INFIDELS IN INDONESIA The Intention of Initiating Interaction Instead of Intolerance MSc Thesis written by Daniel S.N. Otto under the supervision of Dr. L.G.H. Bakker, and submitted to the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Contemporary Asian Studies at the University of Amsterdam This page is intentionally left blank Table of Contents I Introduction .......................................................................................................................... i II Methodology ....................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 The Roles of Religion and Atheism within Indonesian Society .......................... 1 1.1 Religious Discourse and a Taboo called Atheism ....................................................... 1 1.2 Alexander Aan, how not to Act ................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2 The Social Manifestation of Atheists ................................................................... 9 2.1 Ways towards Atheism, Atheist Narratives & Perspectives ........................................ 9 2.2 The Multiple Stages for Presentation of the Self ....................................................... 16 2.3 Difference between Online and Offline Manifestation of Atheists ........................... 23 Chapter 3 The Multiple Actors in the Debate ..................................................................... 29 3.1 Liberals ...................................................................................................................... 29 3.2 Conservatives ............................................................................................................. 36 3.3 Regulators .................................................................................................................. 39 Chapter 4 The Future of Indonesia’s Societal Tolerance .................................................... 43 III References ..................................................................................................................... 47 Abbreviations IA Indonesian Atheists FPI Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) HMI Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (Islamic Students Association) ISIL Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant JIL Jaringan Islam Liberal (Liberal Islamic Network) KAMI Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Indonesia (Indonesian Students Action Forum) KEMENAG Kementerian Agama (Ministry of Religious Affairs) KTP Kartu Tanda Penduduk (Resident Identity Card) LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender NASAKOM Nasionalisme, Agama, Komunisme (Nationalism, Religion, Communism) NGO Non-Governmental Organization PGI Persatuan Gereja-Gereja Indonesia (Indonesian Council of Churches) PKI Partai Komunisme Indonesia (Communist Party Indonesia) PKUB Pusat Kerukunan Umat Beragama (Center for Inter Religious Harmony) RI Republik Indonesia (Republic of Indonesia) SNS Self-presentation and Social Connections UI Universitas Indonesia (University of Indonesia) UN United Nations UNY Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta State University) UvA Universiteit van Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam) I Introduction “It is not realistic for a community of 1,700 people, with 1,700 different perceptions to come out and protest against the public opinion backed by 250 million people, maybe in a couple of hundred years (…) We do not feel the need to take an aggressive stance to begin a movement or prove ourselves, we just want to be support each other, to be safe and survive. In the Philippines, people march on the streets with banners saying: “we are agnostic, we exist” and nobody takes offence. If we would do that here in Indonesia, we would be beaten up for sure.” (Glen) Indonesia is a country with a rich amount of various religions with Islam being the largest. Although Indonesia is a secular state, national politics and ideology are strongly influenced and flavored according to religion. Mostly this is a struggle for power between Islam and Christianity. (Assyaukanie 2009) However, politics are not entirely driven by religion, which differentiates a religious state from a secular one. Nevertheless, members from a specific religious group may experience different judicial treatment than those from other groups. From this perspective, one could question the extent of secularism of the state if citizens are based i differently based on their religion (Mujani & Liddle 2009). For that matter, religion is something that is definitely taken into account, a thing that can differentiate the one from another and therefore, it is obviously not a unifying phenomenon in the case of Indonesia. Thus, within the range of religions – larger and smaller ones – several dissimilarities can be identified. Small and local religions are the social minorities who often lose from the majority on the cultural, political and social level. But what if a group is such a minority that it is the odd man out, an anomaly that is not suitable to be determined within this range of religions? Up above is a quote from a young Indonesian teacher who feels part of this societal anomaly. Namely, the Indonesian atheist community1. He seems aware of the national religious discourse, the position of non-religion within that discourse and thus the small scope of the atheist community, in this case, to try and influence the discourse and improve their own position by protesting in public. This widely carried idea about religious minorities, combined with the active laws and judicial treatment towards this group, makes it a highly interesting interaction. The constantly underlying tension between atheist and non-atheists may often rise up till boiling point. This interaction is not just a confrontation between the religious community and the atheist community but involves many other groups who all have different backgrounds and ideologies and therefore may carry out intersecting opinions, aims and means. To find out about the mechanism, the interaction and the interrelations between all these different actors, it is important to expose these actors as well as to try and take a viewpoint from each of their perspectives. I have chosen to roughly divide these actors, besides the atheist community itself, into the conservatives, liberals and the regulating side. These three are each intrinsically linked to the other two in a kind of triangular dynamic, and to the atheist community within either the social or political domain of the issue. Besides the different actors, it is also important to take into account the time and place of the social phenomenon. One cannot simply try to observe and comprehend these kinds of large scale phenomena within its own sense of time and place. In order to understand them as complete as possible, one should take into account the specific historical background in its specific environment. Therefore, the first part of this thesis will look into the rich history of religion in Indonesia, the consequences that it brought and what all that has meant for the role of religion in contemporary Indonesia. Furthermore it will elaborately put apart the main events that are derived from this history, illustrate the friction between religion and atheism and at the 1 Facebook; Indonesian Atheists (IA) Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/indonesianatheists/, accessed on the 10th of June, 2016. ii same time have a significant affect for its future. Hopefully it is sufficient to shed a light on the current role of atheism as an anomaly within the religious discourse of the nation. Moreover, it will contain a detailed description of the narratives of the members of the atheist community. Part of this will be specific attention to their history, their stories of their roads to atheism, and their current perspectives on their own position in society and how they perceive the large role of religion in current society. I hope to try and expose their underlying reasons to give an illustration of how and why they chose to take this road and keep pursuing it. By means of rich data from many interviews with Indonesian atheists, I will portray them and indicate the singularities as well as the similarities in the context of the rest of the atheist community. By doing so, controversial insights about their stories will come to light and will be extensively explicated. The second chapter will also contain relevant theoretical frameworks to help understand the topic of atheist minorities in the context of the political state of Indonesia and to try and comprehend the manifestation that atheist realize within this society. Hereby, I will pay specific attention to the role of continuously changing identities and self-presentations in order to adapt as much as possible to their environment and taking in to account possible consequences of their actions. With some major sociological and anthropological theories describing self- presentation, shifts within different forms of self-presentation, but also how, why and when this happens, I will try to create a rich description and – if possible – understanding of this social phenomenon. In this light I will pay specific attention to the differences between online and offline presentation of self-identity and why it is applicable and relevant within this topic. Chapter three will describe the different actors playing a role within the atheist debate, besides the atheist themselves. By describing their fellow liberal thinkers, the inimical