Asia Institute - Theses
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ItemNegotiating Secularism, Religious Freedom and Politics of Orthodoxy: Liberal-Progressive Muslim Discourse in Post-New Order Indonesia (1998-2013)( 2022)This thesis seeks to examine how liberal-progressive Muslim intellectuals have contributed to renewed struggles over religion-state relations and religious freedom in contemporary Indonesia, especially within the context of the country’s transition to democracy and the changing landscape of Muslim politics in the post-New Order era. One of the most significant markers of this changing political and religious landscape has been the revival of conservative and fundamentalist Islamic discourses and movements. Largely suppressed under the New Order, they have now gained greater prominence and official endorsement, putting into question the institutional support and dominance that the liberal-progressive Muslim discourse enjoyed in the 1980s and 1990s. Against this backdrop, the central question this thesis seeks to answer is how liberal-progressive Muslim intellectuals have contributed to the reconfiguration of religion-state relations and religious freedom in light of the competing trends of democratization and the conservative turn of Muslim politics. The thesis focuses on the views of liberal-progressive Muslim intellectuals in three distinct but interrelated debates in the early period of Indonesia’s democratization: (1) the debate on secularism; (2) the controversy over the Ahmadiyah question, and (3) the contest over the Blasphemy Law. The thesis begins with a critical review of the highly essentialist and strictly secular-liberal narratives on religion-state relations and religious freedom and discusses whether they offer a satisfactory analytical lens to adequately understand the discourse on religion-state relations and religious freedom in Muslim societies. This is followed by a historical investigation of the evolving discourse and configuration of religion-state relations and religious freedom in modern Indonesia. An examination of the views of liberal-progressive Muslim intellectuals in the three debates mentioned above are then presented in the following three chapters. The thesis is concluded with a summary of its main argument and a brief theoretical reflection. The thesis argues that the issue of religion-state relations and religious freedom continues to be one of the key areas of struggle between competing and polarized Muslim discourses in post-New Order Indonesia. It further argues that in these struggles, the voices of liberal-progressive Muslim intellectuals have not only competed with the voice of their traditional opponent, the conservative and fundamentalist groups, but also with the voice of mainstream moderate Muslim groups and official interpretation of the state’s ideological and constitutional discourse. Moreover, on the question of whether and to what extent the liberal vision of religion-state relations and religious freedom can be reconciled with Islamic theology and state ideology, it is evident there has been tension between liberal-progressive Muslims and some elements of mainstream moderate Muslim groups, as represented by the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Muhammadiyah and the increasingly assertive semi-government body Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI). The post-New Order struggles over religion, state and religious freedom are thus better portrayed as the contest between a civic-pluralist vision of state and religious freedom championed by liberal-progressive Muslims, and its integralistic-majoritarian rival, broadly shared by conservative-radical Islamic groups and some elements of mainstream moderate Islamic groups, and officially incorporated into the state’s ideological and constitutional discourse.