Indonesia’s Muslims do not want a Sharia state

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

The country’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), strongly reiterated its opposition Friday to efforts to turn Indonesia into a theocratic state.

NU lawmaking body chief Sahal Mahfudz said the organization needed to reaffirm its commitment to the country’s secular traditions amid concerted moves to introduce sharia as a legal foundation for drafting legislation.

“The NU upholds pluralism in line with the Pancasila. We oppose the implementation of sharia because this will only lead to disintegration. Sharia can be implemented without being formalized,” Sahal told the opening ceremony of a three-day national NU ulema conference in Surabaya, East Java.

He added that the NU should continue to be at the forefront in campaigning for the preservation of local values.

The organization has been particularly vocal in its opposition to the passage of sharia-based bylaws in several areas of the country.

NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi said in a recent meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla that the country risked disintegration from the campaign of some groups to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state.

The NU has joined other commentators in pointing out that the moves undermine the all-encompassing principles of the state ideology Pancasila.

Kalla, who officiated at the opening of the congress, also believed there were efforts to create conflict by promoting Islam to replace Pancasila in multiethnic, religiously diverse Indonesia.

“One indication of the plot is the drawing up of numerous sharia-inspired bylaws,” Kalla said in his address to 2,000 senior Muslim clerics.

He backed NU’s campaign against the implementation of sharia in the country. “We fully support NU’s stance on opposing the sharia-inspired bylaws that have been enacted in several regions.”

Since the passage of the regional autonomy law in 2000, 22 municipalities and regencies have implemented bylaws showing the influence of sharia, including stipulations for Koran literacy among schoolchildren, the obligation for women to wear headscarves in public and heavy punishment for adultery, alcoholism and gambling.

Concerns about sharia will be one among many subjects discussed by the senior clerics during the congress. Other issues likely to invite heated debate are growing tension in the Middle East following the Israeli attacks against Lebanon and Palestine, disaster mitigation and the involvement of NU members in politics.

The latter is especially sensitive, with Sahal saying the trend of NU figures joining political parties compromised the organization’s true spirit.