSocial.net and Hootsuite in January 2018 quoted from katadata.co.id,

Instagram is a social media platform with the number of users in the seventh rank in the world.

In January 2018, the total number of Instagram users in the world reached 800 million in total.

Indonesia is in the third rank of the largest number of instagram active users after the United

States and Brazil with 53 million users.

Instagram is popular because it allows users to share and enjoy interesting visual

contents. The increase of Instagram users makes some kind of creativities began to appear to

make the content as attractive as possible. The more interesting, creative, or even controversial

the content presented, it will gain more followers. The number of followers is finally

encouraging the emergence of influencers in Instagram. Influencers are instagram users who

have an established credibility and audience, who can persuade others by vitue of their

thrustworthiness and authenticity.

Unlike the artists on the screen, the influencers on Instagram have more affinity with

their followers. This is because they display daily activities that can not be touched in TV. Not

infrequently, these influencers also directly interact through the comments with their followers

or live streaming.

With hundreds of thousands or even millions of loyal followers, big companies began

to use the influencers to promote their products. The endorsement business driven by

influencers becomes a lucrative business field. In addition to business, political and Islamic

discourse was also played by these influencers. Anies Baswedan and Ridwan Kamil are

examples of young politicians with millions of followers who can use Instagram as a vehicle

for image formation as well as self-campaign.

 Instagram can be space for influencers to spread Islamic discourse that they believe.

There are a number of Moslem influencers who concentrate on carrying Islamic discourse in

its content with the number of followers from thousand hundreds to millions. Some of them

are the ustadz / ustadzah who have been popular on the screen before such as Oki Setiana Dewi,

Yusuf Mansur, Abdul Somad, Felix Siauw, and Khalid Basalamah with millions number of

followers to new faces popularized by instagram and relatively younger as the couple

Muzammil and Sonia Aristanti, Hawariyyun, Taqy Malik, Syakir Daulay, Hanan Ataki and

Fuadbakh who all had followers over five hundred thousand.

This article will focus on two accounts @felixsiauw and @hawaariyyun. The

@felixsiauw account is managed by Felix Siauw which at January 2019 has been followed by

2.9 million followers. Felix Siauw himself can be said as a quite senior preacher in the field of

Islamic da'wah. He has carried out the preaching full-time since 2012. Felix Siauw studied

Islam from his colleagues affiliated with Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) at Bogor Agricultural

Institute, West Java. Felix Siauw is very concerned about preaching to the younger generation

by publishing a number of visual books such as "Yuk Berhijab", "Udah Putusin Aja", and "Art

of Da'wah" as well as posting photos or da'wah videos via Instagram and other social media

accounts. As a cadre of HTI, Felix Siauw did not hesitate to promote the ideology of HTI, such

as the establishment of the trans-national Islamic Caliphate, rejection of democracy,

nationalism, capitalism and secularism.

Compared to @felixsiauw, @hawaariyyun is a relatively new account. Managed by a

young man named Hawaariyyun, this account has attracted 600 thousand followers since 2017.

From his activities, it can be seen that Hawaariyyun is a disciple of Felix Siauw who often

carries out a number of joint activities, like joining the #YukNgaji community, #HijrahFest, to

being in a team making Islamic cartoons called Nussa Official. In contrast to Felix Siauw, who

has been famous as a preacher, Hawaariyyun is better known as a creative content creator. He
has the characteristic of uploading one minute short videos in each post. In the video he usually

discuss a popular issue with the typical millennial style. Unlike Felix Siauw who tends to

convey his fundamental thoughts subtly, Hawaariyyun does not hesitate to show his argument

against something frontally. He also did not hesitate to speak directly against other creators or

influencers who have different opinion with him and were considered as liberal or secular.

As explained earlier that the global and domestic context of Indonesia is now very

possible for the emergence of fundamentalists, through these two accounts we can see how

both of them take advantage of these opportunities to spread their ideologies massively and

structurally. There are some points that should be underlined from @felixsiauw and

@hawaariyyun accounts regarding how they used this momentum to expand the reach of their

da'wah. First, these two accounts targeted clear groups. Observing from the content they

produce, these two accounts target millennial generation as the object of their da'wah. In a

interview video uploaded by Hawariyyun, Felix Siauw clearly said that he was very happy that

there was an account that appeared (@hawaariyyun) and then discussed about Islam, especially

conducted by young people. According to the Koran, Felix said that God promised to provide

extra guidance or hidayah ekstra for young people. Both of these accounts see the magnitude

of youth's interest in the media as an interesting niche to explore as a field of preaching.

In addition to having a clear target for da'wah, the second interesting thing is that they

connect with each other. From their activities recorded on the Instagram, it appears that in

disseminating Islamic ideas they are not alone, but joining in a network and supporting each

other. The function of this network besides being a support system for each other also

organizing them in responding to a problem. Based on observations, the @felixsiauw and

@hawaariyyun Instagram accounts are in a relationship circle with a number of other similar

accounts namely @shifrunn, @hanan_attaki, @yukngajiid community, @pemudahijrah

community, @ustadzsalimafillah, @hussainassadi, @fuadbakh, and many more. In response

to a number of cases, some accounts seem to reinforce each other's arguments.

On December 28, 2018, @hawaariyyun uploaded a video containing the response to

the video blog (vlog) of a couple of youtuber named Gita Savitri Devi and Paul Partohap. In

the video Gita said that she did not feel the need to be shown the mistakes or flaws of other

religions to believe in Islam because she thinks it was a foolish act. Gita argues that every

religion has its own theology so finding fault of one another will only lead to an endless debate.

Agreeing to Gita's statement, Paul said that "all religions are good." Hawaariyyun, through his

short video, criticized Gita and Paul arguments by saying that when an ulama pointed out the

errors of other religions it was evidence that Islam was the most correct religion. Not long after,

the @shifrunn account also uploaded a similar video saying that if people consider every

religion as good, why still choose Islam that has complex and tiring rituals and not choose

another religion that is more simple in worship? These two videos then flooded by comments

and prompted @hawaariyyun and @shifrunn followers to bully Gita and Paul. This kind of

“voicing the same argument toward something” also occurs in the context of rejecting anti-

polygamy ideas promoted by the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), supporting judo athletes

who refuse to compete in the Asian Para Games without headscarves, supporting Uighur

Muslims, Aksi Bela Tauhid, 212 reunion, and many more.

The third interesting point to be highlighted from these two Islamist influencer accounts

is related to issues they concern. Based on observations of their posts in the past six months

there appeared to be a number of concentrations of issues they were focusing on. In the political

context, although for now they do not openly campaign for the establishment of the caliphate,

these two accounts still call for a change in the system of government by using the Islamic

system. Towards the political year, Felix Siauw called for choosing leaders based on their

religion. @felixsiauw and @hawaariyyun also have a high concentration on the lifestyle of
young people. They often criticize western culture which is considered liberal and secular.

They repeatedly called for an invitation to hijrah and anti-pacaran. To these young people they

want to emphasize the importance of maintaining faith. On the other hand, discussions about

women also often became their favorite topic where they often called for invitations to wear

hijab for women and strongly opposed feminist thinking especially those who criticized the

practice of polygamy.

Both of these accounts are quite responsive in responding to issues that are widely

discussed on social media lately. For example the issue of the Islam Nusantara that they reject

firmly and declare the prohibition of saying merry Christmas. Compared to @hawaariyyun,

@felixsiauw account was more political. For example, he uploaded several videos of his

support for the tauhid sentence which was questioned by certain organizations and also

supported the 212 reunion. Those two phenomenon (“aksi 212” and “aksi bela tauhid”) by

some observers were often regarded as a sign of rising populism in Indonesia. Unlike in the

West, populism in Indonesia is not characterized by nationalism, anti-foreign or anti-Islamic

rhetoric but rather the rise of Islamic radicalism. David Hall called this phenomenon of

populism as “The Great Moving Right Show”, referring to the emergence of Thatcherism in

Britain as a new political power. According to Hall, the "right" political power that has been

able to create its popular appeal cannot be underestimated. Another example of populism that

effectively changes political maps also occurs in the United States. John Fea in his essay on

evangelical fear explained how Trump could surpraisingly win the election through the support

of evangelical groups who became populist right groups in the US. Reflecting on these two

articles, in the Indonesian context, the emergence of fundamentalist social media accounts here

can be seen as a mark of how Islamic populism is now developing in Indonesia.

Conclusion

Based on the explanation above it can be seen that the rise of fundamentalism in

Indonesia affected by several factors. Domestic political context which open a wide space for

democracy and political participation encourage the rise of many political interests including

fundamentalism. Fundamentalism which appears in the form of Islamist movements in

Indonesia response to globalization in two ways: they take the advantage of the development

of technology and information brought by globalization to attack the “global value” itself, for

example: secularism, liberalism, and nationalism. They also use populist strategies to spread

their ideology which can be seen clearly in the instagram account of @felixsiauw and

@hawaariyyun.

References:

Azra, Azyumardi, et all. 2015. Sejarah Kebudayaan Islam Indonesia: Institusi dan

Gerakan Jilid III. Jakarta: Direktorat Sejarah dan Nilai Budaya Direktorat Jenderal

Kebudayaan, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.

Beyer, Peter. 1994. Religion out of Place? The Globalizatuon of Fundamentalism on

The Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies. Bryan S. Turner (ed).

Fea, John. 2018. Evangelical Fear Elected Trump. Taken from www.theatlantic.com.

Hall, Stuart. 1979. The Great Moving Right Show. Marxism Today.

Huntington, Samuel P. 1997. The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World

Order. New York: Touchstone.

Irawanto, Budi. 2006. Transformasi Pers Islam di Era Reformasi, dalam Jurnal Ilmu

Sosial dan Politik Volume 9, No. 3, Maret 2006, halaman 300.

Sen, Amartya. 2002. How to Judge Globalism. The American Prospect: Pro-Quest.

Tibi, Bassam. “Islamism and the Political Order.” Islamism and Islam, Yale University

Press, New Haven; London, 2012, pp. 31–53. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npxq0.6.