Left & Right Wing Extremists
May 6th, 2009, in News, by Patung
Dealing with enemies on the left and the right keeps Nahdlatul Ulama leaders busy talking.
Rightist Enemies
Mudjib Khudlori from the Ikhwanul Muballighin (IM), a Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) affiliated group that in the past had close ties politically with the Development Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, PPP), said recently that he hoped president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) would not choose a Wahabi figure as his running mate for the upcoming presidential elections:
We support SBY, he’s done a good job…..We’ll support whoever he chooses as his running mate, so long as it’s not a Wahabi.
Mudjib Khudlori hoped that the president would choose an NU person instead, like Muhaimin Iskandar or Muhammad Lukman Edy. inilah
Hidayat Nur Wahid
One of the so-called Wahabists that Mudjib Khudlori is likely referring to, Hidayat Nur Wahid of the Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, PKS) has felt it necessary to defend himself against accusations that he can be considered an exponent of the extreme Saudi Arabian brand of Islam. Hidayat said there was a dirty campaign being waged against him, primarily via sms, to paint him as a fanatic and anti-Indonesian, and thereby dissuade SBY from choosing him: republika
Wahabis believe that political parties are haram, yet I helped found a political party [the PKS], so how could I be Wahabi? I state firmly here that neither I nor the PKS is Wahabi.
Hidayat Nurwahid is the most senior figure from the PKS, the PKS being president Yudhoyono’s closest and numerically strongest coalition partner.
Leftist Enemies
Mudjib Khudlori’s senior, the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Hasyim Muzadi, meanwhile looks at the presidential election from a different perspective. He said recently that NU members were free to choose whom they pleased, provided the candidate had a proven track record of struggling in the interests of Islam, and of fighting against deviant thought within the religion, such as the Liberal Islam Network, Jaringan Islam Liberal (JIL).
The government had to be prepared to deal with heretical groups such as JIL, he said, or the process of secularisation going on in the country now would only get worse. JIL and other heretical sects flourished in the country because the government was not prepared to destroy them, root and branch, he said.
Hasyim Muzadi
Not only the faith of ordinary Muslims was in danger of being contaminated by liberalism, heresy, and orientalism, he said, but also that of clerics and religious leaders, to the point where their understanding of Islam would become worse than that of a kafir. republika
It is the job of government to get rid of them. What have they done so far? With this in mind the NU directs its members to choose a president who will join in the war against deviant ideas.
15 Comments on “Left & Right Wing Extremists”
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Odinius says:
What a bizarre article. I get why NU would be worried about PKS–or more extreme–variants of political Islam capturing the vice presidency, as this is actually possible.
But the Hasyim Muzadi bit is not just a bit authoritarian, and one would think that the NU would shy from that, considering that it is now politically less powerful than those elements of Indonesian political Islam that also look down on NU practices…
Besides, who, exactly, is the JIL a threat to and how?
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Lairedion says:
What happened to Hasyim, whom I always thought was a voice of reason and moderation? His remarks are more in line with those of the FPI and other hard-liners.
And it’s that same weak and lame story again. We need to protect Islam and the government should do this and destroy heretics… baddabing… baddabang…..
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I guess if you start from the assumption that most (if not all) politicians are insincere, then it would be a rational move to defend his right flank.
Or, perhaps, he was only acting reasonable and moderate when he sought the presidency with Megawati?
A different explanation might be that he is actually quite reasonable and moderate on some issues, and a New Order style paternalist-authoritarian on others.
Either way, this is pretty lame.
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This is not new for Muzadi, he’s on the right of things at NU, supported the porn bill before it got watered down, although I’ve never seen him put things so bluntly. To be fair to him he’s also pretty good trying to battle the other end, the fanatics. He was speaking in Langitan, Tuban, the heartland of the very conservative end of NU, so maybe was trying to tailor things to his audience.
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Yeah true, but I think that going after JIL is so out of line…and kind of baffling. It’s a very small group of people.
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Astrajingga says:
Mmm, people from NU as leader?
From the organization that support the military in killing alleged communists in Indonesia in ’65?
Thanks, but no thanks.
I don’t try to say that PKS is better either. They are a bunch of people who think that they hold monopoly in truth and ticket selling to heaven.
I will support anyone who can tolerate and won’t ban communism, JIL, ahmadiyah, atheism, secularism or any other ism, including wahabism, FPI-ism, PKS-ism, anarchism, but will put anyone using violence in jail.
Having say that, I support Cepot and Dawala as president and vice president!
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Kang ibing for president!!!
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Astrajingga said:
Mmm, people from NU as leader?
From the organization that support the military in killing alleged communists in Indonesia in ‘65?
Thanks, but no thanks.
NU changed quite a bit in the 1970s. Gus Dur in fact questions whether the ban on communism is valid in any way. Supposedly anti-Orde Baru politicans like Mega and Amien Rais, on the other hand…
Besides, with that bar, you’d have to also boycott PDI-P (PNI at the time), GOLKAR and probably PPP too. Not saying you’re wrong, mind you, just pointing out that most of Indonesian political organizations that were around in 1965 and have survived are complicit in some way.
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So I won’t support all of them, then.
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indonesiabraveheart says:
Wahabis believe that political parties are haram, yet I helped found a political party [the PKS], so how could I be Wahabi? I state firmly here that neither I nor the PKS is Wahabi.
A Wahabi is a wahabi like a toyota is a toyota :X
I wonder what kind of responses the eastern part of Indonesia would give if this guy become the vice-president-to-be ??
Woe to NKRI if it does …
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I actually doubt very much that he is Wahabi, see Hidayat Nur Wahid, he sounds quite reasonable there. There are elements in the PKS which you might call Wahabi, but he isn’t part of them, and I think they are, particularly at the moment, outgunned and outmanouvered by the pragmatic wing of the party.
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There is a tendency for some to think all Islamic fundamentalists follow the same doctrine, but this is patently false.
PKS are on the Muslim Brotherhood tree, and so are modernist fundamentalists. The wahabi establishment in Saudi Arabia HATE anything associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. There are a number of reasons for this, some theological, some philosophical, some political. The main sticking point is attitude to modernity and modernization…MB types want it; wahabi types don’t.
While you could argue this is window dressing to a common literalist worldview, the better metaphor would be “a wahabi is a PKS like a chrysler is a toyota.”
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Mike Oxblack says:
The government had to be prepared to deal with heretical groups such as JIL, he said, or the process of secularisation going on in the country now would only get worse.
Surely the opposite is true. Indonesia is a constitutionally (almost) secular country currently undergoing an unprecedented process of sharia-isation (I love the great fondness for ‘-isation’ words in this country, Christianisation being a particular favourite).
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Norm Chumpsky says:
PKS could be seen as a Brotherhood-Wahhabi hybrid. Sounds incompatible, I know. But so is the extremist understanding/definition of jihad vis-a-vis the true meaning(s) as proscribed by Islam (true Islam, not the perverted imitations the extremists are selling).
Yet, it exists… and persists… and so do the PKS, with their schizophrenic, hybrid version of Middle Eastern Islamist conservatism.
It should be acknowledged, of course, that PKS is not united in their views, as Patung pointed out above. You’ve got your Keadilan folks, your Kesejahteraan side, your Cairo people, your Birmingham gang, etc, etc. But there are some things they all have in common, such as a long-term game plan, and a willingness to do nearly whatever it takes to accomplish it.
Just a thought. I could be wrong. Could be way off the mark.
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