ISLAM AND MULTICULTURALISM: CHALLENGE TO THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN INDONESIA
ABSTRACT: Amids the world’s
attention to Indonesia, a question is raised: “will the world’s largest Muslims
country be able to show Islamic capabilities with democracy?” Ironically,
intolerance based on religious spirits with their violent face has continued to
increase. Democratic structure formulated after the demised of the New Order
regime in 1998 is now facing a new challenge from the rise of theocracy that
opposed democracy, pluralism, and multiculturalism. The rise of theocracy is
essentially inconsistent with the “Unity in Diversity” principle. Religious
politics struggling to institutionalized this theocracy model has become “the
sand in the shoe” in the mids of Indonesia’s celebration of multiculralism and
pluralism embracing deliberative democracy. Obstacles to democratic
reconciliation occured not only due to disfunction of democratic institutions
that concentrate much on democratic procedure instead of substantive democracy;
but also has been distorted by these theocracy ideals that continues to emerge.
The jargon to uphold Islam as a whole (“kaffah”) stated religious views is
un-negotiable, although this is actually in contrast with the Islamic
principle, “shalih likulli zaman wa makan” (meaning: religious universality
applies accross time and space). The effort to textualized with interpretation,
can easily fall into the use of violence has given a negative contribution to
the building of democracy. Pancasila as nation’s concensus, a conditio sine
quanon, for pluralistic and multiculture Indonesia, has now continued being
disputed.
Penulis: Anas Saidi
Kode Jurnal: jpantropologidd120072
