Jakarta protests, tied to faith, may have deeper links
THE sight of tens of thousands of Islamists marching through the Indonesian capital this month, demanding that its Christian governor be jailed for blasphemy – some even calling for his death – brought back recurrent fears of “creeping Islamisation” in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, where a more tolerant brand of Islam has been the norm.
But analysts here saw something different: a protest that was really about cutthroat, secular-dominated domestic politics, and an attempt to strike a blow at President Joko Widodo.
“If you look at their posters during the demonstration, there is no mention about banning alcohol, banning gay and lesbian groups, nothing like what they normally protest about,” Azyumardi Azra, a prominent Muslim scholar, said of the November 4 protest, which erupted in violence that left hundreds injured and one dead.
“It’s purely political, and they are using the blasphemy issue as an entry point to challenge Jokowi and pressure him,” Azra said, referring to President Joko by his popular nickname.
The direct target of the protest, the largest in Jakarta in recent years, was a political ally of the president: Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the first Christian to run Jakarta in decades.
The Islamist groups that led the protest have seized on a reference Busaki made to the Quran in September – he lightheartedly cited a verse that warns against taking Christians and Jews as friends – and said that he should be prosecuted and jailed under Indonesia’s blasphemy laws.
Analysts like Azra believe the Islamists organised the protest at the behest of opposition parties hoping to derail Busaki’s re-election in February. They see this as an opening salvo against his backer, Joko, aimed at settling scores and ultimately denying the president re-election in 2020.
“It’s a sad development in Indonesian politics when race and religion are being used by politicians,” said Philips J Vermonte, head of the politics department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.
Opponents of Basuki have also made an issue of his Chinese ancestry.
Neither Joko nor Basuki has directly accused opposition parties of being behind the protest. But the president later said “political actors” had taken advantage of Islamist anger to incite violence. Both parties denied being involved in planning the rallies, but they have supported its goal of jailing Basuki for blasphemy and sought to link Joko to that controversy.
Both parties are fielding candidates in the February 15 election, in which Joko’s governing Democratic Party of Struggle is backing Basuki.
One of the governor’s opponents is Anies Baswedan, a former minister of higher education. He is backed by Gerindra, the opposition party of Prabowo Subianto, a former general who lost the bitterly fought 2014 presidential election to Joko.
The other candidate is Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, a former army officer and the son of Joko’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Two days before the Jakarta protest, the elder Yudhoyono angrily claimed he was being accused within government circles of masterminding it, which he called “an intelligence failure”.
But Yudhoyono also demanded Basuki be prosecuted for blasphemy, suggesting there would be violence in Jakarta if the governor were not taken to court.
The spasm of violence has raised questions about whether radical Muslims here – who have largely confined their activities to pushing for Islamic laws, persecuting religious minorities and ransacking bars that they consider affronts to Islam – are becoming pawns in Indonesia’s secular politics.
“The protest really was a picture of how radicalism is way more dangerous to Indonesia than other Muslim-majority nations,” said Yahya Cholil Staquf, secretary-general to the supreme council of Indonesia’s widely respected Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organisation.
“The masses have this negative feeling toward Ahok, and all this political manoeuvering has been increasing their negative emotions toward him,” he said, referring to Basuki by his nickname and describing the sentiments of protesters, most of whom were from outside Jakarta. “This makes Muslim leaders, who are in fact moderate, afraid to speak out against it, because they are afraid of the masses.”
Joko was governor of Jakarta before becoming president in 2014, and Basuki, then his deputy, inherited the position. He immediately became a political target for hard-line Muslim groups, who said a Christian should not govern the capital.
Basuki, 50, the grandson of a tin miner from Guangzhou, China, has been a popular figure here. He has continued Joko’s populist focus on quality-of-life issues and is known for publicly berating civil servants he considers incompetent or corrupt. Opinion polls indicate he holds a large lead in the election for governor and that voters do not see ethnicity and religion as campaign issues.
The governor has repeatedly apologised for his September remarks, saying that he meant no harm.
The National Police have opened a preliminary investigation into the blasphemy allegations and have questioned Basuki. But they are also questioning protest leaders on accusations that they had incited violence.
Last week, Joko promised that the investigation into Basuki would be carried out “strictly and transparently”, and said he would “not protect him”. Analysts, however, said it was unlikely Basuki would face charges, given his political support as well as questions about whether he had really insulted Islam.
But they also said Joko’s attempts to mollify Islamic groups, which plan to hold another march on November 25, underscored that religion is a potentially explosive political issue here.
Marcus Mietzner, associate professor at Australian National University in Canberra, said it was telling that organisations in Jakarta not affiliated with hard-line Islamic elements have argued that Basuki should be held accountable for blasphemy, as have Indonesians he has met who work or study in Australia.
“For me, this shows that the racial and religious sentiment have deeply penetrated the educated middle classes,” he said.