Theoretical Reflections on Religious Freedom Issue in Indonesia

1. Islam and Illiberal Democracy:
Theoretical Reflections on Religious Freedom Issue
in Indonesia
Novriantoni Kahar
Dosen Universitas Paramadina, Jakarta

2. Background for Discussion
• In 2001, Freedom House included Indonesia as a free country,
although the rate of Indonesia’s civil liberties is placed lower than
the political rights. The main problem in Indonesia’s civil liberties
mostly related to the issues of religious freedom.
• Despite the country is often assumed as the model of interfaith
tolerance for other Muslim countries, it is not yet immune from
radicalism. Terrorist threats, sectarian violence, abuses of religious
freedom and human rights, are prevalent. During Indonesia’s
democratic transition and consolidation, violence against
minorities, forcible closures of worship places, and local religious
legislations flourish and restrict civil liberties.
• Uncivil groups demand the authority to punish these ‘deviants’ or
they would take the law into their own hands otherwise, making
these minority groups and individuals as criminals. Indonesian
Muslim society seemed to tolerate these discriminations in silence,
while the authority itself failed to enforce the law against the
perpetrators.

3. Thesis on Current Situation
• Numerous reports on Indonesia’s religious freedom
record that in the last decade, maintaining interfaith
harmony and religious freedom is much harder in a
democratic era than before. Societal abuses and
government indecisiveness in regard religious
freedom issues becomes a state of normalcy up to
now. In Kurzman’s term, the process of Indonesia’s
democratic consolidation can be described as a
combination of “political liberalism” and “cultural
conservatism” (Charles Kurzman, 2011).

4. Incompatibility Thesis 1
• The relation between Islam and democracy has
been a long debate among scholars, and the
main thesis on this issue emphasizes the
incompatibility between both. Lewis for
instance argued that “the idea of the people
participating not just in the choice of a ruler but
in the conduct of government is not part of
traditional Islam” (Bernard Lewis, 1998).

5. Incompatibility Thesis 2
• Ernest Gellner and Samuel Huntington go
further in blaming Islam as the main cause of
authoritarian drift in Muslim politics. Islam has
been seen as an essentially illiberal political
culture due to its dogmatic teachings and its
prevention of a fully functional liberal civil
society (Frédéric Volpi, 2004).

6. Hunger for Democracy, but…
• Empirically, although Muslim democratic countries
are little, many of Muslim societies are aspiring for
democracy. Based on the World Values Survey in 80
countries, Inglehart and Norris argued that both
Western and Muslim countries believe in the
importance of democracy. While criticizing
Huntington’s clash of civilization thesis in general,
both scholars admitted that Huntington is correct in
term of cultural differences between the West and
the rest, mainly in regard gender issues, sexual
liberalization, and acceptance of religious authority
(Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, 2003).

7. Muslim Relation with Civil Liberties
• Based on this cultural perspective, the main
debate shifted to another level namely the
relation between Islam or Muslim societies with
liberal democracy and civil liberties. Some
scholars argued that the liberal democracy is
marked not only by free and fair elections
“…but also by the rule of law, a separation of
powers, and the protection of basic liberties of
speech, assembly, religion and property”
(Fareed Zakaria, 2007).

8. Election is Easy, but…
• According to Lewis, this kind of democracy is
“…in its origins a product of the West....”, as he
is doubtful whether such a system can long
survive when transplanted and adapted in
another culture (Bernard Lewis, 2005). In
the recent democratization in the Middle East,
Zakaria argued that although it is easy to
impose elections on a country, it is more
difficult to push constitutional liberalism on a
society.

9. Muslim Classical Liberalism
• The incompatibility thesis continues as, Fatima
Mernissi (1992), Daniel Pipes (1996), John L.
Esposito and John O. Voll (1996) also pointed the
cultural difficulties in the socialization of the
principles of liberal democracy among Muslim
societies. In fact, Rutherford (2006) found that the
Islamist intellectuals share many characteristics
that classical liberalism and democracy in the West
championed. They support the rule of law,
constraints on state power, public participation in
politics, and the protection of many civil and
political rights. However, he described several
descriptions in this regard.

10. Muslim Classical Liberalism1
• First point related to the status of individual
rights which is very important principle in the
liberal democracy’s conception. In this issue, the
Islamists believe that individual's character is
basically shaped by community. In order to
transform the individual, one initially has to
transform every dimension of society—cultural,
economic, social, judicial, and political.

11. Muslim Classical Liberalism2
• Second, the state is assumed as a moral agent
to "command good and forbid evil" in the whole
society. In order to perform these tasks, the state
is required to be more invasive than in classical
liberalism conception or in democratic theory.

12. Muslim Classical Liberalism3
• Third, while the metaphor of Western liberal
constitutionalism usually described as a wall built
around the state in order to protect individual
rights, the Islamists demand the state to transform
individual Muslim to be a more pious community.
In conclusion, Rutherford states that in the
conception of what he called “Islamic
constitutionalism”, there would be less protection of
civil and political rights in some areas. Freedom of
speech with regard to religious and moral matters
for instance, would be constrained” (Bruce K.
Rutherford, 2006).

13. Republican or Islamic Democracy
• In this situation, democracy in Muslim society will not
be liberal because either the nationalist or Islamist will
come up to be more influential in shaping the form of
democratic transition. They possibly build a different
kind of democracy, either republican or Islamic. In
regard the relatively successful Muslim country in its
democratization such as Indonesia and Turkey, Volpi
even noted that the both countries remain attracted to
non-liberal democratic discourses and practices. In an
alarming statement, he insisted that the failure of liberal
democracy in Muslim societies is consequently a product
of the successive non-liberal forms of social mobilisation
and political learning (Frédéric Volpi, 2004).

14. Freedom That’s Clearly Deficient
• Hypothetically, religious freedom related positively to
democracy. Democratic countries normally have more
religious freedom than non-democratic countries.
Regrettably, some studies also proved that there’s one
freedom that is clearly deficient in Muslim-majority
countries. This seems likely to be causally related to the
Islam variable deficiency, namely religious freedom. Rowley
and Smith named this deficiency as double paradoxes. From
numerous surveys, it’s confirmed that (1) the democracy is
highly popular in these countries, yet it’s rare. This is a first
paradox. The other is (2), although Muslim-majority countries
public opinion confidently more pro-democratic than
elsewhere, still it may be less favourable to freedom, especially
to religious freedom (Charles Rowley and Nathanael
Smith, 2009).

15. Indonesia’ Case
• In case of Indonesia, Schuhmarcher’s inquiry on
liberal democracy in Indonesia concluded that
liberal democracy appears neither as assured
nor inevitable because of its ideological tension
between liberal democracy and Islamic
fundamentalism (Gerhard Schuhmacher,
2002). In this regard, the prospects for building
a liberal democratic order in Muslim countries
are basically very much dependent on the
internal dialectic within Islamic cultures itself
(Mustapha Kamal Pasha, 2002).

16. Class of Cultures is Determinant
• However, it is not the clash between the West and the
rest that will decide the fate of liberal democracy in
majority Muslim countries. As Hefner argues, the
determinant factor in this case is the “class of cultures”
among Muslim society. Based on Indonesia’s context,
Hefner concluded that the rivalry between a civil and
uncivil (regimist) Islam in Muslim society, is also
extensively contested in Muslim world. Putting this
picture in the frame of religious freedom and liberal
democracy, this contestation will not be determined by
the unchanging theological principles, but as Hefner
believes, more likely by broader developments in state
and civil society. That was shown in the history of
democratization in the West (Robert Hefner, 2001).

17. We Need More Times
• (1) Claiming illiberal democracy as an essentially nature of Muslim
democratic countries looks like putting the wagon in front of the
car (Charles A. Kupchan, 1998). However, a new democratic
country needs opportunity and time—as well as enough learning
process—to be considered as a democratic, yet a liberal democratic
country.
• (2) Accusing newly Muslim democratic country as incompatible
with liberal democracy’s principles—mainly because its religious
freedom records—seems to be simplistic and lack of criterion.
Religious freedom is not a taken for granted issue. It is related to
more complex issues such as political situation, government policies
and regulations, and socio-economic aspects.
• (3) Indonesia’s transition toward democracy—by overthrowing
more than the decades of its authoritarian regime, more or less also
determined by an internal dynamic and contestation within
Muslim society itself (Robert Hefner, 2001). These groups are
still exist now and playing crucial role in shaping Indonesia’s
democratic era.

18. Conclution
• Inspired by this debate, I believe that the relation
between Islam and liberal democracy would not be
exclusively incompatible. Therefore, the following
questions should be addressed: (1) to what extent does
Indonesia’s democracy—on constitutional, governmental
and societal levels—consider religious freedom as an
important criterion of democracy as compared to other
Muslim democratic countries? (2) What factors—
doctrinal, political, socio-cultural aspects—determine
Indonesia’s government policies and social attitudes in
advancing or preventing religious freedom? (3) What
pre-requirement conditions are needed by Indonesia, to
show not only the compatibility of Islam and democracy,
but also the respect on religious freedom?