Page 46 - AEI Insights 2019 - Vol. 5, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 5, Issue 1, 2019

was unique as it provided for the demands of a new style of religious and political activities.
Muslim intellectuals arose with nontraditional training and unconventional concerns. New
Muslim intellectuals were responding to the demands of the modern world and the threat posed
by the West.

With the revival of cultural Islam among the Muslim community, there were also attempts by
the political elite to change their own personal behaviour and attitudes. It was evident during
the 1990s that the Islamisation process had penetrated the middle class and the central power
based on the New Order government. The government began to take sides with Muslims’
aspiration and interests in the late 1980s onwards (Effendy, 2003). Naturally, the change in the
government’s perception and attitude towards Islam had been doubted by some Muslim
activists, for it was within a short period that Suharto changed his stance towards Islam. Many
Muslim activist and scholars were surprised with Suharto’s accommodative attitudes. Some
political analysts even argued that the shift was motivated by the coming presidential election
in 1993 (Liddle, 1996).

In the 1980s, the Muslims community turned to spiritual development. Muslims were
becoming more educated and professional (Hefner, 1993). Many young Muslims are graduates
and some are even Ph.D. holders, awarded from various universities; locally as well as abroad
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such as Middle Eastern, European and American universities. This phenomenon is partly
related to the government’s program of mass education, by which the government directed all
students to undergo religious education. In neutralising Islamic political tendencies, the
government adopted the policy of sponsoring Islamic institutions and the establishment of
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mosques to compensate its ‘containment’ policy of separating religion from politics. This
policy aimed at gaining Muslims’ support and participation in national development (Watson,
1994).

It could also be argued that in the late 1980s Suharto was interested in courting a base support
beyond the armed forces. Political analysts note that the president’s anxiety about Murdani, the
most powerful Catholic general and a former Minister of Defense and Commander of the
Armed Forces, was the only influence on his policy towards Muslims (Liddle, 1996). Hefner,
however, criticised this analysis as being bias, as he had found from his own interviews with
several of Suharto’s ministers that Suharto was already aware of and genuinely concerned
about the growing Islamic resurgence. He and his advisors reflected regularly on the Islamic
revivalism in Iran and Algeria. According to Hefner (1997b), Suharto saw Muslims as a
potentially significant force in the near future.

It might be true that in the beginning Suharto made his rapprochement with Muslim community
partly because of his worsening relationship with Murdani, who had dared to question him
about his family’s corrupt business activities. As such Suharto, launched a ruthless campaign
to neutralise Murdani’s influences in the armed forces and sought to counterbalance the
military power with that of the Muslim community. However, Suharto at that particular time
has also changed his personal image and perception towards Islam. In the early 1990s, Suharto
successfully replaced the Catholic general Benny Murdani as head of the Armed Forces with

7 The emergence of educated Muslims from various universities was considered as an outcome of the
government’s policy, sending young Muslim scholars to study Islam at universities in the Middle East, the United
States, and Western Europe, through making collaborations between the Department of Religion under the
Ministry of Religion and several high learning institutions such as Azhar University in Egypt, Chicago University
in the United States, Mac Gill university in Canada, and Leiden University in the Netherlands. For further reading
on this Muslim graduates (Abaza, 1993; Hefner, 2000; Federspiel, 2006).
8 These programs were under the Ministry of Religion. However, Suharto himself under the auspices of a
presidential foundation for the support of Islamic initiatives, the Amal Bakti Muslimin Pancasila, constructed
4000 mosques and provided support to one thousand Muslim proselytizers (dai) (Hefner, 1997).

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