62 islam, politics and change
In those three arenas, the party experienced a dramatic change from
normative perceptions and behaviours, perceiving politics as an integral
part of dakwah activities and therefore needing to be conducted in line
with Islamic norms, into pragmatic understandings and dealings, by
taking politics as an instrument for the objectives of dakwah that need
to be handled in their own way. At the same time, the change marked
the polarisation between increasingly pragmatic pks politicians and
normative jt activists, which turned into tensions and frictions.
In terms of political mobilisation, the pks has experienced a trajectory
from natural understanding of political competition, from perceiving
elections as a formal test and a trial of the political party’s reputation
in society, into a rational understanding of it as contestations that
involve strategies to engineer information and reputations, and into a
transactional understanding in which it realised that political competition
through elections is not only about winning or losing, but rather how
to play what it has. Similarly, in the arena of coalition and government
formation, initially it perceived a coalition exclusively in terms of
ideological cooperation and rejected the notion of collaborating with a
secular party. Subsequently, it started to realise that a coalition with a
secular party might be seen as a pragmatic short-term strategy in order
to achieve normative long-term objectives. Finally, in the area of policy
formulation and implementation the party seems to have been trapped
between formulating symbolic-normative and rent-seeking policies.
4.1 Political Mobilisation
The pks has experienced a significant change in political mobilisation, in
terms of how it understands the notion of mobilisation as well as the way it
carries it out. Firstly, during the early years of its history, jt and pks leaders
perceived political mobilisation as a natural social process, in which
reputation and popularity are by-products of society’s appreciations of
their good and beneficial deeds. Secondly, after they followed through
various events of political mobilisation – from rallies on the streets,
media warfare to influence public opinion, to elections campaigns – they
started to realise that politics is not a natural social process, but rather a
series of engineered events through the manipulation of information.
Thus, they started not only to amplify their profiles and reputations, but
also to fabricate them, sometimes almost out of nothing.⁷² Thirdly, when
pks strategies for socialisation included taking advantage of natural disaster relief
activities that were often required, by putting its name on aid packages which
were sent by other people or organisations to disaster victims; escorting trucks