Spreading Islam

Preceded by a synopsis of the two earlier works, the present text traces Javanese society and Islam in the 1930s, such as the impact of the Great Depression, the Tradionalist-Reformist divide, and the further polarising of the abangan-santri opposition; subsequently, the Japanese occupation and the revolutionary fight against renewed Dutch colonialism. During these latter periods the boundary between the nominally Islamic abangan and the observant santri hardens and gives rise to violence between these groups. Even so, the divide appears to institutionalise itself during Indonesia's first experiments in democracy, known as aliran politics in which the Communist Party (PKI) appears as the political spokesman of the abangan. Towards the end of the Sukarno period (1963-6) the abangan-santri cleavage reaches its Armageddon, resulting in Soeharto's New Order and the end of aliran politics.

It gives way to the gradual development of what Ricklefs calls a 'religionised society', in which we see a deepening Islamisation of society, but also a measure of Christianisation and other conversions away from Islam. In the early New Order years, this was accompanied by a revitalisation of the Javanese semi-mystical practise of kebatinan, i.e., the disciplining and cultivation of inner-man as a carrier of a spark of the godly essence. It coincided with my first Javanese field research around 1970 (Mulder 1980). Gradually, however, during the period of grass-roots Islamisation and advancing Islamism (c. 1980s-98), especially Traditionalist Islam was gaining privileged leeway and some political muscle in spite of the de-politicisation or 'floating-mass' policy of the New Order regime; at the same time, Revivalism, Reformism and threatening forms of Islamism came more and more to the fore. In conclusion, the author states "That when the Soeharto regime fell in 1998, the religious changes that had taken place in Javanese society over the past three decades were profound, (that) something like a watershed had been crossed" (254).

The most telling observation is that the opponents of Islamisation of the title—so much alive still when I did my first field research—seemed to have lost their voice. Their political representation via PKI and the Nationalist Party PNI had been annihilated or was absorbed in New Order uniformity at the same time that all forms of Islamisation got neat breathing space. These interpretations parallel my own (Mulder 1994, 2003) and are backed up by observations on all sorts of development, including that of the arts, which give rise to the impressive variety of data that substantiate to the lengthy under title.

The last substantive chapters on Islamisation, "Coming to Fruition, c. 1990 to the Present", is set in a political setting of decentralised, political freedoms that allowed for ever more space for Islam, including extreme and violent forms of intolerance. It resulted in the privileged position of the Indonesian Islamic Scholars' Council MUI, which could set its mark on civilian law. There were serious attempts to Islamise dress and habits of traditionally rather free Javanese women, to cleanse popular culture, and even business knew how to promote itself through the use of Islamic paraphernalia or through avoiding the display of 'offensive' literature and self-censorship, while the debates about superstitions, science, and forms of 'orthodoxy' became common place. Interestingly, Soeharto's relationship between formal schooling and the teaching of religion remained in place and was even strengthened through the requirement that schools recruit teachers of religion and provide facilities for worship (legalised in 2003).

Within a society as divers as the Javanese, it holds little cause for wonder that all sorts of pressures were generated to impose idiosyncratic conformity to 'Islamic belief', at the same time that the erstwhile tolerance of the Javanese that still impressed outsiders in the 1960s gave way to the hardening of Islamist positions which drove the large-scale, historically-grown Modernist and Traditionalist movements into the defensive. This development is also clear in older abangan and kebatinan ideas and practices, and related styles in arts and performance. This parallels the rise of the new totalitarianisms of smaller Islamist and Dakwahist, i.e., proselytising movements, while making the remaining opposition to Islamisation a purely private affair.

The book concludes on a feast of insights when Ricklefs evaluates the significance of the Islamisation of the Javanese in the contexts of the history of religion, of the contemporary Islamic world, and of the search for the better life, of whether people search for freedom versus justice. The Javanese case doesn't stand by itself, but is related to the world-wide (exceptingWestern Europe) revitalisation of religion and the ominous prospering of intolerant fundamentalisms. To evaluate this trend, the study throughout has been focussing on the relationship between the political realm on the one hand and the religious, social and cultural realms on the other. It clearly demonstrates that the modern, Western idea of the separation of the religious and the political is idiosyncratic and of little help in understanding what goes on in the rest of the world, and reveals the relevance of a comparative context for the issues facing a more deeply Islamised Javanese society, and Indonesia as a whole. A lucid summary of the study then concludes it.

If for no other reason than the pleasure of enjoying this fruit of sovereign scholarship, this clearly written and thoroughly argued text is well-worth reading. No doubt that this monument will stand for a long time to come. Since it convincingly demonstrates that the abangan-santri opposition is outdated and no longer relevant to understanding the movement of culture in Java, it invites new ethnography that deeply understands the rapid and radical changes in culture and society during the Soeharto and post-Soeharto periods. It is as if here is no returning to the kebatinan or Javanist Java I am nostalgic about; like so many of my past stations in life, it has been abandoned to memory. In view of certain developments, it seems as if they were adumbrated in Ricklefs's ominous dedication of his work "to those who, over the centuries, have suffered because of conflicts over what people believe".    

References

Mulder, Niels. 1980. Mysticism and Everyday Life in contemporary Java.Singapore:SingaporeUniversity Press (2nd ed.).

Mulder, Niels. 1993. Inside Indonesian Society: Cultural Change in Java.Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol. (3rd printing with Kanisius, Yogyakarta 2003).

Niels Mulder retired to the southern slope of the mystically potent Mt. Banáhaw, Philippines, where he concluded his swan song, Situating Filipino Civilisation in Southeast Asia; Reflections and observations. Saarbruecken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing (print-to-order ed., ISBN 978-3-659-13083-0) 2012. <niels_mulder201935@yahoo.com.ph>.