110 islam, politics and change
Ahmadiyah issue should not be classified as a human rights issue. ‘It’s
sacrilege, desecration of the religion I profess’, he said, adding that people
should not hide behind human rights to insult religion. A week later, also
at the dpr and facing jai leader (amir) Abdul Basit, Hasrul Azwar made
sure there would be no misunderstanding about his position. Ahmadiyah
beliefs were substantially different from true Islam, he stressed, and there
was only one solution: ‘Disband Ahmadiyah!.’²¹
However, outside the dpr, at least one senior ppp politician held a
less combative position right after the Cikeusik clash. Lukman Hakim
Saifudin, the deputy head of the People’s Consultative Assembly (Majelis
Permusyawaratan Rakyat/mpr), a chairman of the ppp’s central leadership
board and a former nu activist, said the violent acts could not be justified,
but he also stressed that all parties involved should respect the skb.²² That
sentiment was shared by M. Arwani Thomafi, another ppp chairman and
also a member of Commission viii at the time of the Cikeusik incident.
Arwani said he believed that with the skb there were sufficient legal
grounds to ban Ahmadiyah, but that the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
government apparently did not want to ‘follow through on what has
already been decided at the level of the Religious Affairs minister’ based
on ‘its [the government’s] own political considerations’.²³
Regarding the Ahmadiyah issue, Arwani stressed there had been
no reconsideration of the party line after Cikeusik. The ppp had made
up its mind and it was up to the president to act, he explained. The
reasoning behind this stance is that the ppp sees Indonesian society,
or at least its constituents, as people for whom religion plays a very
important role. This does not mean, however, that those people are
fundamentalists or opponents of pluralism, Arwani pointed out. ‘Indeed
it has been proven that Indonesian society is a society that can be
united by Pancasila’, he said. But when it came to religious beliefs,
he said, that was something deeply rooted in people’s hearts, ‘which
should be seen as a fundamental issue’. He added that for Christians or
Hindus it would also be unacceptable if something that was considered
holy were to be mocked or even abused. ‘Muhammad in Islam is
considered very noble, and very sacred, protected from sinful acts.
If this concept is being violated, what happens is that the people get really
angry’.
Statements from this 16 February 2011 meeting between representatives of the jai
and members of the dpr’s Commission viii are taken from a recording bytv
Parlemen.
‘Sejumlah partai Islam kutuk tragedi Cikeusik’,PolitikIndonesia, 7 February 2011.
Interview with M. Arwani Thomafi, Jakarta, 25 July 2011.