Dr.

Mun’im Sirry, Anti-Jewish Sentiment and Religious I mm-hmm

okay shall i begin

sure um

sure

all right um for this

um

talk in part of our anti-semitism

in east and southeast asia as part of

the series we are running for uh isga we

are absolutely delighted to have with us

uh dr munim siri who is an assistant

professor at the department of theology

and the university of notre dame uh dr

siri is the author of scriptural

polemics the quran and other religions

he is also coordinating the contending

modernities working group on indonesia

exploring and analyzing the complex

relationships between various contending

forces that have shaped and been shaped

by religious life at both the societal

and state levels dr minim will talk for

around half an hour and then we will

have time to field questions and have a

discussion about the material so thank

you very much uh dr minim please do

proceed

so i thank you mary for the kind

introduction and um

it's real honor to

um you know to participate in this

program

when i received the invitation to talk

about anti-semitism in indonesia i was

first reluctant to accept it because

this is beyond my my research

however on second thought i might have

something to say about this important

issue

as i did quite extensive research on the

phenomenon of religious radicalization

in indonesia particularly among

among the youth

in that particular research which i did

in 2018 and 19 along with researchers

from the university of

ireland

in surabaya we asked about among other

things student views of jews and israel

i will say

more about that in a moment but i have

Jump to video position in transcript

to give you some caveats before we

Autoscroll proceed

my research was not focused on

anti-semitic discourse but rather about

religious intolerance it was triggered

by the findings of several research

thinking in indonesia that highlighted

the phenomenon of student radicalization

in the country including their

involvement in radical groups

my presentation today

and i would like to discuss my finding

concerning student views of jews in

israel since

my research about their views of jews is

very limited

as it was not the main question of the

research

i will discuss the question of

anti-semitism in indonesia more broadly

by looking at other people's findings as

long as as well as some scholarly

studies on the subject

so i will divide my presentation into

three parts the first part will sketch

out a briefly the nature of

anti-semitism in indonesia

by anti-semitism i mean hatred against a

negative still type attributed to the

use

for the purpose of my presentation i

adopt a given length definition of

anti-semitism which is socially a

significant hostility the acceptance by

large number of relatively normal people

of belief that attribute to use

characteristic and conduct that have

never in fact been observed or

empirically verified

what i'm interested to show here is how

hostility to and prejudice against jews

is constructed of a period of time

in the second part

i will present student negative

perception of jews in light of the

increasing religious intolerance in

indonesia

the final part of my presentation will

offer possible explanations for the rise

of anti-semitism in the country

so now i'm on the first part

scholars often

refer to anti-semitic discourses in

indonesia using the term

anti-semitism

without jews that is to say that while

anti-semitism gained popularity among

indonesians most of them are not aware

of the prison of small jewish community

in the country and cannot conceptualize

judaism as religion

as we know that judaism is not one of

the recognized religions in the country

islam protestantism catholicism hinduism

buddhism and and confucianism

in addition to that being small in

number the fact that judaism is not

recognized in indonesian constitution

has contributed to their limited

feasibility in the public space

indonesian jews are suffering the old

age prejudice and still typing

despite the public and familiarity with

judaism and jews conspicuous antagonism

toward the youth is widespread in

indonesian public space

this means that anti-semitism can

flourish in an environment where jews

are not present

if you visit any bookstores in indonesia

you can easily find anti-semitic

publication with the title like you know

jews destroyer of the world the circuit

the secret of jewish world

the secret of jewish intelligence use

victory zionism movement to subjugate

the world or zion or zionist movement

with malay vase this is just few

examples

as you can see from the title these

books entertain the perceived jewish

world conspiracy

jews are seen as having control all pub

all aspect of public life

authors of these books develop the idea

that the whole economy politics and

cultures are thought to have been

manipulated and controlled by jews in

order to gain global hegemony and

suppress non-jews particularly muslims

some authors associate a prominent

muslim leaders and intellectual with

jewish or zionist propaganda

abdulrahman wahid or guzuru for instance

as you can see from the screen

has been accused by some islamists as

being a jewish agent

one of the most prominent muslim

scholars in indonesia and khalid majid

was labeled zionist agent for his effort

to reform islam and promote religious

intolerance

accusing leading muslim thinkers a

zionist or agent of judaism

is not uncommon

in islamic based media such as media

dawa sabili or swara

hidayatullah

to further illustrate this point when i

got football scholarship to pursue my

graduate studies here in the in the in

the united states one of my former

teachers at the basantrian or

traditional islamic boarding school was

upset because i would study with

orientalists and in his view i will

eventually end up being a zionist agent

there are two

important dimensions of jewish libeling

given to muslim thinkers

first their progressive ideas are

thought to be influenced by orientalists

who serve jewish agenda to destroy islam

how orientalism

is associated with use media dawah and

islamist media for instance present

islam as a real threat to the west

due to its val failure to physically

colonize the muslim world today the west

under the contrary of jews seek to

influence muslim thinkers

for islamist media the fact that gifted

liberal muslim thinkers have the

opportunity to learn from number of

orientalists at western universities is

due to jewish conspiracy

the second dimension

perhaps more relevant to my presentation

is not only the association of

orientalism with u.s conspiracy but also

the term used zionism west or foreign

foreign powers are often used

interchangeably

this shows the irrelevant of the actual

term in order to blame powerful others

as the cause of one underrated situation

many indonesian muslims not just the

radical

believe in the existence of an

international conspiracy

involving the assaulted enemies of islam

zionists christian missionaries

imperialist politicians and their

various local allies aiming to destroy

or weaken islam in indonesia

they tend to blame on the unimagined

outsider for the crack of all problems

either historical

or current

before discussing possible factors for

the popularity of anti-semitism in

indonesia and the conceptualization of

imagined jews as invisible threat that

is attractive to indonesian

i would like to say a few things about

real juice in the country

according to some estimate there are

about 140 indonesian jews now living in

the country scattered in big cities like

jakarta surabaya and manaru

however it is almost impossible to

ascertain the number of jews in the

country today in part because jews

cannot identify themselves as such in

their id card

since judaism is not recognized as an

officially recognized religion

some have to register register as a

christian or other recognized religion

on their id

to have a national id card

that lists and recognize religion

or to leave the religion blank will

cause administrative problems making it

challenging to register for marriage

birth certificate or to endure their

children in school

in addition

in a situation of increased threat of

anti-semitic discourse families of

jewish ancestry would think twice to

declare or practice their faith openly

an indonesian jew who used to identify

themselves himself in his id as ibrahim

perhap combination of hebrew and ibrahim

decided to change

to the approved or unconditional hindu

category

but of course he did not convert to

hinduism but simply for security reason

at least he was proud to keep the letter

h
for his religion this story is told by

jeffrey

hardler

the history of early jewish settlement

in indonesia is really complicated for

the lack of evidence

although it is commonly believed that

jews arrive in the malay indonesian work

quite early perhaps in the 10th century

we don't have evidence for that

existence

it is during the dutch colonial period

from the 17th century onward that their

existence was well documented

in the 19th century the presence of

jewish community is more visible

although they were not yet organized

in 1921 zionist fundraiser israel cohen

reported that there are about 2 000 jews

living in indonesia scattered from

batavia or or jakarta to surabaya

although it is still difficult to

ascertain the exact number

when the japanese forces defeated the

dutch and occupied the east indies in

1942

thing changed not in in favor of the

jewish community

the japanese policy to erase the dutch

influence in the east indies led them to

distinguish people according to race

including distinction between as kinase

jews and

sephardic jews

during the first year of the japanese

occupation jews were still mostly left

to threat freely until the time when the

jewish colonizer were under pressure

from the nazis to arrest all jews both

european and asian

so anti-semitism was propagated

propagated by the japanese forces which

later spreading out among a local people

japan surrender a few days after the u.s

bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki on

august 9 1945 and as consequent the jews

was released

following the second

dash aggression all dust soldiers were

withdrawn from indonesia

most jews left the country returning

either to europe or migrating to u.s

australia or israel

in 1957

the world jewish congress found only 30

families remaining in jakarta and few

others living in surabaya

until recently u.s community of iraqi

origin maintains small synagogue in

surabaya with distinct civilic

characteristics however in 2007 and 9 a

number of anti-israeli protests staged

in front of it as reaction to the

israeli blockage of the gaza strip and

they sealed the building

and four years later in 2013 the

synagogue was demolished

now the only remaining synagogue in

indonesia is the one in north sulawesi

which i will say more at the end of my

presentation

after indonesian independence the real

jews

are not only

not invisible due to their insignificant

number

but interestingly that anti-semitism was

widespread and continue to

the lack of actual jewish present in

indonesia raised questions about

perception and knowledge concerning

anti-semitism as it appears to be

directed against forces rather than

jewish themselves

the question then why do indonesian

blame jews when confronted with act with

acute problem be it economic political

or cultural

what has influenced

the perception of jews in in the country

given that indonesia has no sizable

jewish community how can we explain the

long history of anti-semitism

i will answer this question in the

second part of my presentation

anti-semitism in indonesia has not

attracted much quality attention despite

the fact that jewish world conspiracy is

one of the most talked about topic in

the country

with the increasing wave of religious

intolerant in the past few years

hostility toward imagine outsider

especially the jews seem to be on the

rise as well

the most

most surveys reveal that anti-semitism

in indonesia is quite high

according to the anti-defamation league

adr survey conducted in 2014

48 of indonesian have negative attitude

toward the jews much higher compared to

the worldwide anti-semitism which is 26

percent

the anti-jewish sentiment in indonesia

is the second highest in southeast asia

only below malaysia which is 61

the idl survey con includes such

question as whether the jews have too

much power in the business world and

control over media and global affairs

59 percent of indonesian think that the

jews have too much power over the us

government and they had them because the

way they behave

no indonesian research think tank has

ever undertaken survey focusing on

anti-semitism

a few surveys that show the level of

hostility to a jews among indonesians

were conducted to investigate the

phenomenon of intolerance

in 2016 the wyatt institute and the

indonesian survey institute conducted

nice nationwide survey which indicated

that the three most hated people in

indonesia are as you can see from the

screen lgbt communists and jews so 10

of indonesian

claimed that jews are the most hated

people

the most recent

research concerning

the the group the hostile group

the the most hated group indonesia was

the one conducted by smrc in 2019

as you can see from the screen

that um that

but 6.4 of indonesian claim that jews

are the most hated people

now from the above finding we can infer

that the level of this likeness or

hostility towards among indonesian range

from six percent to 10

which is much less than the idl funding

48

how to

explain the big gap between the adl

survey and the report by indonesian

researchers

first of all the adl indonesian

researchers aim to understand two

different phenomena on the one hand the

ideal index score is based on several

questions to assess people's views of

anti-semitism

the idl survey includes several

questions that serve as key instrument

to measure with the people believe in

various stereotypes commonly attributed

to jews

the indonesian researchers on the other

hand attempted to examine the level of

tolerance or the lack thereof

therefore in addition to identifying

these like groups they also develop a

general measure of of tolerance namely

how many social societal groups does

respondent reject as their neighbor so

the method employed in the two surveys

are quite different

my own research on secondary school and

university student can provide another

possible explanation for the big gap

between the idl survey and the

indonesian researchers the sympathizer

of the kind of anti-semitic discourses

propagated by islamist media such as

media dawa tend to increase

significantly

when the hostility to abuse is

conflicted with anti-israeli sentiment

for reason that i will explain later

anti-israeli sentiment in indonesia is

relatively high

as we know up until now indonesia does

not have any diplomatic relation with

the state of israel

my hypothesis is that anti-semitism in

indonesia is reflected in their and

in their antipathy toward israel in the

conflict with palestine and fomented by

anti-israeli media from the middle east

in my 2019 survey on 500 students from

12th high school in five cities in is

java

it is revealed that 24

from 24.2 percent of respondents dislike

dislike israelis the second highest

after corruptors

which is

three point four percent

as you can see from the screen that the

rest of the answer is as follow ice is

twenty point four percent people of the

religion four point six percent chinese

four point four

and american 2.2

unlike other

survey uh uh which all only include a

you know

quantitative survey my research also

include in-depth interviews with five

with 50 high school students and 70

university students

from my interviews

we learn variety of reason for their

hostility toward israelis which for the

most part reflect major themes of

anti-semitism

there are at least three recurring

themes emerged from my interviews

first

israelis have too much power

and their main ambition is to control

the world and dictate the united states

as their agent

from the adl survey we learned that

almost half of indonesian population

think that jews have too much power in

the world and 42 claim that the youth

have too much control over global

affairs

so one student from from itb as you can

see from the skin content that the us is

powerless when it comes to defending the

israeli political interest particularly

in the context of israel-palestinian

conflicts

the second recurring theme

that emerged from my interview is that

israelis are enemies of islam and have

facelessly treated muslims especially in

in palestine

whenever incidents of violence occur

between israelis and palestinians many

indonesian muslims pointed to the use as

the carpet that caused the problem chaos

community commission without

understanding the complexity of the

issue at hand that triggered the

conflict tension and violence

and this is in line with the adl survey

that the majority of indonesian 46

percent think that jews are more loyal

to israel than the country they live in

while many jewish factions in various

countries have openly opposed the racial

politics of zionism and rejected the

brutal policies of hotlines within the

israeli government for many indonesians

the israeli-palestinian conflict is a

threat from the jews

the perception of israel is tangible

evidence of jewish attempt to destroy

the muslim unity is a recurring theme

that emerged from my interviews with

indonesian students

the third identifiable theme emerging

from my interview is the perception that

israelis is cruel people with inhumane

treatment of palestinians perhaps this

is the most common image that i heard

from my interviews as has been often

portrayed by islamist media outlets so

pictures of israeli authorities

demolishing palestinian houses with lack

of humanity or palestinian children

being gassed daily in the checkpoint or

on unarmed men and women and children

being murdered by the lazily military

are widely circulated

my my respondent referred to the cruelty

of israelis in various ways one student

for exam for example expressed his anger

saying i strongly dislike israelis

because they seized the plane of

palestinians and forced them to leave

their homes

it seems safe to say that the popularity

of anti-semitism in indonesia is a

result of antiparty toward israel in the

israel-palestinian conflicts the

conflicts over time influence indonesian

perception of the jew

and this jew however is not seen as a

real jew but an imagined force capable

of suppressing indonesia

public opinions concerning the conflict

is nearly in support of israel

sorry in support of palestine and

israeli actions are not seen as

justifiable

although many interviewees muslim or

non-muslim are not interested in foreign

conflicts

the continuation of the

israeli-palestinian conflict today led

led to number of indonesian muslims and

muslims around the globe

associating the conflict with perceived

attack on their religion

israel is seen as epitome of evil from

where jews aim to subjugate the world

and muslim in particular

however

anti-semitism was present in it was

present in indonesia even before the

establishment of israel

while the inclusion of an emphasis on

the israel-palestine conflict seem to

suggest the middle eastern influence of

anti-semitism in indonesia

anti-semitism in the arab countries

also appreciate its conflict with israel

as i will discuss in the third and final

part of my presentation because i don't

think i have much time so i will be

brief about this there are at least

three major sources i can skip this uh

three major sources of anti-semitism in

indonesia

the first one as mentioned by jeffrey

harder that antisemi's anti-semitism was

introduced indonesia by european nazi

sympathizers as reaction to pro-israel

as to zionist jews in the dutch east

indies in the 1930s

in the early 20th century a number of

jews in indonesia attempted to establish

zionist organization to connect with the

world zone is a movement

another source of exposure to

anti-semitism is the propaganda

disseminated by the japanese colonizer

as discussed earlier the japanese

adopt a part of nazi anti-jewish

propaganda and introduce the jewish

world conspiracy to indonesians

the japanese propaganda seem to last

long and has a deep impact on indonesian

leaders because the latter looked at the

former as possible

liberators from western imperialism

from the early 20th century indonesians

tended to identify themselves with

with with japan and the hatred toward

jews developed through japanese

anti-semitic propaganda

while anti-semitism did exist in

indonesia before independent

today's anti-semitic discourse have

mostly been influenced by the middle

eastern

literature

before i elaborated on this

point

it can be argued that anti-semitism has

been attractive to middle easterners for

number of reason

first

the muslim scripture

the quran includes several passages that

describe jews negatively we can talk

about this if you like but i don't think

i have much time to elaborate this point

and the second source of anti-semitism

in the middle east is the nazi

propaganda that was disseminated since

the 1920s

nazi germany became attractive to middle

eastern middle eastern leaders due

primarily

to their

share hostilities toward britain and

france rather than for ideological

reason

however

it is

um it is anti-semitic ideology that

prevail in the middle eastern today

one of the main sources that the nazi

distributed was the protocol of elders

of zion fraudulent document that served

as pre-tax and rationale for

anti-semitism mainly in the early 20th

century

the message of the protocol of elders of

zion as we know is quite so turned

forward that the rise of liberalism has

provided jews with the tool to destroy

institutions like non-nobility the

church and the sanctity of marriage and

they soon would control the world as

part of a revenge applaud dating back to

the accidentary of of of christendom

it is most likely that indonesians were

introduced to the protocol through the

network of schoolers between mid the

middle east and indonesia

um ahmad salaby for instant egyptian

professor from alaska university who in

1950s taught in indonesia was on was one

of the great admirers of the protocol

his book on comparative religions

heavily relied on the protocol for its

argument

while the indonesian translation of this

book only appeared in 1990s it is not

unlikely that he introduced the protocol

content to his student and the general

public during his day in indonesia

when speaking to indonesian students i

found that most of them have never heard

of the protocol

although its main argument for jewish

power and control in the world is

unaccepted opinions among indonesians

the three recurring themes that i

identified

from my interviews echo the sentiment of

the protocol the jews are seen to be

intelligent and powerful in global

context that they are seen

as as deceitful and aggressive similarly

israel is seen as aggressor and

colonizer supported by the u.s in its

suppression of weaker power

interestingly although the vast majority

of most in most most students

interviewed in my in my research have

not read anti-semitic literature

the content of the literature pervade

the overwhelmingly negative general

opinion about jews and israel

in conclusion

i would i would simply highlight that

more research need to be done on

anti-semitism in indonesia

last month on january 20 2007

the first holocaust museum in southeast

asia was built by the local jewish

community in

in north and north sea which caused

backlash from conservative muslim groups

the council of indonesian ulama or mui

and other islamist groups strongly

reacted against the holocaust museum

museum demanding for it this for it

closer

the reasoning to shut down the holocaust

museum is similar to anti-jewish or

sentiment widespread among students that

are interviewed

mohitin junaidi mui vice chairman for

instance said that instead of museum

about the holocaust the government

should open

a museum depicting

a dutch colonial rule in indonesia or it

will make more sense so the zionist

violence against palestinians

this would be way to support the right

the right to self-determination

in similar vein a senior official from

the

prosperius

justice party or pks one of the

indonesian leading islamist parties

today said that the museum somehow

undermined the indonesian government

opposition to israel occupation of of

gaza and the west bank

while these negative reactions seem to

confirm my research finding more focus

and

detailed research is still needed to

identify bigger issues of anti-semitism

in indonesia so thank you

i can't stop

sharing my powerpoint now

thank you very very much uh dr minim um

i would like to invite everyone uh to

begin uh asking questions uh please do

type them uh in the box uh and also

you're welcome to uh to signal to me to

put your hand up too um and i see uh our

first question uh that we have is from

uh my co-organizer dr navaras afridio

has his hand up already and i know he's

been uh very enthusiastic and excited

about this presentation so so please do

ask your question mavros

thank you

thank you dr einsley uh

see that there is a question from a

listener here so before i

ask my question i would request dr siri

to answer the question

from

the audience that we have received the

question is did you ever ask a question

comparing hatred of groups

that includes both israelis and jews

rather than just one or the other

the answer is no because there have been

several uh researchers uh asking uh you

know their hostility or this their

dislikeness uh uh you know again again

jews

so um

as you can see from my person my

presentation at least there are three

major research that have been done by

indonesian researchers concerning the

most hated groups in indonesia one by

the warhead foundation as you can see

from from the screen and they are done

by the white institute there are two

different um uh

resulting tank although with similar

name

which seems to suggest that there are

only like 10 but like you know between 7

to 10 of indonesian claim that they

hated or disliked the jews

and the most recent research by uh smrc

or several muslim research consulting

seemed to affect even less uh you know

less percentage of of indonesians who

hated

juice which is quite surprising to me it

is quite surprising if you compare to uh

you know the level of anti-semitism as

uh adl like you know the anti-defamation

leak uh revealed in in you know in the

past few years which suggests that like

48 percent of indonesian uh you know

have negative views about about jews

so i you know it's it's a it it's um

it's triggered some some you know some

curiosity in myself why is that um

sorry sorry

i was in in the indonesian mind in the

indonesian imagination are

jewish people and israeli people the

same thing is there any difference

between them yes that is the key point

because indonesians do not distinguish

between jews and israel and they do not

they do not even distinguish between

jews and zionists so for them these

three categories are the same

so but interestingly as i just presented

um that when when when i you know when i

change the category from jews to israel

to to israelis

the

the number of indonesians who express

their hostility

increase significantly you know from six

percent to about three thirty percent

which is like closer to

uh the ada survey which is quite

interesting your dancer no i didn't ask

their view of jews because my point is

to see whether

the israeli factor

can can can explain something of the the

the big gap between the two surveys

thank you uh dr navaras would you like

to uh yes yes

thank you thank you dr einsley uh

dr siri you wrote in your book

scriptural polemics yes

on page four that even within muslim

scholarship there is not a single final

word

on the quran's ethical position on how

muslims ought to treat the other

it is possible that the ambivalence of

the quran

could lead someone to conclude that no

coherent quranic view is possible that

the quran like all scriptures

contains materials to justify

whatever preconceived position

that the reader seeks to justify

so

given this

reality that you have pointed out

why do you think

those who indulge

in anti-semitic rhetoric

by

either

interpreting the scriptural polemics in

an overly literal manner

or simply misinterpreting

them why

do they

focus only on the polemics

and instead of the other positive things

that are said about the same people

yeah it is a tendency to do so

right it's really good question because

if you look at how the quranic verses or

you know any scriptures have been used

by the believers you will see that

oftentimes the believers use certain

passages of their scripture to support

their their their their you know either

theological or politic or political

positions

so um you know if you look at you know

if

if if you if you are engaged in like

inter-religious dialogue right most

proponents of intelligent intelligence

dialogue would prefer to use chronic

passages that seem to extend salvific

promise to others or those passages that

allow for religious freedom

you know they have their own favorite

verses this is the problem

and and on on the other you know

spectrum uh you know if you ask people

who have like exclusive theology in

their mind they tend to use you know

different set of verses that sim also

support their exclusivist theology it's

so even you know violent

uh uh uh

you know

thinking so this is this is really the

problem that oftentimes believers you

know you know pick certain passages from

their scripture in order to support

their

theological position but you you really

are you know raised very important point

why you know those you know

proponent of anti

semitism tend to

use certain passages

uh which seem to suggest that the quran

itself is anti-semitic right

so but the question but the the thing is

that

you know i think all scriptures be the

quran the bible or or any other

you know include some passages that seem

to be polemical against those

communities

that

that that are considered as as a threat

right

so the fact that there are some passages

that that describe jews negatively it

doesn't mean that the quran is

anti-semitic

but the problem is that this this

you know exclusive is or

toxic element of of the quran or any

scripture have often be used by a

proponent of anti-semitism to support

their their ideological uh you know view

this is really the problem

so and therefore in in the book that you

just mentioned thank you for your

appreciation

i i tried to address these difficult

issues

from the perspective of

more like modern you know modern you

know 20th century

viewpoint right

those those muslim scholars who

not only aware of the complexity of the

modern issues you know inter

intelligence

relation but also those those who seem

to

you know um uh

you know

seem to um to promote kind of islamic

reform

right

so your school is like you know um

example like abu kalam azad in india or

hamka in indonesia or

tabataba from iran for instance who seem

to reform the tradition from written

tradition so i was i was really

interested in looking at how these mudra

muslim scholars interpret these

difficult passages that describe those

in such negative way

the finding is you can see that even

these scholars find some difficulties

right so i highlight in the book the

difficulties that they encounter

because on the one hand they have to be

faithful to the tax

so that the quran you know quite

critical to jews but at the same time

they wanted to you know to

to

engage in the modern context right that

they have to leave peacefully uh you

know

living side by side with other religious

communities so i i i see the complexity

and difficulty that these modern muslim

schools encounter in their

interpretation so they are struggling

you know to make sense of the quranic

criticism on the one hand but at the

same time to interpret those political

passages in non-political environment

where internally use

should

get towards more peaceful

relations

doctor siri may i ask you a follow-up

question sure of course

you mentioned in your presentation that

hitler has pointed out that

anti-semitism

was

introduced in indonesia

by

nazi sympathizers

and then

the the japanese also

uh

indulged in anti-semitic propaganda in

indonesia they tried to spread their

anti-semitic propaganda and now

the contemporary anti-semitic rhetoric

in indonesia is largely fueled

by

the middle eastern discourses yes which

i presume are primarily arab discourses

and not

not iranians so much because

shias i don't know what is the

proportion of shia population in

indonesia

my question is

that is that

should this

should this be interpreted as implying

that there was

never any anti-semitism

prior to the introduction of

anti-semitic rhetoric by these nazi

sympathizers
and if

it was there if it had a presence in

indonesia even prior to

the nazi propaganda

is it so that there were people

who

were antagonistic

towards jews wanted everybody else to be

antagonistic towards them

and

in order to popularize their antipathy

towards jews they

particularly drew attention

to the

polemics against jews

in the quran and in the hadiths to

find validation for their anti-semitic

arguments

yeah again that's that's really great

question so the the the it's really

difficult to answer the question because

we don't have any evidence about

anti-semitism before

before the the arrival of the dutch in

the country

so it is likely that jews have been in

the country as i mentioned in my

presentation quite early because we know

from um the work of um one a book is

called um

uh from the

10th century that described um

you know the the the

um a jew is called it's called i think

his name is

um who visited uh um

[Music]

you know the book doesn't mean the name

precisely but but he said this this you

visited a region

called sri busa

so what does this sri buddha mean it is

possible that that this term sri busa is

referring to sri vijaya which is the

oldest buddhist kingdom in sumatra

so this book was written in the 10th

century see it is most likely the jews

some some some jews have have have have

been in in in part of indonesia

from from quite quite quite early in the

in the history

um but we don't have any evidence

about um about anti-jewish discourse

during the time

so even even you know during the dust

colonial period

we only uh you know

find evidence about anti-jewish

discourse uh in the in the in the 1920s

so as you might know that that the jews

were quite active indonesia at the time

uh they published a journal a jewish

journal

they are proud of being the this journal

is is called

israel

which was published in 1925 i'm not

mistaken

in in sumatra

and the the publisher of this journal

claimed that this journal

will serve as uh yes as um

as the most

the most piece of of of of the zionist

movement

so um

this the historian um uh jeffrey hitler

from uc berkeley argued that in the

1920s

you know the

the fundraising the zionist fundraising

offices

can be found in in many parts of the

country

so and and he saw he also argued that

that perhaps because of

the activities of these

chinese

designers

that trigger

the arrival of nazi sympathizers to the

country of course this story has been

challenged by other schoolers but this

is just one one theory some theory argue

that the arrival of nazi sympathizers

was independent of of of of of us of

zenith activities in the country there

are two different you know set of issues

so

some you know there is still you know

ongoing debate about but whether the

arrival of chinese was triggered by um

by

you know

by by the zionist activities in the

country

so um

so just to make to me to make it clear i

don't have any evidence you're right

very great question because and you know

uh hostility to abuse began with the

quran and muslim from early on are

familiar with this kind of passages so

even before the coming of nazi is it it

is still possible that some muslim would

already express their hostility to a

jews based on that scripture but i don't

have any evidence about that so

if you allow me could i ask just one

last question a very short one

sure please please continue never ask

please

thank you

my

sense

this uh question of mine emanates out of

the fact that i am a south asian

so i was wondering

what role does the

south asian islamist

anti-semitic rhetoric play

in influencing

the indonesian brand of anti-semitism

because as i understand that there is

there is a quite a number of indonesian

students who go to islamic seminaries in

india and pakistan for their studies

yeah

yeah um i don't have answer to that uh

yes you are right there

some students

uh you know uh

uh from i think from quite early on that

they

uh in addition to the arab middle east

like aj makkah madina um you know you

know indian uh you know institution like

ali got university uh would be one of

the destination of you know for their

studies

but i don't have any evidence

of muslim university would not come

under the category of islamic seminaries

when i asked you this question what i

had in mind

were the seminaries

yes

yeah i don't have um evident but from

the evidence that i like you know i can

derive is that

um uh most of the

uh anti-semitic literature published

indonesia are from alaska university so

one of the book that i saw in my in in

my screen

is uh is

you know

used as the the destroyer of the world

by uh

il

so that was that book is the translated

dissertation

written by students from alaska

university

so alas are you know

also can can also be seen a source of

anti-semitic discourse in indonesia i

mentioned a salaby

who in the 1950s was in visa to teach in

number of universities

salafi himself was a was a student and

and taught at the azhar's university

so um so i'm not aware of any like a

direct uh influence of

south asian discourse of

anti-anti-semitism in indonesia

but but certainly there are some arabic

books

um have been published in the country in

indonesia

from queen early

thank you

thank you very much i i learned quite a

lot from that discussion um so thank you

um

i i was really impressed by your kind of

empirical and your your ethnographic uh

research and your own focus on actually

asking and actually going to

institutions and finding out about

people's views um

i was quite interested in the kinds of

people that you asked um i know

indonesia the same as sort of all of the

southeast asian nations is a very

diverse

nations and there are people from all

different backgrounds ethnic backgrounds

religious backgrounds um i wondered

if you asked people who were from one

particular ethnic group or one

particular religion or from many or and

were there minorities that you asked and

whether the differences in their views

towards israel and jewish people and uh

anti-semitism

yeah we we have um we have categories we

we certainly distinguish between

we have categories of religion there is

no doubt in our survey so that so

we um we developed the survey

uh and and and the the the data select

the selection was um was uh

you know i mean the respondent were

selected randomly

okay so uh the research include um like

500 high school high school student

both public and private schools

which include you know religion banks

our affiliated school like you know like

madrasas for muslim and christian

seminaries as well

and and and my research also includes

like 700 university student

public university students that have

been identified by

by

you know the national agency for

combating terrorism

as being infiltrated by radical

ideologies so in 2018 this bnpt the the

national body the national agency for

combating terrorism

uh released their finding

that there are at least seven public

universities the most prominent public

universities in indonesia like the

university of indonesia like you know

you know like

um

and others

uh that have been infiltrated by radical

ideologies

so

you know as a reaction to that finding

so i then developed this kind of

research you know asking um to what

extent they have been involved in

radical ideologies but one of the

questions that we already asked we

already we also asked is concerning

um you know their views of israel

because i i also want to know whether if

if the category is changed from jews to

israel the the number would would would

be different and it is certainly the

case

so um but what

it's very interesting if if i can but i

haven't done this but so thank you for

raising the question because it gave me

some idea

to cross the answer to the cut to the

religion category like how many

you know christians or

hindus or jews

would

would express their hostility toward

to a toward israel so that that that is

certainly excellent

excellent question

but in my interviews as i mentioned in

in my skin as well

that at least one high school student

of five

or 50 student that i interviewed

uh

was christian who expressed her

dislikeness uh uh to use as well

uh so to israel because of

you know the the power and uh

because of this us israeli alliance and

so forth so have this kind of conspiracy

theory in their mind so even even

christian you know uh you know seem to

have

similar impression about

about the power

that

israelis have you know to

control the world so this kind of

conspiracy seems to be widespread that

that's very interesting because that

sort of then suggests that this becomes

a sort of monolithic kind of almost

anti-western

yes this course

uh in this way with israel become and

jewish people becoming representative of

the west and and the worst elements of

of the west

which is

is kind of what i found in some of my

own research in malaysia too i think it

was an element of that

i see um

i i also wanted to ask a little bit and

i think maybe this this kind of

connects a bit to to what you were

talking about with with never asked

before um

one one element i found in um

in malaysia uh was

often the concern that malay islam

was being positioned as kind of an

inferior form of islam to that of arab

islam on kind of the global on sort of

the global stage

um and so there was kind of a sort of

almost a need

uh to um embrace arab arab versions of

islam

in order to be a part of of the arab

nations and the bloc the arab nations um

and and this of course is deeply

damaging because malay islam is is a

very legitimate form of belief system of

course as well and very beautiful in its

own right

um but this was kind of being sort of

pushed aside in favor of kind of an

arabized identity

and what was associated with that was um

being very anti-semitic

um

so i i wondered if there was an

element of this

in indonesia at all because i i

certainly found this in amongst quite a

few people in malaysia

right yes

sure yeah i mean the the you know the

influence of uh of wahabi islam or arab

islam is quite quite visible in the

country like some some of the most bill

you know using saudi money so and

therefore the influence of this kind of

this kind of uh you know uh uh

islamic interpretation

is good it's quite visible the fact that

some indonesian reacted to this

uh as you may know that you know the

largest muslim uh groups in indonesia

than

uh

organizational muslim

organization that claimed to have more

than like 70

million followers

reacted against this kind of arabization

of islam indonesia and they developed

the idea of islam nusantara like

indonesia and islam is opposed to arab

islam so this reflects the fact that

that the influence of arab islam is

really

feasible

and therefore

this traditional muslim organization

feel the need to react to this kind of

you know arabization

by promoting the idea that we indonesian

have our own version of islam which is

no less authentic than the saudi

wahhabi islam so in the past few years

this this really an emerging discourse

in the country you know about this islam

nusantara

like you know that's very that's very

interesting

what what is there a role

of kind of attitudes towards israel

jewish people anti-semitism does that

really wrong

that is really the the the the thing

that even these these muslims who claim

to follow a local understanding of islam

like islam santara they also express

their

i mean i mean like hostility toward

israel for a number of reasons okay so

i think that is you know of course you

know the the the islamists

this saudi type of muslim would be more

uh you know strongly opposed israel but

even as i mentioned in in my

presentation so these anti-islands

discourse are not only

widespread among

radical muslims even moderate like you

know those these people who claim to

have you know authentic indonesian islam

they themselves express you know this

kind of anti-semitic you know sentiment

so it is really difficult to you know

distinguish which one is more

more like you know tolerant toward

israel but because this this is

really widespread so

thank you that that is a fascinating

answer um

navaras i think has his hand up again

we're we're coming almost to the end of

the session now just about but i think

navratri

thank you thank you mary there's a

question

from one of our listeners

the the question is as to how the

anti-semites in indonesia managed to

circumvent

the madinah charter how do they manage

to overlook that

which

yes

which seems to lay the foundation as to

how the muslims should conduct

themselves with

followers of the other abrahamic

religions

yeah i mean um yeah that's a great

question because you know through the

constitution of medina we know that the

jews are included as one community

but the modern anti-islamic discourse as

i mentioned earlier have been very much

influenced or shaped by

you know the

the israeli palestinian conflict in in

the in the middle east um so

um you know it seemed like you know even

even even even

even if that like indonesian people are

aware of

although i don't think that many

indonesians were aware of the buddhism

charter because it is only like student

educated people who

who study the history like the

background of the prophet will know this

but even if they know this like suppose

that they know it but still the info the

you know the the

the contemporary or modern

um

anti-semitic literature in the middle

east

seem to be more powerful than

than uh you know

story
of the background of the prophet

so

thank you thank you very much um

unfortunately we have come to the end of

the session which is really unfortunate

because i i have so many more questions

that i would love to ask and i i'm sure

uh

neverest does as well but i want to say

thank you very much for a really

interesting really stimulating um

discussion and presentation um

and also i really can't wait to see

where your research takes you because

evidently there is so much more to

discover about this topic uh so we we

wish you uh all the best uh in your

future research and i want to say from

all of us thank you very much for giving

the presentation and sharing it with us

thank you thank you thank you mary thank

you for so thank you so much for that

thanks a lot

thank you bye okay good night good night

 Get a transcript:
https://youtu.be/11JA8VkT258?list=PLWATWfh7yR9f9OcoIl6If Go

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