Postscript: “Muslim Nation” Dogma and Pancasila Holdovers

Summary

In the years after 2003–04, Indonesian political parties beefed up their Islamic credentials, whilst simultaneously aiming to hold on to the pluralist message of Pancasila. For the overall shift towards a greater Islamic profile, it was not necessary for Islamists to increase their share of political power significantly. In the 2004 polls, Islamist parties continued to perform relatively poor. As in 1999, they were outperformed by the nationalist-secular camp.

A majority of Indonesian politicians continue to believe that a comprehensive Islamist agenda will be unable to get significant electoral support. Above all, they still hold the notion of an Islamic state to be “inopportune” in multireligious Indonesia. Several surveys over recent years have suggested ongoing high approval rates for Pancasila as the best state ideology for Indonesia. Accordingly, a majority of Indonesian Muslims have continued to vote for non-Islamist parties and Islamist parties have once again taken a backseat in the 2009 elections. At the same time, a sizeable section of pious Muslims continue to vote for parties which, while championing a number of pro-umat issues, do not defend an Islamist platform.

Yet other polls have at the same time suggested equally high approval rates for shari'ah. They have also indicated that many Indonesians see secularism, “immorality” and the country's woes, for example corruption, as being intrinsically interlinked. To cater to these beliefs and to cozy up with what they see as Muslim majority electorates, Golkar, the Democrat Party, and even PDI-P (Indonesian Democratic Party—Struggle), have taken on a greater Islamic identity in recent years.

It is helpful to recollect that, from the 1930s to the 1950s, there were clear ideological divisions and often schisms between the secular and the Islamist side of Indonesian politics. These divisions were obscured during Soekarno's Guided Democracy (1959–65) and Soeharto's New Order (1966-98). Democracy could have brought these divisions back to the forefront. However, as I highlighted throughout the text, divisions were kept muted because in 1998 and in the following years all parties concentrated on pursuing major policy issues of the reformasi movement that helped to end the New Order.