Genesis of Dwifungsi

5For decades, the Indonesian army enjoyed a special status accorded by its ‘dual function’ (dwifungsi ) — military and political — a status partly inherited from the anti-colonial war when the army had continued to fight against the Dutch colonisers in 1948 while the civil government itself had accepted negotiations. The political ambitions of the army were clearly displayed in 1952, when General A.H. Nasution tried to force President Soekarno to dissolve Parliament when it attempted to reorganize the army.7 A few years later, the regional rebellions (DI/TII, PRRI, Permesta), the impasse in discussions in the Constitutional Assembly and President Soekarno’s desire to install ‘Guided Democracy’ paved the way for the army to come to the fore. It was in 1957 that General Nasution first mentioned, in a speech commemorating the first anniversary of the military academy of Magelang, the special ‘function’ that he felt should be exercised by the army. For him, the army should take the ‘middle path’ (jalan tengah) as it would guarantee the possibility of fulfilling this role. Rapidly, however, it appeared that the ‘dual function’ was above all the political means of endowing the army with a ‘third function’, this time economic. Already very much involved in the trading of raw materials in the regions — if nothing else, to meet the budget of the units — the army officially took over the control of Dutch enterprises after their nationalisation in 1959. This economic clout increased with the coming to power of General Soeharto: via charitable associations or by hiding behind figureheads, high-ranking officers profited immensely from the economic development of the country. A part of these profits went into the traditional funding of the units; another part enabled some New Order generals to build considerable fortunes.8

6With much more at stake than merely military matters, the nomination of officers for important posts has always taken on a special political importance. In this respect, the evolution of the population pyramid in the army has long been the object of detailed analyses by the most informed observers.9 It is thus worthwhile to explore the recent history of this institution in order to understand the events of the 1990s. Com-petition for commander posts was particularly fierce for two cohorts, 1965 and 1968, recruited under very unusual circumstances.10 In 1962, Indonesia was preparing to take over West Papua, which was still in the hands of the Netherlands, and almost 200 new officer posts were created at the military academy for this war effort. The class of 1965 (after three years of studies) occupied the majority of army posts, but also those of governors, vice-governors, regents and local heads of Golkar during the New Order. In the same year, Indonesia, then engaged in an offensive against Malaysia (Konfrontasi), threw open the doors of its military aca-demy. The second class of 1968, also numbering around 500 candidates (among whom figured Wiranto and Agum Gumelar), penetrated the bureaucracy as well but only reached its acme much later — at the time of Soeharto’s fall from power.11 These two drastic increases in the number of officers led more than 20 years later to intense competition for commander posts, viewed as the requisite for a successful career. Escalating tensions encouraged the eruption of quarrels within the army and as such, contributed to the formation of alliances between radical Islamist groups and some officers in the army.

Emergence of a Contesting Group in the Army

7Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces from 1984, General Benny Moerdani acquired very substantial political clout by incarnating a certain military opposition to the wheeling-and-dealing tendencies of the regime. Leader of a group within the army that was disgruntled with the increasing take-over of the economy by Soeharto’s clan — encroaching even on territories hitherto reserved for the army — he represented as of 1987 an actual threat to the presidential family.12 In 1988, a section of the army had openly defied the authority of the president by presenting another candidate, other than the one endorsed by Soeharto, for vice-president. Pressurised by the presidential entourage, the army-backed candidate, John Naro, head of the Islamic party PPP, finally withdrew from the race. But the session of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), tasked with the election of the head of state and his vice-president, was unusually stormy, the members of Parliament from the army having dispatched one of their own, Ibrahim Saleh, to the stand to publicly express their discontent. This was unprecedented in an assembly known for a high degree of formality and where decisions were reached by unanimity. This episode seems to have further convinced Soeharto of the need to search for new backing from political Islam circles in order to compensate for the flagging support from the army. This move dented but did not quash the influence of the officers aligned with Moerdani. In 1993, they finally managed to impose their candidate in the person of Try Sutrisno as vice-president.

8Soeharto’s reaction was swift: in the same year, General Feisal Tanjung was nominated as head of the armed forces, marking the start of the purge of officers close to the Moerdani group. The power struggle took a religious turn when Soeharto’s circle decided to exploit the fact that Benny Moerdani was a Catholic. His faith had never influenced his actions as an army officer and later Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. He participated in the bloody invasion of East Timor in 1975, a region with a Christian (in fact Catholic) majority.13 It was certainly during his leadership of the armed forces that the incident at Tanjung Priok occurred in 1984, but this coercive policy towards all forms of opposition to the regime had nothing to do with religion and was equally pursued by his Muslim successors. Thus commenced a violent military campaign in Aceh in 1989 and the installation of the ‘military operation region’ status. This brutal repression boosted the ranks of the Acehnese secessionist movement, and the armed forces, led by General Try Sutrisno from 1988 to 1993, and then by the conspicuously Muslim General Feisal Tanjung (from 1993 to 1998), began the systematic use of force in this bastion of Indonesian Islam.14

9To his detractors, Moerdani symbolised the political alliance between Christians, secular Muslims and nominal Muslims, called abangan. Secularism under the emblem of Pancasila was in fact the norm within the top hierarchy of the military.15 It was particularly rooted in the army, which had to confront an endless series of regional rebellions carried out in the name of Islam since 1948. As seen earlier, Moerdani followed in the footsteps of his mentor General Moertopo, a Javanese of abangan reputation who was adroit at manipulating the Islamist circles.16 In the middle of the 1980s, Moerdani thus became the black sheep of Muslim militant organisations, symbolising for them the oppression of political Islam and the secularisation process that they had been denouncing for years. This rancour was cunningly fanned by his rivals within the army to serve their own ambitions.

10As a result of this conflict, after the creation of ICMI in the early 1990s, a ‘green’ faction (ijo royo-royo), that is, a Muslim faction whose flag bearers included amongst others the generals Hartono and Prabowo Subianto, was discernable within the Indonesian army. They opposed the ‘red and white’ (merah-putih) group — a reference to the colours of the Indonesian flag — symbol of a nationalism that transcends religious divisions, led by generals such as Edi Sudradjat and Try Sutrisno. The founding act of this ‘red and white’ group was, in a way, the challenge issued by the army to President Soeharto in 1988 when they backed their own candidate for vice-president and criticised the president at the stand. As a result, this contesting group became the target of regular attacks as much from Islamist circles as from the presidential entourage, both of which found room in this situation for very beneficial cooperation.17

The New Alliance: The ‘Green’ Generals

11One man, General Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of Soeharto, played a leading role in the rapprochement between the section of the army that remained loyal to the presidential clan and radical Indonesian Islam. Prabowo had already enjoyed a meteoric rise through the military hierarchy: having served throughout his career in the Special Forces (Kopassandha and Kopassus from 1976–1985, Strategic Reserve Command or Kostrad from 1985–1993), he acceded to the rank of general commander of Kopassus in 1996, before taking over as commander of the Strategic Reserve Command in March 1998. Taking advantage of the transfers that eliminated the ex-followers of Benny Moerdani (a movement called ‘debennisasi ’), Prabowo managed to nominate his allies for important posts. Thus, on the eve of the fall of Soeharto, he could count on crucial support at the heart of the military machine: the commander of the military region of greater Jakarta, Major General Syafrie Syamsuddin, and especially the head of Kopassus, Major General Muchdi Purwopranjono.

12It was also during this period from the mid-1990s onwards that Prabowo linked up with ICMI and even with the very radical Indone-sian Committee for Solidarity with the Muslim World (Komite Indonesia untuk Solidaritas Dunia Islam, KISDI), created in 1987.18 According to Robert Hefner, he seems to have approached KISDI through the Center for Policy and Development Studies (CPDS), the army and ICMI-linked think-tank, in 1995 to propose his services.19 The head of KISDI, Ahmad Sumargono, indicated in an interview with the weekly Tempo that it was through Syafrie Syamsuddin (military commander of Jakarta in May 1998) that he made the acquaintance of the general.20 At the same time, Prabowo appears to have made contact with the Indonesian Council for the Propagation of the Islamic Faith (DDII), inviting them to drop their opposition to the regime. The change in attitude of these two organisations towards the ruling power — a development already perceptible since the formation of ICMI21 — became clearer: in the matter of a few years, staunch opposition to the regime had given way to support that was barely tempered by some limited criticism during the early 1990s.

13When this alliance between the regime and some Islamist groups yielded concrete results in the army, the first objections were raised. In 1994, the ascension of Major General Hartono to the post of ABRI Chief of Staff for Political and Social Affairs generated, for the first time, comments from some perturbed officers. Sharper criticism was voiced when Hartono replaced General Wismoyo Arismunandar as head of the army a year later. On 14 January 1995 the Minister of Defence, General Edy Sudradjat, issued a reminder in a speech that the Indonesian army should take the middle ground and “stand above groups”, and that retired nationalist-secular officers would not countenance the repeat of such “disorders” (gangguan). Supporters of the “green nuance” (nuansa ijo-royo-royo) then took the reins of the altercations. Sumargono condemned the words of the minister.22 Anwar Haryono, head of DDII, reminded all that Islam had always participated in the anti-colonial struggle and that the military was predominantly Muslim anyway — this “greening” of the army or its “santrisation” was thus not a real problem.23 Even Amien Rais — still part of the leadership of ICMI — felt obliged to support the nomination of General Hartono by accusing his detractors of “Islamophobia”.24

14From this time on, Ahmad Sumargono did not seek to hide his privi-leged relationship with some army officers such as the generals Subagio, Muchdi, Syafrie Syamsuddin and Kivlan Zen.25 The rapprochement between the head of KISDI and General Prabowo was probably carried out for more opportunistic reasons. Coming from a socialist secular milieu and a partly Christian family, the son-in-law of Soeharto had never before been involved with Islamist circles. Very likely it was the deep enmity between him and Moerdani, and perhaps his personal ambitions as well, that made him seize upon unreservedly the radical “thoughts-to-go” elaborated by his new friends. So well did the new ‘student’ absorb this sectarian thinking that Ahmad Sumargono suggested later that not only did his mixing with General Prabowo not bring about a moderation of his own stance “but perhaps quite the opposite”.26

Defence of the Regime

15During the last months of the Soeharto regime, followed by the short-lived reign of his successor, B.J. Habibie, the alliance between a section of the army and some radical Muslim groups came to light and often took a dramatic turn. Pursuing increasingly incoherent policies to cope with the profound economic and social crises wracking the country, the dying New Order found in this strange alliance its last source of support.

16Discounting the creation in 1991 of the Forum Demokrasi, whose influence was limited in the face of the dazzling progression of ICMI, we can date the birth of a structured opposition to the Soeharto regime to 1994. During this year, the ban on several major publications (Tempo, Editor and Detik) forced into semi-clandestinity dozens of journalists who then took it upon themselves to systematically criticise the wrongdoings of the Soeharto clan and the abusive violence of its armed forces. As initiators of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, AJI), which soon published its own journal and, in particular, a crop of brochures and pamphlets distributed via the Internet, these pariahs of the official press played a part in politicising a generation of students thought to have become permanently inured to the regime’s propaganda. In 1995, President Soeharto was booed by Indonesian demonstrators during a visit to Germany. A taboo was broken. The following year, a series of risky operations gave the opposition, if not a leader, then at least a flag bearer in the person of Megawati Soekarnoputri. The daughter of the proclaimer of independence was carried to the forefront of the Indonesian Democratic Party at the end of 1993. Aware of her popularity, the ruling power wanted to prevent her from being designated by her party as the candidate for the next presidential election. So in June 1996, it organised a special party congress in Medan and elected an ex-leader of the PDI, Soeryadi, in place of Megawati. Enraged, her followers set up a permanent forum in front of PDI’s headquarters in Jakarta to speak out against the regime, refusing to cede to Soeryadi’s supporters. On 27 July, the latter — or, according to some sources, thugs supervised by elements of the army — attacked the occupied PDI premises and evicted Megawati’s supporters, resulting in the death of at least five and the disappearance of dozens, according to the Indonesian Commission of Human Rights.27 These tragic events so reinforced the popularity of the ex-leader of PDI that the ruling power decided to wave the old red flag of communist danger and laid the blame on a small group of activists, the Democratic People’s Party (Partai Rakyat Demokratik, PRD), whom they accused of representing the resurgence of a Marxist trend in Indonesia.

17At the very moment when opposition was first emerging, ICMI, symbol of the new Islamic policy, began to splinter over the question of support for the regime. Part of its leadership, “regimist” to use Robert Hefner’s expression, rooted for an unquestioning support of manoeuvres by the president’s men. The secretary-general of the association, Adi Sasono, thus launched a violent campaign of criticism against Megawati. She was criticised within some circles of ICMI for her abangan side, introducing the “bad Muslim” theme that would thrive three years later.28 Some of those close to Habibie also gave their approval, jealous of the emergence of a potential rival to their champion.29 But other leaders of ICMI openly displayed their embarrassment at the ruling power’s behaviour. The liberals, in particular, who had joined the movement out of a conviction for an ‘egalitarian’ Islam — some in all innocence — left the movement one after the other, or were asked to go. Sri Bintang Pamungkas, who had participated in the demonstrations in Germany and who had called Soeharto a dictator, was expelled from ICMI and imprisoned. Upon his release, no longer harbouring any hope of a true accord between the values of Islam in which he believed and the New Order, he founded in May 1996 the Partai Uni Demokrasi Indonesia, a distant rejoinder of the Partai Demokrasi Islam of Mohammad Hatta, which was crushed in its infancy by the nascent regime at the end of the 1960s.

18However, the most spectacular falling-out within the Muslim organisation, probably also the biggest reason the regime’s policy of manipulating reformist Islam failed, was the expulsion of Amien Rais in 1997. Born in Solo in 1944 into a family of Muhammadiyah militants, the young Amien performed brilliantly in school and obtained a scholarship from an American foundation to pursue a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 1981. His research was focused on the Muslim Brotherhood and he stayed in Egypt at the end of the 1970s. He started teaching at the prestigious Gadjah Mada University of Yogyakarta and quickly became a leading personality within Muhammadiyah, marrying solid theoretical knowledge with an undeniable political acumen.30 He was elected to the management of Muhammadiyah in 1985 during the Congress of Solo. In 1988, he formed the Centre for Strategic and Political Studies (Pusat Pengkajian Strategi dan Kebijakan), a sort of Muslim intellectual forum in Yogyakarta. A fervent supporter of ICMI at the start, he became the main deputy to the chairman, B.J. Habibie, a few months after its foundation, before heading its “National Committee of Experts”. At the same time, he became vice-chairman of Muhammadiyah, then chairman upon the death of Ahmad Azhar Basyir in 1994. During this period, Amien Rais showed himself to be an efficient promoter of an anti-Western stance, sometimes coupled with an anti-Christian and anti-Semitic religious sectarianism that was developing amongst the modernist Muslim elite.31 Nonetheless, he has always insisted on a certain liberty in speech with regards to the ruling power. From 1996 onwards, his criticism of the country’s economic policy, notably the trifling stake Indonesia held in the exploitation of the copper mines (Freeport, Irian) and gold mines (Busang, Kalimantan), provoked the ire of the government.32 In 1997, it was his turn to be expelled from ICMI, prompting his switch to open opposition.

19The forced departure of the Muhammadiyah chairman confirmed the failure of the strategy to manipulate political Islam through ICMI, at least on a national scale. Thereafter, neither of the two major Muslim organisations of Indonesia was represented within ICMI. This setback pushed the regime into an alliance with the most radical fringe of the Islamic movements. Deprived of the counterweight of the Muslim masses to fend off the disgruntled section of the army, the Soeharto clan jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Two groups within Islam attempted to prop up the regime. The first comprised ICMI bureaucrats with their ambivalent speeches and references. Some of them had been educated in American or European universities and had imbibed Western culture. They played a key role in the old general’s change in attitude towards the West. Having championed America’s alliance with Southeast Asia for the past 25 years, Soeharto adopted a more critical stance towards the social model of his ex-mentors in the 1990s. This turnaround, supposedly built upon Islamic values, was perhaps just as much a reaction to the new — and much less indulgent — view his former foreign protectors had of the Indonesian regime. With Soviet communism no longer a factor in regional politics, Indonesia lost much of its indispensable role for the United States as a bulwark to a communist mainland Southeast Asia. As a result, Western countries in general, and the Americans in particular, had become much touchier on the subject of human rights violations in the Archipelago and the corruption of its leaders.33 In response, so as to limit the reach of these criticisms, some ICMI bureaucrats took it upon themselves to spread the classic Islamist polemic on the decline of the West.

20The second group that participated in the defence of the regime was not content with mere words. It gathered small radical, militant organisations such as KISDI, often run by former victims of the repressive policies under the New Order. Having shed their clandestine status thanks to the creation of ICMI, these radical Islamists made tacit pacts with those in the army who were prepared to take extreme measures to preserve their influence, particularly by remaining passive in the face of nascent tensions in the Archipelago or even by stoking these tensions. The strategy behind the creation of ICMI — restructuring the New Order on a large conservative Muslim base — had a good chance of survival in the long term, but this new approach using radical conservative Islamists was suicidal and could only thrive on chaos.

Chinese Indonesians: Scapegoats of Islamist Rancour

22The disparity between the economic influence of Indonesians from the Chinese diaspora and their ‘indigenous’ compatriots (pribumi) has long been a concern of the authorities in the Archipelago. This dynamic com-munity, within which a distinction has always been made between the totok (newly arrived, since the end of the nineteenth century) and the peranakan (more assimilated, descendants of several generations), has occupied a predominant position in commerce and finance, sometimes for centuries.35 Their influence in these sectors often provoked reactions: Sarekat Islam, the first mass Islamic organisation, was founded in 1912 to protect batik merchants from European and Chinese-Indonesian competition;36 later, in the 1950s, these latter were subject to specific legislation designed to aid the economic emancipation of pribumi entrepreneurs.37

23The coming to power of Soeharto’s New Order marked a certain reversal in this policy.38 The new regime used the competence and net-works of Chinese Indonesians to develop the economy and to open it up to foreign capital. The new elite of the regime (particularly the military elite) was thus able to amass considerable fortunes thanks to lucrative associations with totok or peranakan entrepreneurs. This policy also allowed the regime to exercise some control over the private sector, which did not really challenge it, unlike the independent pribumi class. One of the most flagrant examples of this collusion was the dazzling success of the magnate Liem Sioe Liong. The Salim group, of which he was the main shareholder, dealt with foreign companies and expanded due to its expertise in technology, marketing and, most of all, its privileged access to the presidential palace. At its height, the sales of this company represented almost 5 per cent of Indonesia’s GNP.39 In exchange for these favours from the regime, Salim was invited to invest in strategic sectors such as steel and to participate in joint ventures with the presidential family.40

24The big losers in these accords were the businessmen from the santri circles, whose small businesses could barely withstand the competition from this new capital — which, incidentally, was not exclusively Chinese, but also American, Japanese, Taiwanese and European. Subsequently, the participation of this small Muslim bourgeoisie in the economic development was tied to its reconciliation with the regime. Thus in the 1970s, some of its members, often from the modernist circles, were able to regain some economic clout thanks to their association with Golkar. Later, in 1984, when Nahdlatul Ulama left the Muslim party (PPP) and warmed up to the advances of the government party, its leaders too benefited from numerous commercial opportunities. Many ulama, activists or business-men linked to Nahdlatul Ulama launched highly profitable enterprises, but of course, not yet on the same scale as those of the presidential family and its ‘cronies’.

25The high visibility of a few large Chinese-Indonesian conglomerates belied the fact that this system actually relied for a long time on a relative equilibrium. The pribumi bourgeoisie managed in effect to recuperate a portion of profits made thanks to its privileged access to nationalised enterprises on the one hand, and to the bureaucracy on the other hand. In this system of institutionalised corruption that characterised Indonesia, the distribution of profits depended on patron-client networks and on proximity to power. From the 1980s, however, this fragile equilibrium was shaken: the development of a (predominantly Muslim) middle class generated its own demands. Playing a unifying role in the cities, this new middle class efficiently relayed anti-Chinese propaganda, channelling the numerous grudges of the population in the sole release authorised by the regime. During the same period, the deregulation of the banking sector benefited the Chinese Indonesians above everyone else: they were the ones who created the majority of new commercial private banks and the portion of credits attributed by these latter increased considerably as compared to the 1960s and 1970s. Although this deregulation had the advantage of stimulating competition in the financial sector, its full benefits for the Chinese business class caused increased discontentment in the pribumi commercial and financial circles.41

26Indonesians of Chinese descent then constituted around 4 per cent of the population (since no official figures were available, this is only a commonly used approximation). The Islamist press often reiterated that they controlled 70 per cent of the Indonesian economy. In fact, at the start of the 1990s, the share was about 65 per cent of private capital, outside of the agricultural sector.42 Amongst the Chinese Indonesians, some condemned this “70 per cent myth” and advanced instead the following calculation: the private sector only accounted for 60 per cent of the national economy as the rest had been nationalised. Within this private sector, only 60 per cent was in the hands of Indonesian capital; foreign companies, multinationals or joint ventures controlled the rest. Moreover, given that a large part of their business was in distribution and trade, they claimed that their market share was well less than 25 per cent of national wealth.43

27Whatever the case, this very real economic predominance was criticised more and more openly in circles that had grown closer to the ruling power: ICMI’s daily newspaper, Republika, thus accorded much space to anti-Chinese sentiments, and the leaders of the association advocated ‘proportionalism’, a sort of affirmative action that should be applied in the economic sector to compete against the Chinese Indonesians, but also in government and in the general administration to the detriment of pribumi Christians.

28Soeharto’s regime gave lip service to ICMI’s demands while perpetuating an economic system that assured the prosperity of its allies. It reacted to this discontentment with paltry measures that were purely symbolic: in May 1991, it summoned the heavyweights of the Chinese-Indonesian business community and exhorted them to distribute shares from their companies to pribumi cooperatives. This call had little effect, due to the fact that it displeased the “donor” group of countries that were financially supporting Indonesia, which viewed it as a protectionist measure in disguise, quite the opposite of the opening of the economy that they were advocating.44 Ironically, the most effective measure Soeharto undertook to contain the embarrassing success of Chinese-Indonesian businessmen was to promote the businesses of his own children, family and allies.45 In spite of this presidential nepotism — or more likely so as to shield it from public disgruntlement — criticism of Chinese businessmen increased at the time of the financial crisis of 1997 and they were thrown to the lions of public opinion. They were accused of causing the collapse of the Indonesian economy by withdrawing their capital and placing it in China or Singapore — some Indonesian economists pointed out that the pribumi also participated in this flight of capital during the crisis. Radical Islam played a leading role in the construction of this very opportune propaganda that showed up the ‘bad’ citizens of Chinese descent, the culprits behind the fragile and unbalanced economy, against the pribumi Muslims, champions of an ethical and egalitarian alternative.

29The Chinese Indonesians were not the only targets of this public prosecution encouraged by the thinkers and media of radical Islam. The Christian minority of the Archipelago also became the expiatory victims of these social tensions.

The Obsessive Fears of Kristenisasi

30Neither the Dutch East India Company (VOC) nor the colonial administration, which took charge of the administration of the Archipelago in 1799, had shown much interest in the evangelisation of the natives for fear of affecting their commercial interests. Contrary to the Catholic Spanish who tried to convert the Philippines as early as the seventeenth century, the Dutch for a time were content to sign accords with some sultans, each agreeing not to convert each other’s population.46 The only regions where the missionaries had free rein were in the non-Islamised (mostly eastern) parts of the Archipelago. In the nineteenth century, the Nether-lands continued to restrain the movements of the Christian missionaries, whose egalitarian message appeared subversive in a colonial system built on injustice.47 From the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the colonial period, Christian missionaries pressed the Dutch administration for a relaxation of these restrictions, invoking Hindia Belanda’s professed “religious neutrality”, while Islamic organisations argued in favour of maintaining restrictions on Christian missionaries.48 The colonial authorities gave way only partially, but this step back enabled a rapid progression of the Christian religions in the first decades of the twentieth century and led to a growing resentment amongst the Muslim organisations. The unity of the different faith groups during the anti-colonial war (1945–1950) removed much of the rancour, especially amongst the elite, Westernised by their Dutch education. Then, during the Cold War, the fear of communism contributed to an entente cordiale between representatives of the Christian and Muslim communities. During the anti-communist repression after the events of 1965, Christians — as well as some Hindus in Bali — collaborated with Muslim groups to topple Soekarno. If the Christians appear not to have participated directly in the massacre of communist sympathisers, as did the Hindus in Bali and Muslim main-stream organizations in Java, their protection of these sympathisers was limited as they were caught between the army and the fiercely anti-atheist Muslim groups.49

31As we have mentioned, a movement of conversions occurred at the start of the New Order, contributing greatly to the degradation of relations between the two communities. First, President Soekarno was pressured by anti-communist sentiments at the start of 1965 to issue an anti-blasphemy law (UU No. 1/PNPS/1965) that named six religions (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism) and implicitly excluded all others, including local beliefs. Under Soeharto, Confucianism was no longer one of the recognised religions and religious education was made obligatory at school.50 Atheism was banned along with communism while animism, as well as any local creeds, was progressively made illegitimate. The Javanese abangan population then took two diverging paths: a minority converted to Christianity while a large majority ‘converted’ to the practice of the five pillars of Islam, and the so-called nominal Muslims became increasingly orthodox and religious.

32From 1970 to 1980, figures showed a marked phenomenon of con-version to Christianity, seemingly of some hundreds of thousands of Indonesians, mostly Javanese. Thus, in the 1980s, in the two regions of Central Java and East Java, the Protestants won over many converts, their numbers multiplying by 2.5 and 2.3 respectively in just seven years.51 In some towns in East Java, the percentage of Christians in the population increased from 1 or 2 per cent in the 1950s to more than 10 per cent in the 1970s. These converts came mostly from the former bastions of communism, from populations traumatised by the massacres of 1966 and the involvement of some Muslim organisations in these.52

33The Javanese abangan, who had close links to mysticism, really seemed to have looked to Christianity for protection against anti-communist violence, the new Islamic orthodoxy and the rejection of animism, local mysticism and atheism at the end of the 1960s.53 The intensification of religious practice by the other nominal Javanese Muslims, who became in a way the “neo-santri”, was, of course, not reflected in the statistics, which were silent on the details of religious practices; but in all evidence, these developments led to the formation of two distinct religious communities with the passing years (some abangan becoming more orthodox Muslims, other abangan becoming Christians), whereas during the nineteenth century, the widespread abangan spirituality had united many Javanese. This totally new situation provided fodder for Islamist propaganda denouncing the illegitimate encroachment of Christianity into Muslim circles.54 Thus, this obsessive fear of the “Christianisation” of the Archipelago was as much an expression of a malaise in the face of the conversion of Javanese deemed to be ‘belonging’ to the Muslim majority, as yet another expression of the defiance of some Muslim groups against the Chinese-Indonesian minority, which was in fact also increasingly turning to Christianity.55 The administration attempted to contain the most visible aspects of this phenomenon by increasingly restricting the construction of new churches, whose numbers were boosted by the flowering of new Protestant denominations, especially after the 1980s. This policy led the Christian com-munities to transform residences into places of worship, in violation of Indonesian law, which radical Islamists could claim to be enforcing when they destroyed these buildings a few years later in the 1990s.56

34These ethnic-religious tensions were not limited to Java. Elsewhere, the results of transmigration also kindled tensions between communities.

Transmigration Tensions

35The Dutch administration started a transmigration policy under the name of koloniasi from 1905. Lasting throughout the century, it was aimed at relieving the high demographic and tax pressure on Java, Madura and Bali by offering the inhabitants of these overpopulated territories the possibility of settling in other regions of the Archipelago. Intensified in the early 1970s, this policy allowed more than 5.5 million persons to migrate in 25 years, mainly to Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes (Sulawesi), the Moluccas and Irian.57 These government-organised displacements were soon accompanied by spontaneous migrations, which amplified the phenomenon and aggravated the ensuing problems. Very often, in modifying the fragile ethnic, religious, economic or social balance, these population displacements caused tensions in the ‘outlying’ islands, particularly in regions where the majority suddenly found themselves in the position of the minority. As soon as the economic and political interests of the previously dominant community were threatened, the potential for conflict became very real. This was the case of the southern Moluccas, where the arrival of Buton, Bugis and Makassar migrants altered the religious map of this bastion of Christianity. According to statistics, the Muslims, who were a minority in the Moluccas in 1971 (49.9 per cent), became the majority (55 per cent) in 1980.58

36The electoral and political impact of these demographic changes partly explains the emergence of conflicts. In Ambon, for example, the rule was that administrative posts would be shared equally between Christians and Muslims. The posts of governor and head of local government would traditionally be occupied by a Christian and a Muslim respectively. How-ever, after 1990, the customary attribution of posts was upset by ICMI’s policy of affirmative action in favour of Muslims.59 Thus the Pattimura University of Ambon was accused of employing more Christian teachers than Muslim ones and of giving more scholarships to Christians than to Muslims, reproaches that were translated to action when unrest broke out: in 2000, the university was torched by rioters.60

37Accused by some of secessionism, the Christian Moluccans were little by little excluded by their adversaries from the collective memory of the Indonesian nation. That the famous Moluccan anti-colonial hero Pattimura had his Christian identity called into question and became rebranded as a Muslim is evidence.61 The interests of the Islamists and a section of the army found common ground in this ultra-nationalism that opposed Christian ‘secessionism’.

38All the tensions described above were aggravated by the spread of radical Muslim propaganda and by the agitation of provocateurs who encouraged the masses to take action. Certainly the discontent and frustrations that gave rise to these conflicts had already existed for several years. Here and there, confrontations had already broken out during the 1970s and 1980s. Neither radical Islam nor some groups aligned with the Soeharto regime can be singled out as the sole cause of the violence that spread through the Archipelago in the 1990s. Yet, in providing an outlet for the people’s rage through their anti-Chinese and anti-Christian rhetoric, and in tolerating, even encouraging, these excesses that would have been severely reprimanded in the past, both contributed indubitably to the deterioration of the situation.62 At the end of 1996, two series of riots, one in Situbondo in October, and another in Tasikmalaya in December, bore out the processes at work.

The People’s Rage

39In October 1996, in Situbondo, East Java, 24 churches and Christian schools were burnt down in a few days. Five family members of a Protestant pastor were killed in these fires. The region where these dramatic events occurred had been afflicted by fierce social tensions for some time now. In September, after a conflict with a neighbouring sugar factory, some farmers had uprooted almost 300 hectares of sugarcane to plant their own corn. In another trying episode, dozens of villagers in another village of the regency had just been expropriated to make way for the installation of a refinery that was a joint venture of Shell and Bimantara, a group controlled by one of President Soeharto’s sons. Then in August, some 3,000 inhabitants of Panarukan had demanded compensation from the local government after a scam involving the running of a village cooperative.63 Thus in October, social tension was at its highest, but it should be specified that the conflicts mentioned above concerned neither the Christian nor the Chinese-Indonesian minorities.

40On-site accounts relate thus the events starting from 10 October, the day of the riots:64 On that day, the public prosecutor handed down a five-year sentence to a certain Saleh for having committed a religious offence. This young man of 26 years of age was an assistant to the mosque administrator (takmir) in the neighbourhood. He was accused of having made blasphemous remarks, declaring that the ulama were liars, that the Qu’ran was poetry created by men and not a divine revelation, and that the sharia taught by the Prophet was false and that the five daily prayers were therefore not obligatory. The young man was said to have added that Kiai Asad Syamsul Arifin, one of the most venerated ulama of the region, deceased six years ago, had met a “bad” death (takacer), implying thus that he had perhaps not gone to paradise.65 Kiai Asad’s family, very influential in the area, was deeply offended, and some members of the family demanded that a death sentence be passed on Saleh. When the public prosecutor only meted out five years of imprisonment for Saleh, the students of Kiai Asad began to agitate. The crowd first tried to assault the accused, then when he was taken away by the police, took to torching cars and the courtroom. Rapidly, the riot took a twist: from targeting official buildings, the crowd started to attack churches and Christian schools in the surroundings, then turned on to Chinese businesses. The procession was largely composed of young students in uniform from the high school SMA Ibrahimi, Kiai Asad’s school, but some of the procession leaders came from outside the town.

41The unfoldingh of the events soon raised many questions throughout the country. Provocateurs seemed to have played an essential role in the transformation of an incident involving at the outset the Muslim community and the judicial authorities, to anti-Christian and anti-Chinese riots. This ‘re-orientation’ did not seem to have been a coincidence: anti-Christian slogans such as “the judge is a Christian”, “Saleh was protected by a Christian” and “Saleh took refuge in the church” were heard during the procession.66 All the graffiti found the following day were anti-Christian; none made any reference to the Saleh affair67 and maps marking out with a red cross all the Christian buildings in the region were discovered at one of the sites.68 Moreover, in a troubling coincidence, the mayors of the surrounding areas had been invited by the head of socio-political affairs of the district for a karaoke session on that day and were all holed up in the meeting room of the district.69 There appeared to have been three men leading the mob, including Achmad Siddik (24 years old), the young head of the Nahdlatul Ulama martial arts organisation (Pagar Nusa) known for his ‘anti-vice’ activities in the region, notably against lottery games, and who was arrested. Siddik was apparently present at Saleh’s trial, but his responsibility in the ensuing violence was not clear. The logistical preparation for the fires and the lack of protection for the security forces, which only intervened very late, raised many questions. Even more questions have emerged. According to witnesses’ accounts gathered by a NU investigation and a young Indonesian researcher, Thomas Santoso, the accused were subjected to violent treatment in the hands of some elements of the army in an apparent attempt to exacerbate religious hatred: one of them was supposed to have brandished a crucifix in front of Siddik before beating him up. In addition, priests or pastors were summoned to the detention center before each interrogation, thereby implicitly linking them — in the minds of the accused — to the abuse that was to follow.70 In mid-November, Achmad Siddik died from injuries inflicted during his interrogations. However, before dying he made a tape recording accusing a Balinese (thus Hindu) policeman of ill treatment. There were calls for retaliation within circles close to Nahdlatul Ulama but Abdurrahman Wahid, head of the traditionalist organisation, suspected that there was manipulation behind the scenes and ordered his militants to stay calm.

42As to who was behind these manoeuvres, suspicions soon narrowed to a few men in power. In a study of these events, Thomas Santoso states that their objective was purely linked to the elections approaching in a few months’ time: the discrediting of NU would taint the Muslim PPP, and Golkar might then sweep up the votes of disappointed voters. General Hartono (a ‘green’ general, favourable towards political Islam, also a Madurese from the region) was then one of the leaders of Golkar. To support this hypothesis, Santoso pointed out that only the churches of the regency of Situbondo were affected and not those of Bondowoso, even though the latter were sometimes nearer to the city where the trial had taken place.71 But there seemed to be multiple motives at work. It appears that the fires were also started in retaliation for the anti-Indonesian demonstrations that occurred the previous year in East Timor (independent since 1999), where some mosques had been destroyed: indeed, some of the arsonists in Situbondo were supposedly Madurese chased away from Timor and displaced in the neighbouring town of Malang. Moreover, Monsignor Belo, the bishop of Timor, had just won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the defence of the Timorese people against repression and tensions were at their peak.

43A few months later, in December, the riots in Tasikmalaya (West Java) repeated this strange combination of political and religious provocations. In this case, the trigger was a confrontation between a Muslim teacher and two of his students, and the local police. The teacher and students were blamed for punishing the son of one of the police officers for petty theft in his Islamic boarding school (pesantren). They were summoned to the police station and severely punished. The students of several pesantren, numerous indeed in the region, organised a demonstration to protest against this treatment on 26 December, and this quickly degenerated into a riot. Joined by thousands of inhabitants, the students of the pesantren attacked police stations but especially businesses run by Chinese Indonesians, factories, banks, churches and Christian schools. Just as in Situbondo, the drama took place in a tense context. The anti-Chinese sentiments of the local population had been stirred up a few months earlier by a sordid housing affair that saw the closing down of almost 3,000 small shops to make way for a supermarket owned by a Chinese Indonesian.72

44Yet, in this case as well, rancour does not suffice to explain the systematic character of the exactions against the Christians and Chinese, especially since the mass violence was initially directed against the authorities. Insistent rumours of the presence of provocateurs and the strangeness of the investigation orientated towards the youth of NU (who were accused of belonging to a banned pro-democracy organisation), suggest once again other factors at work.

45It remains difficult to determine the part played by different parties in the generation of these mass emotions. That these emotions rocked Indonesia in a period of economic prosperity (it was only in September 1997 that the Archipelago was hit by the crisis) most certainly demonstrates the failure of a regime that was henceforth incapable of controlling outbursts of public discontent. Tasikmalaya and Situbondo thus inaugurated a cycle of incidents that was soon aggravated by the economic crisis and the weakening of the regime. The Pandora’s box of festering discontent was now open and this phenomenon would continue in the post-Soeharto period.

An Ideological Management of the Economic Crisis

47In May 1997, the legislative elections that imparted an air of democratic legitimacy to the regime every five years were particularly satisfying from its point of view. Golkar obtained a record 74.5 per cent of votes, PPP won 22.4 per cent and the new PDI, discredited by last year’s manoeuvres and deprived of Megawati’s presence, only garnered 3 per cent of the votes.

48Thus the regime’s future seemed secured for the next five years and the president able to look forward to a seventh mandate the following year. However, in July 1997, Thailand, followed by the whole of Southeast Asia was hit by a grave monetary crisis. After much evasiveness, Indonesia finally had to resign itself to asking for aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the end of October. But the institution’s intervention was accompanied by requirements for reform, including the closing of 16 insolvent banks. This last measure — which the IMF admitted later was hasty and badly coordinated — provoked much panic and accelerated the flight of capital as well as a depreciation of the rupiah.

49Nonetheless, it quickly became apparent that the main obstacles to the recovery of the Indonesian economy, as envisaged by the IMF, were political in nature. The international financial institution wished to revamp this system beset with corruption and nepotism, at the heart of which was the presidential family. Riding on the confrontation that erupted, Soeharto and his allies slyly glided from defending the regime to defending a clan: the old general’s children became even more visible on the political scene.

50In a gesture of defiance of the international community, Bambang Trihatmodjo, one of the president’s sons, decided to reopen his bank a few days after its forced closure (it was on the list of 16 banks). He accused the IMF of trying to sully the reputation of his family so as to prevent his father from being re-elected. A few months later, the latter also showed just how little he took the recommendations of the IMF into consideration: in January 1998, Soeharto had Parliament vote in a totally unrealistic budget that pandered to the voters, leading one of the most respected Indonesian economists, Professor Mohammad Sadli, to declare that Soeharto had become a handicap to the resolution of the crisis. The rupiah fell by half of its value in a matter of a few days. The IMF proposed a 43‑billion dollars aid programme that came with a list of conditions: the withdrawal of subsidies for staple products, the abolition of cartels and monopolies such as IPTN, the aeronautic company that had been straining the national budget for many years. The public was glad to see that the presidential family had to cede to these austerity measures, but the abolition of subsidies for staples raised an outcry, especially since the falling rupiah had already caused prices to shoot up by 50 to 150 per cent.

51Arguing that he would have “a revolution on his hands”73 as a result of the withdrawal of subsidies, Soeharto resisted with even more audacity the IMF, which attacked in particular the system of economic protection reserved for the presidential family and its allies. He submitted only very partially to the clauses of the IMF memorandum, maintaining preferential treatment for the national car project (called Timor) of his son Tommy and maintaining the cartels in the plywood industries and the clove trade, then in the hands of his associates. He further defied the IMF by nominating B.J. Habibie, his Minister of Research and Technology, as vice-president. Habibie was responsible for the creation of the grandiose aeronautic projects, generally deemed unrealistic. This announcement caused another crash in the rupiah: from 2,400 rupiah against one dollar, it fell to 17,000. The president announced the creation of a Currency Board System, which would peg the rupiah against the American dollar (at 5,000 against one dollar) and considerably diminish the control of the Central Bank. This attempt to save the currency, based on the advice of an American economist, Steve Hanke, was just as unrealistic as the previous budget. Unlike Malaysia, Indonesia lacked both the economic credibility and the currency reserves to embark on such a policy.

52Faced with the IMF’s demands, Soeharto sought refuge in a new ideological stance that harked back expediently to the 1945 Constitution, which was collectivist and economically illiberal. As for the president’s son, Bambang, he took on a Soekarnist tone and told the international institution “to go to hell” with their aid.74 The presidential clan then started to play up the hypothesis of an international conspiracy aimed at destroying the Indonesian economy. This theme of Western neo-imperialism, which had disappeared from Indonesian political currency for more than 30 years, constituted an indisputable point of convergence between the regime and the radical Islamist groups.

An Islamist Reinterpretation to Defend the Regime

53The mass sentiments mentioned above had already been used by some radical Islamists in reports to support their theories. The events in Situbondo and Tasikmalaya had already been presented as manipulations aimed at “discrediting Islam”, at “bringing down the Soeharto government” and at winning the sympathies of the “Christian Westerners”.75 The factors cited for the outbreak of violence included the socio-economic gap, the rampant Christianisation (it was claimed that out of 30 churches destroyed, only 4 had a real construction permit), the arrogance of a bureaucracy accused of “favouritism towards the Chinese” and political manipulations.

54In this context of a showdown between the regime and the IMF, theories of an international conspiracy re-flourished. Intended to divert the accusations of the people towards foreign powers (the United States, the West, but also the Jews, Chinese and Christians) or towards their agents planted in the system, the most absurd rumours were propagated. General Prabowo seemed to have played an undeniable role in spreading these rumours. With the contacts he had established, in particular within the Indonesian Committee for Solidarity with the Muslim World (KISDI) and some of the most important martial arts associations in Indonesia, notably in Banten in West Java, he stepped forward to take charge of the regime’s defence. As of 1997, he spoke openly in circles close to DDII of the urgent need to rid Indonesia of the “tyranny of a minority”.76 When the crisis broke out in Indonesia, he no longer hid his alliance with KISDI: on the evening of 23 January 1998, during the month of Ramadan, he invited some 7,000 members of the radical Islamist organisation to the general quarters of Kopassus to breakfast together. That evening, Prabowo spoke vehemently of the necessity to act against the Chinese Indonesians and “other enemies of Islam”.77 The chairman of KISDI, Sumargono, later congratulated himself that he had heard Prabowo cry out several times “Allah u-akbar !”, which he interpreted as the “symbol of his support” for Sumargono’s action in the fight to realise the “aspirations of Islam”.78 After the public ceremony with the KISDI militants, Prabowo met a smaller circle of Islamist leaders and distributed amongst them a booklet of some 50 pages explaining the logic behind the economic crisis and the ongoing negotiations with the IMF.79 Entitled “The Conspiracy to Overthrow Soeharto” (Konspirasi Mengguling Soeharto), the booklet asserted that the IMF, the United States, Israel, the Chinese Indonesians and the democratic movement had combined their efforts to topple Soeharto. In their eyes, the Indonesian president had two fundamental “flaws” that made him the choice target for his enemies: he was Muslim and “he had become too powerful for the cabal of Jews, Jesuits, Chinese and agents of MOSSAD-CIA, who controlled international capitalism”.80 The author of the pamphlet was not announced, but some in the moderate Muslim quarters attributed it to the men affiliated to the former CPDS and now active in its successor, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and linked to some ‘green’ generals.81 Amongst other preposterous evidence presented as proof of this expansive conspiracy was the supposed assassination of Soeharto’s recently deceased wife, Tien Soeharto, by her doctor of Chinese descent, who had examined her on the eve of her death and had found nothing abnormal. The nationalist secularists in government were said to be behind this covered-up murder. These secularists, led by the minister of the State Secretariat Moerdiono (a sort of assistant to the president), and acting under the orders of the “clique of extremist Jesuit Catholics” of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the hotbed of secularism at the beginnings of the New Order, were supposed to have given free rein to their hatred of Islam. They alleged that the conspiracy would be followed up by the assassination of President Soeharto, as always with the support “of the CIA, MOSSAD, the Vatican and overseas Chinese”.82 The entire history of the New Order was rewritten in light of this huge conspiracy targeting Indonesia, and the diatribe ended with these words: “The Muslim community also has to become aware, aware that power in this country cannot fall into the hands of Zionist agents or groups with a phobia toward Islam”.83

55The mobilisation organised by Prabowo ended up discrediting the ruling power in the eyes of uncountable moderate Muslims. If up to this point they had been seduced by the opening of the regime to Islam, many now understood that Soeharto and his entourage, determined to use violence and institutionalised sectarianism to maintain their position at the summit of the state, were playing with fire.

The Anti-Chinese Offensive

56In the same month of January 1998 begun a cleverly orchestrated anti-Chinese campaign to which the army was more or less receptive. The head of the armies, General Feisal Tanjung, had contacted a dozen Chinese businessmen to ask for donations in order to implement Soeharto’s monetary reform. One of the personalities contacted, Sofyan Wanandi, brother of one of the founders of CSIS, refused. He declared that he did not want to interfere with the reform launched by the Ministry of the Economy, and others soon followed suit. In retaliation, Sofyan Wanandi was then called up by Major General Syafrie Syamsoeddin, military commander of Jakarta and a pal of Prabowo. He was informed that he was suspected of supporting a bomb attempt on 18 January in Jakarta that was linked to the small leftist party, the Democratic People’s Party (Parti Rakyat Demokratik, PRD). So improbable was any link between this rich businessman and the most left-leaning party in Indonesia that no one was taken in by these accusations.84

57The anti-Chinese campaign firmed up the following month. On 3 February Lieutenant General Syarwan Hamid took the floor at the large mosque of Sunda Kelapa in Jakarta. He was accompanied by B.J. Habibie’s right-hand man, Adi Sasono, and by Husein Umar, secretary-general of DDII and member of KISDI. Without explicitly naming them, he targeted Chinese Indonesians: “these rats who take away the fruits of our national development and work for their own self-interest. Don’t think the people don’t know who these rats are. It’s time to eradicate these rats”.85 The accusation was repeated by a hitherto unknown Foundation for Islam in the Twenty-First Century, which asserted in a statement that Sofyan Wanandi, ex-chairman of the Association of Catholic Students (Perhimpunan Mahasiswa Katolik Republik Indonesia, PMKRI), as well as other Chinese businessmen, were at the root of the economic crisis that resulted from their conspiracy. On the same day, another KISDI leader, longtime Muhammadiyah activist and convert to the cause of the New Order at the end of the 1980s, Lukman Harun, echoed this theory and launched an appeal for a campaign against the ‘rats’ and ‘traitors’. On 8 February, KISDI’s website announced that Indonesia was ready to “expel these odious persons out of our beloved Indonesia”.86 Yet this hateful campaign did not convince the pillars of the regime in its entirety. A section of the army rejected this conspiracy scenario even though it seemed to have been backed by Soeharto: the Chief of State of the Armies Wiranto thus offered his support to CSIS, which had become the target of demonstrations by students close to Prabowo.87 This opposition at the head of the military hierarchy was apparently the outcome of a very prudent policy undertaken by the president: he had tried to handle with care the two main factions of the army during the last promotions. The elite units thus came under the control of supporters of regimist Islam: Prabowo had been nominated to the top of Kostrad while his ally, Major General Muchdi Purwopranjono headed Kopassus. However, at the same time, with the nomination of General Wiranto to Chief of State of the Armies, the opposing faction was able to regain control of the army.88

A New Opposition

58The numerous anti-Chinese riots and violence that broke out from the first week of February 1998 momentarily paralysed the opposition, but it soon regained its spirit. Amien Rais was the first leader on a national scale to call for the departure of Soeharto and became, for his admirers, the “father of Indonesian reform” (Bapak Reformasi Indonesia).89 Flanked by authentic democrats, he tried to rid himself of his sectarian image.90 Symbolising the departure of a section of the modernist intelligentsia from siege-mentality communitarianism, his conversion to pluralism (initiated after the Situbondo riots) left many in the Indonesian political scene sceptical, chief of whom was Abdurrahman Wahid, his adversary from the ‘santri’ camp.91 But Wahid was hospitalised in January 1998 after a stroke, giving his rival a free hand.

59Opposition to the regime soon grew largely beyond the Jakarta establishment. In February 1998, student demonstrations calling for the overthrow of Soeharto multiplied in the big cities of the Archipelago. Upon the re-election of Soeharto by the People’s Consultative Assembly (with Habibie as vice-president), these demonstrations were revived. The president then fell back on his own clan. In March 1998, he formed a new government made up essentially of his own people: his eldest daughter Tutut (49 years old) became the Minister of Social Prosperity; his old associate, Bob Hassan (67 years old), a businessman of Chinese descent converted to Islam and manager of a plywood cartel condemned by the IMF, was given the trade portfolio; the post of Minister of Finance was accorded to Fuad Bawazier, another close friend of the presidential family (as the former General Director of Taxes, he had granted significant tax breaks to the youngest son of Soeharto, Tommy, for his national car project).92

60There was great disappointment within ICMI. Those who had hoped to see in the new cabinet the consecration of their support for the regime discovered that they had received nothing in return. Revenge was swift. This time the split between reformist Islam and the regime was definitive. Amien Rais threw his whole weight behind the anti-Soeharto campaigns that were going on in campuses. Even Adi Sasono, for a long time one of the Muslim personalities most engaged with the Islamic policy of the New Order, delivered fierce diatribes against the ministers of ICMI, whom he accused of being corrupted.

61Neither could the president hope for any support whatsoever from the important moderate Muslim organisations: neither Nahdlatul Ulama nor Muhammadiyah intended to counterbalance the weight of a disappointed and offended ICMI. Only a section of the intransigent Islamic groups were swayed by Prabowo’s promises of a thriving Muslim society under his leadership.93 Even then, support for the old president was not unanimous within this group. At DDII, it was Anwar Haryono who had the last say in favour of Soeharto.94

The Last Days of Soeharto

62After having resisted the demands of the IMF for so long, the president ceded suddenly to its requirements. He had hoped that the rigour of the measures announced would generate a nationalist reflex that would turn to his advantage but in fact, he only hastened his own fall. The scrapping of petrol subsidies at the start of May 1998 plunged the country into chaos.95 Riots broke out in Medan and Chinese shops were looted. Demonstrations then spread throughout the country.

63But it was the close allies of Soeharto who delivered the coup de grâce and orchestrated his fall, particularly the chairman of Parliament, Harmoko, an official from Golkar known for his sectarianism, and General Syarwan Hamid, one of the most active ‘green’ generals in the regime and also vice-president of Parliament.96 ICMI overrode Habibie’s opposition and called for an extraordinary session of the MPR. Putting on a calm front, President Soeharto left Indonesia on 9 May to visit Egypt. He cut short his visit to return on 15 May to a regime on its last legs.

64Three days earlier, on 12 May, four students who had occupied the Catholic University of Trisakti in Jakarta had been killed by elite snipers. The origins of the shots were unknown. The police came under suspicion but maintained that the uniforms corresponded to some stock stolen a while back and the spotlight turned to Kopassus, the army special forces command, already suspected of kidnapping a dozen young activists in January (this was subsequently confirmed). The funerals for the four Trisakti students inaugurated three days of extremely violent riots in the capital, evidently encouraged by provocateurs. On 13 and 14 May, Jakarta was besieged by pillaging mobs; the Chinese districts were especially rampaged. Several shopping malls were burnt (sometimes trapping the looters) and about 100 Chinese Indonesian women were abused or raped.97 The attitude of a section of the security forces raised an outcry even within the army: the majority of the troops that could have intervened — under the command of Prabowo’s allies — were apparently removed from the areas where riots were rife.98 These events constituted a lasting traumatism for the Chinese Indonesian community: the number of victims was never established but as Sofyan Wanandi wrote later: “The Chinese Indonesians never felt so fragile and vulnerable. The sentiment that the government had permitted the violence and that certain sections of the government were even behind these campaigns against the Chinese Indonesians became widespread.”99

65The outbursts of these two days obliged a section of the army to shed its neutrality: the Chief of State contacted Nurcholish Madjid to propose a peacemaking mission. The Muslim intellectual submitted a plan for political reform to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (chief of staff for social-political affairs in charge of socio-political affairs in the army), which called for elections in 2000 and required that Soeharto seek pardon for his errors and return to the state his illegally amassed fortune.100 A Mandatory People Council (Majelis Amanat Rakyat) was then set up, comprising notably Amien Rais and the father of Prabowo, the reputed economist Sumitro Djojohadikusumo.

66In spite of the efforts expended by General Prabowo, almost all the Islamic organisations henceforth refused to lend their support to Soeharto. The Indonesian Muslim Student Action Union (Komite Aksi Mahasiswa Muslim Indonesia, KAMMI) declared its preference for a presidency under Amien Rais. Actually, the founders of this powerful organisation created in March 1998 had nursed hopes that the president would amend his ways and embark the country on real reforms.101 On Monday, 18 May, ICMI asked Soeharto to step down. Nine personalities of very diverse backgrounds who had been invited to meet the president refused to stay during the announcement of his plan for reform. In the face of threats by Prabowo, Amien Rais, who had emerged more than ever as leader of the opposition, cancelled a large-scale demonstration that was planned for 20 May at the Merdeka Square. Nonetheless, the pressure on Soeharto was mounting: on 19 May, the chairman of Parliament, Harmoko declared that it was in Soeharto’s interests to cede his position; shortly after, 14 ministers announced their resignation since none wished to be part of this ‘Committee for Reform’ that the president had promised in a final, desperate attempt to survive the crisis. In the evening of 20 May, Soeharto announced that he was relinquishing the presidency. On the morning of 21 May, Vice-President B.J. Habibie was sworn in as president.

The Mutations of Regimist Islam

69The grace period for Habibie only lasted for as long as his acceptance speech. In the first hours of his mandate, the new president already had to deal with a show of might by General Prabowo. A few hours after the swearing-in ceremony, Habibie received the former president’s son-in-law at his residence. In compensation for his supporters’ backing, Prabowo submitted a list of specific requests to Habibie: his promotion as Head of the Army and that of his ally, General Subagyo, as Armed Forces (ABRI) Chief of Staff.102 The new president was then brought to the palace under tight surveillance and spent his night there. The following day, Friday 22 May, Habibie and General Wiranto decided to dismiss Prabowo as Kostrad commander. The latter was furious but was unable to see the president at the palace. A few hours later, he was stripped of his com-mand of the Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) and demoted to director of a military school. A few weeks later, Lieutenant General Prabowo was brought to trial. A ‘Military Honour Council’ delivered a finding of culpability in the abduction, torture and disappearance of activists in 1997 and early 1998 for Prabowo, Kopassus’s head Major General Muchdi Purwopranjono, and Kopassus Group IV head Colonel Chairawan. The council recommended that Prabowo be court-martialled, although he was merely honourably dismissed from the army. Muchdi and the colonel were dismissed, and ordered never again to serve in active command.103 In the meantime, most of his allies within ABRI (Generals Muchdi Purwopranjono, Syafrie Syamsoeddin and Kivlan Zen) were removed from their positions.104

70The fall of the Prabowo faction did not, however, signify the end of the instrumentalisation of radical Islamist groups by the ruling power. Whether out of legalism, loyalty to Soeharto or out of pure opportunism (he did not hold the vice-president in high regard and felt he could manipulate him), General Wiranto had facilitated the rise to power of B.J. Habibie. Although his rival had been sidelined, he did not clearly side with the nationalist faction of the army but left the field open to radical Muslims who now made Habibie their champion.

71As of 22 May, the students who were still occupying Parliament to protest against the nomination of Habibie were assaulted by a large Islamist demonstration. The crowd arrived after the Friday prayers brandishing banners in support of Habibie in the name of “constitutional reform”, their new motto. There were also placards asserting a link between opposition to Habibie and opposition to Islam.105 The majority of Islamist activists close to the Soeharto regime were present: Ahmad Sumargono of KISDI; Fadli Zon, a young intellectual close to Prabowo; Toto Tasmara, a businessman close to Tommy Soeharto; and Eggy Sujana of CIDES. It seems that DDII and KISDI played a key role in this demonstration.106 Fadli Zon later explained that no fewer than 43 Islamic groups gathered at KISDI’s quarters in the centre of Jakarta before converging on Parliament. At the site, clashes broke out and the reformist students were separated from the pro-Habibie demonstrators by troops from the Marines and the army and were later chased away from the MPR.107 The previous day, the students of KAMMI, having accepted Habibie’s nomination as president, had left Parliament and gathered at the Al Azhar mosque in the south of Jakarta.

72In the following months, the collusion between the new strong men of the country and some radical groups was confirmed on several occasions. Amongst the numerous militias created, some received backing from both the Islamists and the inner circle of power. This was particularly true for the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI), an organisation we will touch on later.108 Created in August 1998, its main founders were religious figures of Arab descent called ‘Habib’ who wished to attack the ‘places of perdition’ that they viewed as an insult to Islamic morale. This militia benefited, if nothing else, from a certain indulgence on the part of the authorities. According to the website http://www.Laksamana.net, reputed then for its reliability, FPI was backed by three high-ranking officers: General Djaja Suparman, military commander of Jakarta, Police General Nugroho Jayusman, head of the Jakarta police and finally General Wiranto himself.109 Funds were supposedly supplied by Habibie’s brother-in-law, Mochsin Mochdar, of the Citra Harapan Abadi group, via the humanitarian foundation Yayasan al-kautsar (which also financed a few months later another militia, Pam Swakarsa). The allies of the former president were equally implicated: his son, Bambang, who controlled the Bimantara group, of which two of Mochsin’s brothers were shareholders; Fuad Bawazier, ex-Minister of Finance of the fallen president and still very active in the background; Tommy Winata, a businessman close to Soeharto’s family; and finally the humanitarian foundation of the army, the Yayasan Kartika Eka Paksi.110

73Ahmad Sumargono, the fierce leader of KISDI, revealed for his part that Wiranto had proposed to him the role of expert in a new militia called the Red and White Youth militia (Garda Muda Merah Putih, GMMP), led by a lawyer, Adhyaksa Dault.111 Sumargono stated on this occasion that he considered General Wiranto as “close to the Islamic group”. Returning a few months later to the subject of the rivalry between the ABRI Chief of Staff and his protector, General Prabowo, he asserted that, from an ideological and strategic point of view, the two (Wiranto and Prabowo) could “become partners”.112 Apart from the obvious wish to be in the good books of the ruling power, these declarations — and most importantly the ensuing actions — demonstrated the shifting frontiers between the nationalist and Islamist groups within the armed forces. In this period of uncertainty when the regime’s future seemed to be determined by events in the street, high-ranking military officers often allied themselves with the radical Muslim organisations out of political opportunism. The students who opposed Habibie were themselves supported by a “nationalist-secular” group of retired generals and nationalist personalities, called National Front (Barisan Nasional, BARNAS). In threatening to “destroy” (sikat habis) the demonstrators, Sumargono’s KISDI was but transposing to the street the confrontation already taking place in the higher ranks of the military.113

74Those who wanted to see a sweeping Reformasi instead of just a transfer of power to Habibie were not intimidated and did not give up the fight: they mobilised again a few months later during the Special Session of MPR convened to confirm Habibie’s presidency. To arm itself against these demonstrators, the ruling power appealed once more to the radical Islamist groups and contributed to the creation of an Islamic Community Forum for the Defence of Justice and the Constitution (Forum Ummat Islam Penegak Keadilan dan Konstitusi, FURKON). This new organisation, officially created in the Istiqlal mosque under the patronage of the Council of Indonesian Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI), clamoured their support of Habibie. Trotting out the old communist bogeyman, its leaders warned fellow countrymen of the manoeuvres by communist agents who had infiltrated the reformist organisations to destabilise the country.114 In the run-up to the Special Session of MPR, the leaders of FURKON and the president’s allies recruited almost 120,000 persons, mostly members of Islamic youth groups, to “safeguard the capital”.115 Called “Pam Swakarsa Umat Islam” (an abbreviation of Pasukan Pengamanan Swakarsa Umat Islam, literally, private security troops of the Muslim community), legend would have it that these youths were pious Muslims who spontaneously rallied to the cause of the government in its struggle towards an institutional and democratic transition. The truth was much more banal: most of them admitted to having been paid for giving their support. They took over the entire Parliament district and savagely attacked the demonstrators who rejected Habibie’s right to hold this Special Session, calling instead for a Reformasi total. So violent were they that even Pemuda Pancasila, the regime’s usual militias which were also supportive of Habibie, had to cede the grounds to them. The attitude of the Pam Swakarsa infuriated the population of the occupied areas, who had to vacate the streets of the capital after a few days, but not before a few of them were beaten to death by youth groups.116

75The closing of the Special Session of MPR could be savoured by regimist Islam as a triumph: Soeharto’s successor had been enthroned according to the institutional rules. Just like Ahmad Sumargono, then known as the “king of demonstrations” (raja demo), Habibie’s supporters adroitly made use of religious arguments (these street gatherings “were part of religious practice, ibadah”) and also political arguments (these demonstrations were “normal in a democracy, including Western countries”117 ). However, for these Islamist militants, the victory of their champion failed to bring about the outcome they had anticipated: Habibie was well aware of the fragility of his source of support and he embarked on a policy that would disappoint them.

A Reluctant Reformer?

76Having seen as early as the end of May how weak his backing from the army and the population was, and propelled by the spirit of Reformasi, surrounded as he was by a few determined intellectuals, B.J. Habibie embarked on an impressive series of reforms.118 In the space of a few months, he had freed the majority of political prisoners, repealed texts that limited freedom of the press, limited the political role of the army (the famous dwifungsi ) by forcing officers who occupied civilian posts to give up their military positions or to return to the ranks of the army (with the exception of ministers119 ).

77KISDI, which had mobilised in the president’s favour on numerous occasions, was equally critical of his policy. Certainly, it recognised the validity of the liberalisation of the political system and hoped to take advantage of it. KISDI also purported to support the fight against nepotism, particularly the suppression of the powers enjoyed by Soeharto’s foundations, which ate into the salaries of civil servants for “humanitarian” purposes (aid for the construction of mosques120 ). But the radical organisation deplored Habibie’s prudence when it came to supporting Islam, claiming it would “sink his image as a Muslim leader worthy of his name”. Habibie remained silent on the Tanjung Priok affair, he did not prioritise the liberation of Muslim political prisoners, he had yet to rehabilitate the Masyumi political party, banned since 1960, and he did not bestow the title of national hero on its former leaders, Mohammad Natsir and Syafruddin Prawiranegara — all of which were measures KISDI had expected of the president. Ahmad Sumargono also flayed the president for his tolerance of “vice” (alcohol, pornography, adultery) and towards the separatist movements in East Timor and Papua (former Irian Jaya).121 In addition, he blamed Habibie for the marginalisation of KISDI’s former allies within the army (mainly Prabowo and Major General Kivlan Zen) and invited Habibie, “symbol of Islam”, to be the guarantor of Soeharto’s policy, “who, since 1993, had formed ‘green’ cabinets (ijo royo-royo, that is, Islam-friendly)”. In the face of his opponents, who represented the “anti-Islam” group in power “from 1966 to 1990”, the new president was expected to show a firm stance.122

78Following the example of militant Islamism, none of the diverse forces in the Indonesian political scene wished to give their full backing to Habibie. The major moderate Islamic organisations chose to remain in the background. Relations between Habibie and NU were lacklustre, as the president did not accord them the post of Minister of Religions, a post much coveted by the traditionalist religious organisation. Relations with Muhammadiyah were much warmer but its chairman, Amien Rais, kept his distance in view of the promised elections. Even ICMI was divided in its evaluation. The most political members had been rewarded with a large presence in government, but the more high-profile intellectuals of the group — the only ones capable of influencing public opinion — were kept away from ministries and positioned outside of the influential government circles. Moreover, in looking to distinguish himself from a specific religious organisation and prove his neutrality in religious matters, Habibie further disappointed some of his staunchest supporters.123

Political Openness and the Emergence of a Moralising Islamism

79Political Islam, which had supported the accession of Habibie without hesitation, became a vital issue in his dealings with the military officers. ABRI felt that by not imposing any limits to the creation of religion-based parties, the new president had made too many concessions to Islam. As for Habibie, what he desired was for a Muslim party to underpin his renewed power. Ultimately, both ABRI and the president were overtaken by the chain of events: the army could not prevent the proliferation of Islamic parties and none of them could be pinned down by Habibie. Confronted with the powerful democratic current coalescing around the version of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-P, with the P added for Perjuangan, ‘Struggle’), they could only seek refuge, together, under the protection of the only political force that still seemed able to protect their influence: Golkar.

80The authorisation enabling political parties to be freely formed set Indonesia back by many decades, to the period before General Soeharto and his New Order reorganised with an iron hand the somewhat unbridled political scene. After more than 30 years of strong-armed rule without free elections, every party felt it represented a current within Indonesian society and could legitimately present itself before voters. Between July 1998 and the elections of June 1999, several hundred parties were created. Amongst these, several dozens claimed to represent Islam in one way or another. What the major parties had in common was their opposition to the president. Their popularity signalled the end of Habibie’s supporters’ hopes to harness political Islam for his cause, as was the case with ICMI. Abdurrahman Wahid’s Party of National Renaissance (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, PKB) and Amien Rais’ National Mandate Party (Partai Amanat Nasional, PAN), supported by NU and Muhammadiyah respectively, claimed to represent the values of a pluralist Islam and were credible alternatives to the reigning power. From the radical Islamic wing, only the Crescent Star Party (Partai Bulan Bintang, PBB), a spin-off from DDII and KISDI, was a potential source of backing for Habibie. But Ahmad Sumargono’s criticism of the president’s feebleness, the ambitions of Yusril Ihza Mahendra who claimed to be the disciple of leading figure Mohammad Natsir and most of all, the small following of this party, put paid to this project.

81One of the most significant consequences of these unfulfilled hopes was the mutation of KAMMI. This powerful organisation of young Muslims, administered by devoted militants from the student milieux, could have constituted a solid base for Habibie’s new political career. Although it had always drawn upon an intransigent religious rhetoric, KAMMI had consistently distanced itself from the violence that characterised the other radical Islamist organisations (KISDI, HAMMAS, FURKON). Initially supportive of the Habibie presidency, KAMMI subsequently aligned itself with pro-Reformasi student organisations such as the Forum Salemba (FORSAL), named after one of the campuses of the big Indonesian university. On 6 November, a few days before the Special Session of MPR, these organisations participated in collective demonstrations and issued an ultimatum appealing to the government not to use this session to legitimise an extension of its term.124 Definitively converted to the democratic cause in the weeks after the fall of Soeharto and unable to identify itself and fit in amongst the radical organisations that supported Habibie, KAMMI represented the emergence on the Indonesian political scene of what can be called a ‘moralising Islamism’, issued from the usroh/tarbiyah movement. They were not the only ones to incarnate this pro-democracy Muslim current: well before them, the Muslim students of the HMI Muslim associations (modernists), PMII (Nahdlatul Ulama) and IMM (Muhammadiyah), long present on campus, had struggled along within the strict conditions imposed by the New Order. But these organisations were progressively overtaken by KAMMI, which possessed an unprecedented capacity for mobilisation and was highly visible thanks to the systematic wearing of religious symbols by its militants.

82Among the parties identifying with Islam, KAMMI militants initially supported Amien Rais’ PAN, symbol of the opposition to the fallen regime. However, when PAN was opened up to non-Muslims, they wanted a properly Islamic party and, following Fahri Hamzah, their chairman, rallied en masse to the Justice Party (Partai Keadilan PK), founded in August 1998.125

83Deprived of efficient intermediaries and obliged to fall back on Golkar, B.J. Habibie and his followers failed to shake off their image as successors of the New Order and be seen as representatives of an Islam of tomorrow. The legislative elections of June 1999, the first authentically free elections since 1955, consecrated the opposition’s victory. Megawati Soekarnoputri’s PDI-P gathered more than 33.7 per cent of the votes and obtained 154 out of 500 seats in Parliament. As for Golkar, it only got 22.4 per cent and 20 seats. All the other major parties were more or less aligned with Islam but were hesitant in proclaiming their religious identities: Nahdlatul Ulama’s PKB obtained 51 seats in Parliament; PPP, the Islamic party of the former regime, 58; Amien Rais’ PAN, 34. PBB and PK, the only two parties that unambiguously proclaimed their Islamist and pro-sharia leaning, respectively obtained 13 and 7 seats with 1.9 per cent and 1.36 per cent of the votes. Two well-known leaders of radical Islam entered Parliament: Ahmad Sumargono of KISDI for PBB, as well as A.M. Fatwa for PAN.

84During the 16 months that he was in office, Habibie turned out to be the most reformist president of the period. Aside from the liberalisation of the political system mentioned earlier, a pivotal law on regional autonomy was adopted and, most importantly, East Timor was given the right to decide on its own future. Just like most of the other measures taken by Habibie, this one provoked the ire of his supporters yet did not win him any gratitude amongst his opponents: the vote in favour of independence in East Timor at the end of August 1999 (78.5 per cent) plunged the narrow territory into extreme violence. Encouraged by some elements within the army, the pro-integrasi militias (who were in favour of remaining within Indonesia) provoked veritable massacres resulting in almost 2,000 deaths. Moreover, the reforms proposed by ICMI ministers were regarded by the opposition as mere window-dressing: the Minister of Labour, Fahmi Idris, had no doubt ratified Convention 87 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) guaranteeing the right of association, but repression against workers on strike continued in factories.126 Finally, a series of scandals (including the Bank Bali incident in which 70 million dollars were embezzled by a company owned by Golkar’s vice-treasurer), as well as the tacit protection given to Soeharto during the corruption trials, sank any hope of re-election Habibie might have nourished. He could no longer present his candidacy.127

Abdurrahman Wahid or Iconoclastic Islam in Power

86Embroiled in financial scandals, deprived of the support of the New Order loyalists, who blamed him for abandoning East Timor, and persistently rejected by the democrats, B.J. Habibie had no chance at all of remaining in office in October 1999. Pending the Special MPR Session to appoint a successor to the presidency, one woman, Megawati Soekarnoputri, seemed assured of the seat occupied by her father three decades ago. The clear victory of her party, PDI‑P, at the legislative elections made her a favourite for the presidential elections to be organised by MPR in October 1999.

87Yet, after PDI-P’s victory in June, opposition to her candidacy arose within political Islam. The validity of electing a woman to the highest function in the state was questioned, planting the sharia in the heart of public debate in Indonesia for the first time in a long while. In fact, one of the main reproaches made of Megawati and her party was that they had given too much space to the Christian candidates on their electoral lists — something not unusual as the latter had indeed been allies of the secular nationalists within the PDI since 1971. To effectively block her election, her main adversaries mounted an alliance called the Central Axis or poros tengah, whose aim in the name of Islam was to “prevent the secular nationalist groups from attaining their political objectives”.129 By aligning itself with Golkar and ABRI’s representatives in Parliament, this coalition stripped PDI-P of the advantages of its victory at the legislative elections and distributed power amongst the partners: Amien Rais from PAN was elected chairman of MPR, Akbar Tanjung of Golkar was made Speaker of the House of Parliament (DPR), and Abdurrahman Wahid of PKB was elected president of the Indonesian Republic. So as to appease Megawati’s supporters, Abdurrahman Wahid very astutely offered her the post of vice-president on the very day.

88The establishment and success of this union of political Islam was a unique event in the history of Indonesia. The last successful union of Muslim parties dated to 1959, when they voted in the Constitutional Assembly for a state founded on the application of Islamic law. However, this coalition occupied only 43 per cent of the seats and failed to over-turn the opposing bloc.

89Political Islam had started its manoeuvring from February 1999, even before the legislative elections of June. All the leaders of Islamic parties — from the most moderate such as Abdurrahman Wahid and Nurcholish Madjid, to the most radical such as Ahmad Sumargono and A.M. Fatwa — gathered at the home of the artist Setiawan Djodi.130 The radicals thought much of this ‘central axis’ and, waxing lyrical, Ahmad Sumargono commented that Indonesian Islam was finally ready to “form a sort of beehive, with many cells but all under one roof”. The “king of demonstrations” delighted at the formation of a solid coalition against the “anti-Islam group” made of “leftists, Protestants, Catholics, socialists and the abangan”, united in their “Islamophobia”.131

90However, this united front so longed for by the Islamists quickly turned out to be but an expedient grouping devoid of political substance. Still very immature, the young Indonesian democracy was lost in these ‘combinazione’ in which each clan intended to carve out its share of power. After 30 years of New Order rule during which ministers came exclusively from Golkar or were non-partisan experts and professionals, these other parties finally had access to positions that could be very lucrative indeed. And if the blundering presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid was a disappointment to the democrats, it was even more of a letdown for radical Islam.

91At the start of his mandate, Wahid proposed re-establishing ties, if only commercial ones, with Israel. Shortly after, he evoked the possibility of engaging the former prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew (a Chinese) as economic counsellor. These propositions were highly symbolic and considered by the radical Islamist press (Sabili, Suara Hidayatullah) as veritable provocations. This reaction was understandable as the new president was demonstrating to this group, for whom Jews and Chinese alike were anathema, the pluralism for which he was known.

92Irreproachable in his principles, Wahid was less so in his actions: the Indonesian democrats were critical of the lightness with which he treated the ethnic-religious conflicts that were fanning through entire regions of the Archipelago and which were a veritable godsend for the radicals. He was often abroad on official visits and seemed to underestimate the gravity of the situation, especially in the Moluccas. Gus Dur, as Abdurrahman Wahid was nicknamed, was quickly overtaken by a conflict that he had unfortunately entrusted to his vice-president, Megawati, who was not regarded by Muslims as an impartial arbitrator but as the darling of the Christian camp. Most importantly, she dealt with this problem with remarkable inefficiency. He was finally reduced to advising the Ambonese to solve their problem by themselves and failed to prevent the conflict from becoming an internal political problem. In December 1999, clashes of an unprecedented violence broke out. The Christian Ambonese demanded the presence of foreign observers, convinced that a faction of the Indonesian army was actually stoking tensions instead of trying to reduce them. In January 2000, in an ‘action of a million Muslims’, Islamic groups speaking in the name of the Muslim community mobilised en masse for the stepping down of Gus Dur and Megawati. Amien Rais, chairman of MPR, was present at this demonstration on the side of other leaders of Islamic parties and organisations (PPP Chairman, Hamzah Haz and KISDI’s Sumargono), demanding that the government stop the ‘agitators’, while calls for jihad were heard among demonstrators.

93Faced with this mobilisation, Abdurrahman Wahid used and abused his usual bons mots. Even as new militias were forming (Laskar Jihad, Laskar Mujahidin, Laskar Islam), he commanded the army to prevent them from reaching the Moluccas: “Whether it’s jihad or jahit (sewing) that they want to do, Muslims or Christians, stop them all!” On this occasion, as on others, his governing style contributed to the weakening of his authority. The military commander of the Surabaya region did not stop thousands of laskar departing for the Moluccas, where they were greeted on arrival at the port by soldiers giving out automatic weapons.132

94A few weeks later, in July 2000, Gus Dur named those he considered the agitators of these ethnic-religious riots by their initials, which all Indonesians could guess, targeting “regimist” Islam and some “green” generals.133 However, the president’s henceforth resolute opposition to the radical Islamic groups no longer had much effect.

95He was increasingly criticised for his style of government said to be more becoming of an adulated and omnipotent kiai of a pesantren than as a head of state. Who still doubt his barokah, his divine election and protection? Yet he made unfortunate choices in the nomination of some ministers and aides, whom he did not hesitate to dismiss subsequently. His blindness rendered him dependent on information whispered over the course of visits, with some claiming to come from supernatural sources. The prodigious power of the kiai, combined with the tremendous hopes pinned on the democrat, was at times an advantage that he capitalised on with audacity: he nominated in succession two men with a reputation of integrity for the post of attorney-general (B. Lopa and M. Simanjuntak), although the nomination of a democrat who was not affiliated to the parties, in the case of the latter, angered the members of NU and of his party, PKB. He also managed to marginalise General Wiranto, who was ejected from government. Yet he never learnt how to manage the army to his advantage, not daring to go all the way in his support of reformist generals such as Agus Wirahadikusumah and Saurip Kadi. His sensational and always spontaneous declarations bewildered the average Indonesian accustomed to 30 years of aseptic official-speak. Two scandals provided his detractors with ammunition to discredit him. As early as the middle of 2000, he was confronted with a mounting revolt within Parliament. His clumsy response — he resorted to asking the army for its support in the dissolution of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), caried out by presidential decree in 2001 — alienated him from the entire political class. On 23 July, at the end of a grotesque institutional battle, he was impeached in quasi-unanimity by MPR. Vice-president Megawati acceded to the supreme function of the country’s presidency.

96The startling presidential fate of Abdurrahman Wahid weakened, at least temporarily, the hopes of Indonesian liberal Islam.134 The disorganised audacity of a constantly active religious thinking was succeeded by a cautious status quo between the secular nationalist group and the least reformist groups of Islam.

The Megawati Presidency: From Prudent Status Quo to Constrained Engagement

97In its October 1999 issue, Media Dakwah, the magazine of DDII and principal media of intransigent Islam, enumerated all the good reasons for not electing Megawati as president: she was “pro-communist, she was the daughter of Soekarno, she did not fight for the people, she had dictatorial, militarist-fascist tendencies, she was in fact anti-Reformasi and also anti-Islam.135 Less than two years later, Megawati acceded to the presidency with the assent of this same group.

98The first signs attesting to the evolution of this rigorist Islam towards Megawati dates to March 2001. Several of its leaders — including Ahmad Sumargono of PBB — went on their own initiative to greet the vice-president upon her return from Sampit (Central Kalimantan), where some 400 Madurese migrants had just been massacred by Dayaks.136 President Wahid had not grasped the urgency of the situation and had not cancelled yet another of his numerous trips abroad to visit the trouble spot.

99Megawati was elected president of the Indonesian Republic in July 2001 and took as vice-president the chairman of PPP, Hamzah Haz, the man who had voiced his opposition to a woman as president and one of the few notorious polygamists of the Indonesian political world. KISDI defended its acceptance of a female presidency “under urgent circumstances”.137 When Megawati’s cabinet was announced, KISDI congratulated itself that “fourteen of the ministers were former members of the Association of Muslim Students (HMI)” and that the two non-HMI ministers (Kwik Kian Gie and Laksamana Sukardi) were not from the Indonesian secular National Student Movement (Gerakan Mahasiswa Nasional Indonesia, GMNI).138 Substantial guarantees had indeed been given to political Islam: Yusril Mahendra of PBB was Justice Minister, Malik Fajar of PAN was Minister of National Education and the Minister of Religions, Said Agil Munawar, was a rather conservative ulama of Nahdlatul Ulama.

100The cohabitation between radical Islam and the secular nationalists went mostly well, and not a word was heard from Megawati about the previous misogynistic arguments that had preceded her election. Undoubtedly Indonesia gained in stability. The economic ministers under Megawati continued their work, forming a rather more competent team than that under Gus Dur, including notably Finance Minister Boediono. Numerous obstacles remained: the volume of debt, difficult privatisations and growth that was indeed rising (4.8 per cent at the end of 2004) but still unable to absorb the some nine million unemployed who could potentially swell the ranks of radical groups.139

101The eruption of international terrorism on the Indonesian scene with the bombings of Bali in October 2002 obliged the president to implement vigorous security measures. However, she made very few pronouncements on this subject and gave the impression of not wanting to apply a systematic policy against radical Islam. She authorised the meeting of the Second Congress of Mujahidin in August 2003 and refused to ban Jemaah Islamiyah, thus going against the wishes of her ASEAN partners. One of the rare snags between militant Islamism and PDI-P concerned the willingness of the latter to rehabilitate President Soekarno, as well as the removal of electoral prohibitions on former communist political prisoners or sympathisers, who were henceforth eligible for Parliament.140

A New Alliance

102The legislative elections of April 2004 were a brutal slap in the face for the president’s party: votes for PDI-P fell from 33.7 per cent to 18.5 per cent. That often painful austerity measures were implemented while the government showed no real desire to tackle the rampant corruption explains the voters’ disappointment to a large extent. The most unpopular decision taken by Megawati was probably the acquittal of the former chairman of Golkar, Akbar Tanjung. These failings allowed moralising Islam, mentioned earlier, to find its niche, and it soon became the main battleground for the young Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan-Sejahtera, PKS). During the presidential elections of October 2004, it very sensibly chose to support the candidate of ‘change’ (pembaruan), General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, head of the new Democratic Party (Partai Demokrat, PD). Although together they only obtained less than 15 per cent of the votes in the legislative elections of July, PKS and the Democratic Party managed to score for Yudhoyono a grand victory in the duel opposing him and Megawati. For its support of Yudhoyono, the head of PKS, the young Hidayat Nur Wahid clinched the chair of MPR. He won the sympathies of the public right from the start, who discovered at the same time this young political party which had only got 1.3 per cent of the votes five years earlier in 1999. Through a few symbolic acts such as turning down some of the privileges that came with his position (a luxury limousine and a room in an expensive hotel for the duration of the sessions), this young leader who converted from intransigent Islam to moralising Islam made a remarkable entry into the Indonesian political scene.

103Since its foundation, PKS has undergone an evolution that encapsulated the recent mutations in Indonesian Islam but also represented a classic path in the Islamist movement. Like its Turkish counterpart, REFA and subsequently AKP, the party moderated its demands and gradually gained credibility as it became closer to the authorities. Abandoning the facile demands of unruly radicalism for the more subtle claims of a moralistic reformism, it contributed to a more general evolution discussed in Chapter Five.