Indonesia, Islam, and Democracy: Dynamics in a Global Context.

• Author: Sensenig, Victor J.
• Position: Book review

Indonesia, Islam, and Democracy: Dynamics in a Global Context. By Azyumardi Azra. Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 2006. Softcover: 242pp.

Even before its foundation, Indonesia struggled to balance the demands of nationalism and Islam. The famous seven words of the Jakarta Charter obliging citizens to follow shariah law were removed in the preamble's final draft, but President Soekarno later devised the Pancasila (five principles of state) as an explicit compromise between the secular and religious philosophies of the state. Azyumardi Azra's Indonesia, Islam, and Democracy: Dynamics in a Global Context, part of a commendable effort to bring the work of prominent Indonesian intellectuals like Azyumardi to an international audience, shows how the struggle continues as Indonesia returns to democracy in the twenty-first century.

A collection of Azyumardi's papers from the last decade, Indonesia, Islam, and Democracy explores how the re-flowering of cultural and political Islam affects the development of democracy and a vigorous civil society. In the first section, "Indonesia, Islam, and Democracy", Azyumardi explains how Islamic involvement in the political system, discouraged by the 1955 elections and suppressed by the New Order regime, was rejuvenated by President Soeharto's late embrace of Islam. President B.J. Habibie's political liberalization then caused a wave of "political euphoria" as more than forty Islamic parties were formed for the 1999 general election, but the results confirm for Azyumardi that "Islamic parties have never been very popular among Indonesian Muslims" (p.18). First, he says, Indonesian Muslims prefer substantive to formalistic Islam, that is, rituals over political parties. Second, the "Islamic ideology" often masks a more elemental power struggle: "political pragmatism is the most important feature of political behavior of most Muslim political leaders" (p. 20). A fragile coalition of Islamic parties promoted Abdurrahman Wahid, promising new prominence for Muslim civil society, but the inefficiency of his administration caused a crisis in public confidence. Hardline groups, critical of a female president and her cautious response to the US invasion of Afghanistan, challenged Megawati Soekarnoputri's government, but Azyumardi sees the political system settling in after bursts of freedom and frustration.

The argument of the second section of the book, "Islam, Indonesia, and the International Order", is less compelling...