Dewi Candraningrum

The ordeal faced by Ahmadiyah in Indonesia reflects the attitudes and actions of those claiming true defender of Islam using security approach on the price of constant violence toward minority rights.

I have been asked to address the current situation of Indonesian Islam in Bonn University by Berthold Damshauser and Frankfurt University by Fritz Schulze, to retell the present conjuncture of the rise of fundamentalism in this faith. A great deal of what is happening to Indonesia is part of a larger system of historically existing oppression whose quintessential expression took place during New Order, that is ideology of Pancasila and Pembangunan as political card for all rather than strengthening nation building based on civil liberty.

 The rise of Hitler in the history of Germany leaves a significant trace of violence against universal human rights, of not only erasing the Jew but also minorities’ sects and sexual minorities. My intent in reiterating the painful picture of Holocaust is not to repeat historical particularities, rather to stress the universality of racism in which fascisms embedded into the symbol of Islam that has declared a statement of “Uebermensch”, the ultra man, that is those who hold the truest Aqidah of Islam, compared to the astray un-Islamic and infidel Ahmadiyah as “Untermensch”, man at the lowest rank who has no right to claim for their dignity. Facet of violence recurs into the ramification of the failure of the attainment of civil liberties under security approach. State views minorities’ rights, citizen’ liberties as well as human rights activists’ voices as threat instead of healthy input for nation building.

Racial Profiling
The present political milieu approaching 2009 general election deliberately exercises psychological of racism, in particular, proliferating the ideology of ultra morality in the name of Islam to gain the mass. Tight race on selling Islamic symbolism is on! On the one hand, secular parties interestingly become more and more Islamic; on the other hand, Islamist parties swings its direction into secular propagandas. Both are on tight race in lipsticking Islam! The assault on civil liberties in the wake of the 1st of June Monas incidents in which peaceful AKKBB was attacked and demolished by FPI has been stunning as much for its speed as for FPI and other Islamist propaganda leaflets amassing into the public realm. New law, SKB of three ministers, have legalized racial profiling, surveillance, preemptive arrests and detentions, secret courts, and the denial of legal rights not only to those accused of astray and infidel sects, but also those suspected of harboring hostile intent toward Islam. Most of these measures target Indonesian minorities. This could be an elegy for Ahmadiyah who are being held hostage by the acts of tiny minorities of extremists as well as for tolerant Indonesian who has lived together hand in hand with Ahmadiyah since 1920s.

Why now? Why 2008? Generating constant suspicion against Ahmadiyah nurtures the role of fear and paranoia as well as depersonalization and dehumanization of Ahmadiyah Muslim. It is indeed an expression of deeply racist nature of fear and paranoia. How unfortunate the tolerant Indonesian Muslim is, that the government provides medium for executing extremists paranoia in a sheet of paper in which three ministers (Attorney General Hendarman Supandji, Interior Minister Mardiyanto and Minister of Religious Affair Maftuh Basyuni) signed it with consent. The 9th of June 2008 Surat Keputusan Bersama (SKB) of the three ministers conspicuously consolidates 6 points opening to racial profiling toward Ahmadiyah Muslim, of accusing Ahmadiyah as spoiling Islam and furthermore banning their activities. The next question is whose standard of true Aqidah of Islam being exercised by the three ministers? Is Islam monolithic? Is Islam could only be explained by one single definition? History of Islamic tradition has witnessed multivocality and plurivocality of voices within Islam. Ahmadiyah Muslim is one among the multifaceted Islam. The verdict reveals the epistemological violence casts upon Ahmadiyah faith. State has taken away civil liberties and ensure that the dreaded Ahmadiyah Muslim Other as having none. I shall chant a requiem for voicelessness for the appalling lot of Ahmadiyah in Indonesia. Do forgive us!

Civil Liberty
There is a robust parallel between the assault on Ahmadiyah civil liberties and preemptive attacks against human rights activists who defend Ahmadiyah, including women and children. The doctrine of hostile intent first seems to have tried out on the street ambushed by paramilitaries hijacking Islam which is sadly being accommodates by the state so called security approach. The so called security approach, instead of humanistic approach, is eventually domesticating critics, human rights activists, and minorities. A Manichean view of the universe in which a morally superior is juxtaposed to an evil and dangerous world mired in fanaticism and hatreds toward the minorities Other. To embrace such a view, is to do away with any notion of humility and approaching resilient arrogance manifested in the ultra man, Uebermensch’s fascism facet. Oppression and racial profiling toward minorities Other is the greatest calamity of humanity which diverts and pollutes the best energies of the nation building of the plural and multivocal Indonesia. Isn’t Ahmadiyah persecution in Indonesia illustrates and mirrors state’s violence against minorities’ rights? And isn’t the root of the very violence laid on the very heart of the so called Uebermensch, ultra man, claiming the truest Aqidah of Islam? Imperative strategy would be enforcing the state to begin exercising humanistic approach instead of security approach in fulfilling its task to guarantee civil liberty.

Writer is a lecturer of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, currently writes dissertation with DAAD scholarship in Muenster University, Germany.