Maria Devina Sanjaya

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Not A Religious State: A Summary

Debates whether Indonesia adopted secularization or not had been going around since
early post-independence days. During that time, modern-Muslim leaders including Soekarno
chose to protect the newly-formed nation by respecting not only Muslim populations, but
Christians and other religions as well. To support his decision, Soekarno developed an ideology
called Pancasila, where it emphasized the importance of “belief to One God” but did not specify
to a certain religion. This, however, was questioned by some groups since many perceived it
as a way for the government to separate itself from the religion, thus establishing a secular
country of Indonesia. However, it is strongly denied by the founding fathers of the country,
showing that Indonesia would rather be called as nationalist where any ethnicities, religions,
and other differences should be legally protected by the constitution.

There were three prominent religion leaders who contributed to the development of
‘mild-secularism’ that Indonesia adopted. The first figure was Nicolaus Driyarkara who was a
Catholic priest. He actively involved in many educational and writing affairs. For him, a nation
should be based on the principle of collectivity where members would be encouraged to live
as a unity and respect the differences within them. Driyarkara also stressed over the role of
religion that could not be denied in human’s life. However, he once emphasized that all state
and individuals’ matters should not always be based on religious consideration. Furthermore,
the state should not have any rights in interfering one’s religious affairs, instead, government
should be tolerant to all theistic religions. He, thus, concluded that religion, instead of being an
enemy for the state, should guard the ‘secular’ Pancasila.

The second one was Mukti Ali. He was an alumna of pesantren or an Islamic boarding
school. He received strong Islamic education during his youths and later would pursue further.
One of his most notable contribution was his proposal of developing ‘material and spiritual’
ideology of the New Order. He also established MUI which comprised of Muslim clerics to
support his proposal. Furthermore, he often highlighted the importance of communication and
cooperation despite differences in beliefs. Ali constantly voiced out his belief that seemed to
be similar to Driyarkara’s where he stated that Indonesia is not a religious state, yet religion
plays vital role in the development of the country.

The last person was Munawir Sjadzali, who also received pesantren education during
his childhood. Despite of receiving such strong Islamic base since his period of youth, Sjadzali
would rather modernize and improving Islamic education in Indonesia. In line with the
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previous two, Sjadzali believed that Indonesia would never be an Islamic state as he argued
that the Prophet himself did not prescribe a particular form of governmental system. Like
Driyarkara, Sjadzali believed that the current secular concept Indonesia holds is the best
possible option out of any alternatives, considering the broad and complex religiosity between
the citizens.

I could not agree more to the opinions voiced by those three intellectuals of maintaining
the secularism of Indonesia. As a Catholic, I often want to deny the fact that I am a part of the
minority since being part of the group would often limit me to access the same facilities or
services provided for public. Not only that, the harassments and recent attacks against
Christians and other minority groups have concerned me the most, resulting in feeling less safe
to go out and do my usual activities. Therefore, I truly believe that Indonesia should maintain
its ‘mild secular’ concept by putting religions as a tool to guide Pancasila, in order to realize a
nation where the citizens would understand and respect each other.