The State and Religious Violence in Indonesia

Minority Faiths and Vigilantism

A’an Suryana, A'an Suryana

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367248574
• eBook ISBN: 9781000606492
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyses the response of the Indonesian state to violence against Ahmadiyah and Shi'a minority communities by foregrounding the close connections between state officials and vigilante groups, which influenced the way the post-Soeharto democratic Indonesian governments addressed the problem of violence against religious minorities.

Arguing that the violence stemmed in part from the state officials' close connection with vigilante groups, and a general tendency for the authorities to forge mutual and material interests with such groups, the author demonstrates that vigilante groups were able to perpetrate violence against the minority congregations with a significant degree of impunity. While the Indonesian state has become far more democratic, accountable, and decentralized since 1998, the violence against Ahmadiyah and Shi'a communities shows a state that is still unwilling in assisting or allowing minority groups to practice their religion. The research undertaken for this book draws upon a lengthy period of ethnographic fieldwork in the communities of West Java and East Java. Research material includes in-depth interviews with community and religious leaders, state officials and security forces, and other prominent politicians.

A novel approach to the problem of Islam, violence, and the state in Indonesia, the book will be of interest to researchers studying Southeast Asian Politics, Islam and Politics, Conflict Resolution, State and Violence, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

1 Introduction

Introduction

As part of his job, Sampang police Chief, Adjutant Senior Commissioner (Adj. Sr. Comr.) Solehan, routinely received guests at his office for a variety of reasons. But a gentleman’s visit on 13 December 2011 was rather special. The gentleman, Faruq, the head of Blu’uran village, informed the police chief that three people, including two Blu’uran residents, had discussed possible attacks against a Shi’a school building located in the neighbouring village of Karanggayam.¹ This school was set to be the target of these three people’s violence due to their suspicion that Shi’ism was being propagated in the school.

The information alarmed the police chief as he knew tension was building in the two villages, following protracted social conflict between majority Sunni residents and their Shi’a neighbours. Later, on the same day, the police chief summoned Rois Hukama, an anti-Shi’a campaigner and influential Sunni preacher who lived in Karanggayam village. At night, Solehan assembled his personnel, ordering them to conduct regular patrols in the two villages, in particular in Nangkernang and Gading Laok hamlets, where a significant population of Shi’a minority communities lived. Two days later, the officer held another round of meetings with four local figures, including a councillor (Aksan Jamal) and the Chief of Gading Laok hamlet (Munaji), in a popular local restaurant to discuss the significance of the threat, and how to ease the tension. The officer then continued to discuss the matter with the regency’s senior officials in Sampang’s government building.

Despite these efforts, the violence against the Shi’a communities took place. Unidentified people burned the veranda of a house belonging to a Shi’a resident in Gading Laok hamlet in the early hours of 17 December 2011. The resident, Matsiri, and his wife were safe, because they had left their house immediately after they smelled burning bamboo materials. The attackers disappeared before the elderly couple was able to identify them. The attackers singled out Matsiri’s house as a target, apparently because Tajul Muluk, then a Shi’a community leader who had earlier been expelled from the village and then resided in the city of Malang, occasionally visited the house when he returned to the village for a couple of days (Panggabean & Ali-Fauzi, 2014, p. 109). Local Sunni residents often considered Tajul Muluk, the Shi’a leader, as a trouble-maker because he was accused of introducing Shi’ism, which was different to mainstream Sunni beliefs.²

The incident was a warm-up for a much bigger incident of violence against the Shi’a communities. Two weeks later, over 1,000 Sunni residents burned down three houses belonging to Shi’a leaders in the two villages, including that of Tajul Muluk. The police arrived at the scene when Sunni residents were vandalizing and destroying the houses, but they did nothing to stop the vandalism because according to the police, “the number of police personnel was too few in comparison to the sheer number of angry Sunni residents” (Komisi Orang Hilang [The Commission for Missing Persons], 2012, p. 11).

The police named seven people as suspects for the attacks in the aftermath of the incident, but arrested only two for prosecution. The Sampang district court sentenced one of them, Musikrah, to three months and 10 days in jail for damaging other people’s properties (“Rentetan Kekerasan [String of Violence]”, 2012). The police released the other suspect, Saripin, without charge due to strong protests by Sunni community figures demanding his freedom (Panggabean & Ali-Fauzi, 2014, p. 110). On the other hand, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict by the lower court, sentencing Tajul Muluk to four years in jail for committing blasphemy, although he was not at the site of the incident when it occurred.

The story illustrates the state officials’ response to the violence that became commonplace in post-New Order Indonesia, where minority communities (Shi’a and Ahmadiyah) were regularly and violently set upon by Sunni Muslims and others.³ Human-rights organizations in Indonesia, such as Setara Institute and Wahid Institute, found that such violence, in the form of attacks on places of worship, attacks on houses belonging to minorities, forced evictions targeting minorities, and banning of religious activities, have commonly occurred in Indonesia since 2007. Researchers at the Setara Institute reported 135 incidents of intolerance and violence against minorities in 2007, 265 in 2008, 200 in 2009, 216 in 2010, and 244 in 2011 (Hasani & Naipospos, 2012, p. 28). Another organization, the Wahid Institute, reported 121 incidents in 2009, 184 in 2010, 267 in 2011, 278 in 2012, 245 in 2013, and 154 in 2014 (The Wahid Institute, 2014, p. 29). Most of the victims were Ahmadiyah, Shi’a, and Christian minorities, although in some places, where Muslim-Sunni became minorities, they were also victims. The majority of Indonesians are Muslim-Sunni. Christians had been long-time targets, but the increase of violence against Ahmadiyah and Shi’a was a novelty under a government in the post-New Order era. Hence, this trend becomes the subject of this research.

This rising trend of “religious intolerance” was a major concern for democracy in Indonesia. Although predominantly populated by Muslims (around 87 per cent of the total 237 million population in 2010), Indonesia’s Constitution is religiously neutral. Indonesia is not governed according to sharia laws, except in Aceh province. The Constitution acknowledges freedom of religion or belief, as exemplified by Article 29.⁴ Hence, these incidents of religious violence that seemingly stand in contrast to the Indonesian Constitution, began to define the post-New Order period, leading many to question the sustainability of a “tolerant” pluralistic democratic Indonesia. Scholars, human right activists, and the national and international media all began to wonder why the Indonesian state, in its various forms, was not doing more to address these types of violence. This book seeks to explain, through local and global discussion, why the Indonesian state failed to do more in addressing this type of communal violence, mainly against Ahmadiyah and Shi’a communities.

The role of the Indonesian state has been a core focus of scholarly attention since the outbreak of violence in the aftermath of the reform movement in 1998. Scholars often describe the Indonesian state as incapable of addressing the violence. Rizal Sukma (2003, pp. 247–248) argues that the Indonesian security forces were incapable of overcoming such conflicts because, since the collapse of the New Order in 1998, they had not been trained to use democratic means to cope with violence. As a result, they dragged their feet to end the violence, which explained why it took so long for the government to resolve the Ambon conflict. Other factors that contributed to the state’s capacity to end the violence, according to Rizal, were state financial constraints, lack of discipline among the security forces, the chaotic politics resulting in politicians in Jakarta being ignorant of the outbreak of the violence, and the impotence of the judicial system and law enforcement agencies. Echoing Rizal, Yuhki Tajima (2008, p. 452) explains that the military’s withdrawal from politics resulted in the loss of legal and security deterrence, and paved the way for people to unleash violence.

Other scholars (Van Klinken, 2007; Hicks, 2014) contend that the state’s complicity in the violence reduced its capacity to maintain security in the country’s territory. Gerry van Klinken shows that, instead of promoting peace, local elites mobilized crowds along ethnic and religious lines to obtain material and political benefits, which resulted in violence (Van Klinken, 2007, p. 139). Jacqueline Hicks argues that a heresy campaign targeting minority faiths was part of religious and political elites’ endeavours to reclaim religious and political authority after they lost their power following the collapse of the New Order regime (Hicks, 2014, p. 332). Michael Buehler also shows that state officials were seeking to regain power, in his South Sulawesi case study. Through the case study he argues the weakness of the state stemmed from its elites adapting to the changing nature of the post-New Order politics by reaching out to those societal groups that were able to provide them with the resources they needed to win elections, including the promulgation of intolerant bylaws (Buehler, 2014, p. 174). Through Ahmadiyah and Shi’a case studies, I will contribute to this scholarly discussion about the response to violence in the post-New Order era by state officials, especially those in the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

This book will explain state practices in handling violence against minority communities. It contributes to explaining the state’s response to the violence, by examining in depth two areas which were the sites of such violence. Fieldwork for this research was conducted in Ahmadiyah and Shi’a communities over a seven-month period, enabling extensive access to discuss the situation in these communities and hear people’s stories. Studying state practices at the local level is important because it helps scholars to understand the effects of the state on citizens (Gupta, 1995, p. 376). It is at the local level where state practices are most keenly felt by citizens, and where the manifestation of the state is most apparent. It is at the local level “where many people’s images of the state are forged” (Gupta, 1995, p. 376). This book shows local officials struggling to exercise their authority.

State capacity and the weak state

The aim of this book is to discuss the state’s response to religious violence. This book will use the discourse surrounding “state capacity” as a framework of analysis. State capacity refers to a state’s ability to formulate, to develop, and to implement policies which fulfil the collective needs of the citizens, such as security, welfare, and law and order in a legitimate way (Paul, 2010, p. 5). Discourse on state capacity starts from the premise that the state as a political institution has sovereign power assigned to it through a social contract. In return, the state needs to uphold the rights of the citizens, among others, the right to security. When the state is barely able to provide for the needs of the citizens, it is said to be a “weak state”. The least functional state is called a “failed state”, which refers to its incapacity to provide for the needs of its citizens (Dupont, Gaborsky, & Shearing, 2003, p. 332).

In the early 1990s the US government commissioned a team of scholars to conduct a large survey to investigate what made states fail. The team, called the State Failure Task Force, then collected a large set of social, political, economic, and environmental data from countries across the world, spanning 1955 to 1998. The data were used to determine the causes of the failed state, which the task force defined as a state plagued with types of events that indicate severe political instability, namely: revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, adverse regime changes, genocides, and politicides (State Failure Task Force, 2000). The task force concluded that, based on the data, factors that facilitated the failed state were: partial democracy instead of a full or authoritarian state, high infant mortality, low trade openness, and the presence of major civil conflict in two or more bordering states (State Failure Task Force, 2000, p. 6). These underlying factors were used to predict the occurrence of a failed state within the next two years.

Research conducted by the Harvard University Failed States Project offers broader criteria to identify state capacity or incapacity to deliver the public good. Their research established criteria for classifying states in terms of four categories: strong, weak, failed, and collapsed states (Rotberg, 2003, pp. 4–5). First, strong states refers to states’ successful capacity to control their territories and to deliver high-quality political good to their citizens. Second, in weak states, the state is structurally sound, but temporarily weak due to internal antagonism, management flaws, greed, or external attacks. The capacity to deliver political good, such as security, becomes diminished within weak states. Ethnic, religious, or other communal tensions are rife in weak states, but may not yet have become overtly violent. Rule of law is regularly breached in weak states, but failed states are plagued by warring factions. Collapsed states have no ruling authority at all. According to a key academic on the project, Robert I. Rotberg (2003, p. 2), the classification is based on the level of the state’s effective delivery of political good. Based on the criteria for each category, the research offers a case study for each of 11 countries across the world that represents the four categories. In contrast to the State Failure Task Force’s findings, the Harvard University research offers more immediate factors that facilitate state failure, such as a deteriorating economic situation, authoritarian politics, and a rising level of violence.

These two major studies offer insights that are useful for this book. Both research projects measure the state’s capacity based on its ability to deliver the public good. This is the yardstick that I use in this book to determine the Indonesian state’s effectiveness in providing for the public good through the provision of a safe and secure environment for Ahmadiyah and Shi’a communities.

Indonesia is a weak state?

Much of the literature on the Indonesian state in the New Order period (1965–1998) argues that Soeharto’s authoritarian regime failed to deliver security to many of its citizens. John Pemberton (1994, p. 9), for example, argues that despite seemingly total order, the New Order environment led to rampant repression of particular cultures. R. E. Elson (2002, p. 173) writes that, during its rule, the New Order regime was responsible for numerous occurrences of state-sponsored violence. A long list includes state-sponsored violence against communists in the 1965–1966 period and beyond, extrajudicial killings against thugs in the 1980s, and attacks against political parties and pro-democracy activists. According to scholar Dwight Y. King (1982, p. 111), the New Order regime achieved this violence through repression and co-optation of its opponents, and development of a corporatist system. Soeharto sat as a patron in the corporatist system, through which he oversaw close or distant clients while repressing other dissenters. Karl D. Jackson (1978, pp. 10–11) shows that the New Order restricted political power to a small elite circle within the Army, bureaucrats and technocrats, while oppositionist others were violently repressed. In summary, state-sponsored violence was rampant during the New Order, hence the regime can be categorized as a weak state in the sense that it failed to provide security for its citizens. However, it was not a failed state, since it was not at the stage of revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, or adverse regime change.

Indonesia in the post-New Order era, in particular the era of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s government (2004–2014), was clearly not a failed state either. The respect for human rights was much better in the era of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in comparison to the Soeharto era. But there were still many problems that the Yudhoyono government and its administration needed to address in the post-New Order period, including the frequent violence against Ahmadiyah and Shi’a communities.

So, was Indonesia, at the time of the Yudhoyono government, a weak state, a strong state, or somewhere in between? Rotberg argued that Indonesia was “temporarily or situationally weak because of internal antagonism, management flaws and greed” (Rotberg, 2003, p. 4), but, certainly, the country was not under external attacks or despotism. Indonesia experienced religious and ethnic intercommunal tensions, but the tension did not end up in sweeping violence across the country. The state institutions sometimes harassed civil society, but on a smaller scale than in a failed state. Similarly, the government and its administrations breached the rule of law, but not totally, as would have been the case if the rule of law had been largely absent in society.

The frequent incidents of religious violence against Ahmadiyah and Shi’a minorities during President Yudhoyono’s government were evidence that the state was not effective in protecting these communities. The rate of violence was substantial enough to draw public concern. Some scholars even suggested that the phenomenon defined interreligious relations in the era of the Yudhoyono government. This book will deal more with why the state was unable to deliver the public good (safety and security) to these minority communities, and will conclude with an assessment of the state’s weaknesses and strengths. To understand the state’s security capacity in Indonesia we must first turn to an examination of how existing scholarship assesses the role of the Indonesian state in hindering or supporting ethnic and religious violence. First, I discuss the state’s capacity for violence in the New Order and immediate post-New Order period. Then I turn specifically to examine the existing scholarship on Ahmadiyah and Shi’a communities.

The state

The subject of the role and importance of the state has a long history in scholarship. A snapshot is provided here to introduce the concept of “the state” before we turn more specifically to scholarship on the Indonesian state. Max Weber’s (1968, p. 54) definition of the state as a compulsory political organization in a given territory that continuously operates in the duration of the state’s life is regarded as seminal. Weber further argues that the organization is powerful because its officials claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Weber’s theory of the state substantially influenced other scholars (Nordlinger, 1981; Mann, 1984; Skocpol, 1985), who also supported the idea that the state plays a significant role in shaping the structure and behaviour of society.

Weber’s definition suggests that the sta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of maps
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary and abbreviations
• Terminology
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Escalating heresy campaigns against Ahmadiyah and Shi’a communities
• 3 State officials’ entanglement with vigilante groups
• 4 The judiciary and the law
• 5 Local bureaucrats
• 6 The president
• 7 Conclusion: state capacity and communal violence against minority faiths
• Index