Islamic Movements and Modern Indonesia: A Quest for Identities by Timotius Wibowo

Reading Andi F. Bakti’s article, “Collective Memories of the Qahhar Movement,” I am surprised to know that the movement does not just raise a religio-political issue (that they want to built an Islamic nation), but also a regional-ethnical problem (that the Sulawesi people is colonized by Javanese people). The fact that the slogans as “Javanese colonialism”, “Majapahitism”, and Javanese syncretism and communism” is still used by the successor groups (p. 13) imply that the regional-ethnical issue is no less important than the religio-political one, and that the issue is still alive now. We could also see the issue comes to the surface in some cases surrounding the last presidential election. It means that any issues that can be interpreted as Javanese colonialism can also be easily related to Qahhar’s movements. Although the myths about Qahhar are widely varied and each of them are not supported by sufficient historical data, but they have been a dry woods that keep the spirit of Sulawesi people flaming when they face Javanese domination. Unfortunately, such a regional-ethnical problem emerges not only among Sulawesi people. The people of some regions in Indonesia also find themselves dominated by Javanese culture, Javanese language, Javanese leadership, Javanese capital, Javanese workers, and even Javanese food. Such phenomenon indicates that the identity of Indonesia is still problematic.
The quest for identity is also the problem of modern Indonesian Muslims. In relation to pluralism, Nurcholis Madjid (1996, In Search of Islamic Roots for Modern Pluralism: The Indonesian Experiences) observed, “The problem of Islam vis-avis pluralism is, therefore, the problem of how the Muslims adapt themselves to the modern age. And this, in its turn, it involves the problem of how they see and asses the history of Islam, and how they see and asses change and the necessity of bringing the universal and normative Islam into a dialogue with the temporal and spatial realities.” (p. 100). Such problem of identity, in my opinion, emerges not only in the context of pluralism, but also in political spheres. As Indonesia has many cultures, Islam in Indonesia, in fact, has also many faces. To reduce the future conflicts, both the religio-political and the regional-ethnical ones, Indonesian identity needs redefining, as well as Indonesian Islam.