What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia

The transition from authoritarian to democratic rule in Indonesia has been accompanied by the apparent decline of the liberal Muslim discourse that was dominant during the 1970s and 1980s and the increasing prominence of Islamist and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. This paper attempts to go...

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Main Author: Bruinessen, Martin Van.
Other Authors: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: 2012
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/94249
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7533
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-942492020-11-01T08:46:24Z What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia Bruinessen, Martin Van. S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies DRNTU::Social sciences::Political science The transition from authoritarian to democratic rule in Indonesia has been accompanied by the apparent decline of the liberal Muslim discourse that was dominant during the 1970s and 1980s and the increasing prominence of Islamist and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. This paper attempts to go beyond a superficial reading of these developments and explores the conditions that favoured the flourishing of liberal Muslim thought during the New Order as well as the various factors that from the 1980s onwards supported the rise of transnational Islamist movements, at the expense of the established mainstream organisations, Muhammadiyah and NU. Liberal Muslim thought during the New Order developed in two distinct environments: among university students and graduates and the newly emerging Muslim middle class, whose family backgrounds connected them with reformist Islam, on the one hand, and among intellectuals and NGO activists hailing from the traditionalist milieu of the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) on the other. Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid were the most brilliant representatives of these environments. Although both adopted similar positions on such key issues as the idea of an Islamic state and inter-religious relations, they arrived at these positions by different trajectories. The paper analyses the development of religious and social thought in these two environments in its changing social and political context, and also traces the development and strengthening transnational connections of an undercurrent of Islamist and fundamentalist thought during the same period. It was through the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), established in 1990 as a vehicle for Muslim civil servants and businessmen, that the New Order regime co-opted formerly oppositional Islamists and fundamentalists and brought them into the mainstream. Liberal and progressive Muslim thought by no means stagnated after the demise of the New Order; in fact, it reached higher levels of intellectual sophistication than in the heyday of Suharto’s rule. However, liberal and progressive Muslims have lost the power of setting the terms of public debate to the numerically stronger currents of radical Islam. Considerable segments of the Muslim middle class have come under the influence of Islamist or fundamentalist thought. Those who reject those radical varieties of Islam, appear to be more easily drawn to popular preachers leading Sufism-inspired devotional movements rather than to the intellectual successors of Madjid and Wahid. 2012-02-24T07:22:39Z 2019-12-06T18:53:13Z 2012-02-24T07:22:39Z 2019-12-06T18:53:13Z 2011 2011 Working Paper Bruinessen, M. V. (2011). What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia. (RSIS Working Paper, No. 222). Singapore: Nanyang Technological University. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/94249 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7533 en RSIS Working Papers ; 222-11 62 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Social sciences::Political science
spellingShingle DRNTU::Social sciences::Political science
Bruinessen, Martin Van.
What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia
description The transition from authoritarian to democratic rule in Indonesia has been accompanied by the apparent decline of the liberal Muslim discourse that was dominant during the 1970s and 1980s and the increasing prominence of Islamist and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. This paper attempts to go beyond a superficial reading of these developments and explores the conditions that favoured the flourishing of liberal Muslim thought during the New Order as well as the various factors that from the 1980s onwards supported the rise of transnational Islamist movements, at the expense of the established mainstream organisations, Muhammadiyah and NU. Liberal Muslim thought during the New Order developed in two distinct environments: among university students and graduates and the newly emerging Muslim middle class, whose family backgrounds connected them with reformist Islam, on the one hand, and among intellectuals and NGO activists hailing from the traditionalist milieu of the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) on the other. Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid were the most brilliant representatives of these environments. Although both adopted similar positions on such key issues as the idea of an Islamic state and inter-religious relations, they arrived at these positions by different trajectories. The paper analyses the development of religious and social thought in these two environments in its changing social and political context, and also traces the development and strengthening transnational connections of an undercurrent of Islamist and fundamentalist thought during the same period. It was through the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), established in 1990 as a vehicle for Muslim civil servants and businessmen, that the New Order regime co-opted formerly oppositional Islamists and fundamentalists and brought them into the mainstream. Liberal and progressive Muslim thought by no means stagnated after the demise of the New Order; in fact, it reached higher levels of intellectual sophistication than in the heyday of Suharto’s rule. However, liberal and progressive Muslims have lost the power of setting the terms of public debate to the numerically stronger currents of radical Islam. Considerable segments of the Muslim middle class have come under the influence of Islamist or fundamentalist thought. Those who reject those radical varieties of Islam, appear to be more easily drawn to popular preachers leading Sufism-inspired devotional movements rather than to the intellectual successors of Madjid and Wahid.
author2 S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
author_facet S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Bruinessen, Martin Van.
format Working Paper
author Bruinessen, Martin Van.
author_sort Bruinessen, Martin Van.
title What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia
title_short What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia
title_full What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia
title_fullStr What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia
title_full_unstemmed What happened to the smiling face of Indonesian Islam? : Muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-Suharto Indonesia
title_sort what happened to the smiling face of indonesian islam? : muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-suharto indonesia
publishDate 2012
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/94249
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7533
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