Revisiting Southeast Asian Civil Islam: Moderate Muslims and Indonesia’s Democracy Paradox
There has been an intensive scholarly debate about the developmentof Indonesia’s post-New Order democracy. Some scholars have laudedIndonesia’s surprisingly successful transition to democratic consolidation,while others have disputed such a notion, arguing that Indonesia’s democraticprocess tends to...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2020
|
| In: |
Intellectual discourse
Year: 2020, Volume: 28, Issue: 1, Pages: 295-318 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | There has been an intensive scholarly debate about the developmentof Indonesia’s post-New Order democracy. Some scholars have laudedIndonesia’s surprisingly successful transition to democratic consolidation,while others have disputed such a notion, arguing that Indonesia’s democraticprocess tends to be stagnant and even regressive. However, the absence ofa progressive civil society as a result of the increasingly dominant positionof oligarchic political elites in the structure of state power and democraticinstitutions, are a number of important factors that encourage the declineof democracy. This article investigates the conditions that drive the role ofmoderate Islamic organizations (or what Hefner calls a civil Islam) weredeclining rather than increasing in fighting for a democratic agenda. Referringto the research data obtained through interviews, documentation and casestudies on Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) activism - the largest moderate Islamicorganization in a predominantly Muslim country (Indonesia), this article arguesthat the decline of civil Islamic organizations is closely related to socio-politicalfragmentation and the strengthening of the conservative wing within moderateIslamic organizations. At the same time, the decline of the organization whichhad a glorious reputation as a champion of tolerance, pluralism, and democracyin the 1980-1990s had implications for the regression of Indonesian democracymarked by, among other things, the exclusion of religious minority groups suchas Shi’a from the public sphere. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2289-5639 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Intellectual discourse
|