Religion in the New Order : 1965-1998

by Joko Wicoyo
(I)
Fields of the Lord is Aragon’s research which focused on the repercussions of Protestant missions and state development projects among highland ethnic minorities in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. She examined how the Dutch colonial and subsequent Indonesian regimes sought to use Protestant missionaries and world religion as a tool for social, economic, and national development. Conversely, she explored how members of highland Indonesian ethnic minorities responded to the introduced version of world religion using their interpretations to pursue local political interests and reorient their own place in a wider nation and world.
Religious and ethnic violence between Indonesia's Muslims and Christians escalated dramatically just before and after President Suharto resigned in 1998. In this first major ethnographic study of Christianization in Indonesia, Aragon delineates colonial and postcolonial circumstances contributing to the dynamics of these contemporary conflicts, and she combines a political economy of colonial missionization with a microanalysis of shifting religious ideology and practice. Fields of the Lord challenges much comparative religion scholarship by contending that religions, like contemporary cultural groups, be located in their spheres of interaction rather than as the abstracted cognitive and behavioral systems conceived by many adherents, modernist states, and Western scholars.
I think in this book Aragon tries to portray "near-tribal" populations who characterize themselves as "fanatic Christians" and asks the readers to rethink issues of Indonesian nationalism and "modern" development as they converged in President Suharto's late New Order state. Through its careful documentation of colonial missionary tactics, unexpected postcolonial upheavals, and contemporary Christian narratives, Fields of the Lord analyzes the historical and institutional links between state rule and individuals' religious choices. Beyond these contributions, this ethnography includes captivating stories of Salvation Army "angels of the forest" and nationally marginal but locally autonomous dry-rice and coffee farmers. These Salvation Army "soldiers" make Protestantism work on their own ecological, moral, and political turf, maintaining their communities and ongoing religious concerns in the difficult terrain of the Central Sulawesi highlands.
(II)
Using the frameworks of foreign policy analysis and political culture, Leo provides an insightful and analytical explanation of Indonesia's foreign policy under Suharto. It examines the various factors which have contributed to Suharto's foreign policy, the goals of this policy and the means of achieving them. He also discusses Indonesia's relations with Asian countries and beyond, identifying their problems and prospects. From his analysis, it is clear that Indonesia’s policy towards the Middle East has not been based on Islam but on calculations of Indonesian “national interest’ as perceived by Suharto and other members of the military elites. It is also important to note that Indonesia has never tried to become a leader of the Islamic movement, although it has largest Muslim population in the world. Indonesia prefers to become leader of Non-Aligned Movement which is not based on Islam.
Readings : 1. Lorraine V. Aragon, Fields of the Lord: Animism, Christian Minorities, and State Development in Indonesia (Honolulu : University of Hawaii’s Press, 200)
2. Leo Suryadinata, “Islam and Suharto’s Foreign Policy : Indonesia, the Middle East, and Bosnia”, Asian Survey, Vol. 35No. 3, (Mar., 1995), pp.291-303.