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Overview
Indonesia has faced problems of religious and ethnic violence throughout its history as a country with hundreds of ethnic groups scattered among more than 6,000 islands. With the end of the Suharto regime and the vulnerable economy following the financial crisis, these tensions have increased and threaten to intensify. The central government has yet to intervene decisively to resolve these conflicts, although President Megawati Sukarnoputri has begun to address many of the problems through negotiations with separatist groups, and through autonomy legislation for the provinces.
Multiculturalism
Indonesia is a very diverse country. There are over 300 ethnic groups speaking 250 languages spread over more than 6,000 islands. It is also a nation comprised of multiple religious groups. While over 90% of the people are Muslim, there are also Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, and other native religions. (See The Year of Living Dangerously: Indonesia after Suharto by Borgna Brunner)
Although Indonesia has suffered underlying religious and ethnic tensions, it was once considered to be a model for multiculturalism and religious tolerance. The national slogan is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika or "Unity in Diversity." Under the military dictatorship of Suharto the religious and ethnic hostilities were relatively subdued due to rapid economic growth. However, since the end of the Suharto regime, triggered by the 1997-98 financial crisis, ethnic and religious tensions have been rising. Historical, political, religious, and economic factors all play a part in the increasing violence in the region.
Currently, there are a number of regions of intense ethnic and religious violence in Indonesia. The government's transmigration program has led to rising ethnic conflict in Kalimantan and West Papua (Irian Jaya). There is hostility against people of Chinese dissent primarily due to perceived and real economic disparities. Religious conflicts have also flared in Maluku between Muslims and Christians, leaving over 5,000 people dead and around 500,000 displaced.
The government faces the difficult task of trying to hold a large diverse nation together. Increased freedom under a democratic government has meant more people speaking out and asserting their ethnic and religious identities. Managing the diversity of Indonesia is a challenge the nation must face to ensure the stability of the region.
Ethnic Diversity
There are over 300 ethnic groups in Indonesia. The largest group is the Javanese, who comprise approximately 45% of the population. Other ethnic groups include the Sundanese 14%, Madurese 7.5%, Malays 7.5% with other ethnicities comprising 26% of the population. While there are many regional languages and dialects, most Indonesians speak the official language, Bahasa Indonesia, originally a minority language used by traders throughout the country.
In many areas of the country people of various ethnicities live side by side in relative harmony. However, areas such as Kalimantan and West Papua are marked by ethnic hostility and violence. The ethnic Chinese have also been the target of ethnic hostility.
Religion
Religion plays an essential role in the violent conflicts that plague Indonesia today. These conflicts include an inter-religious clash between Christians and Muslims, most recently centered in Maluku; and intra-religious clashes between opposing Muslim groups.
Indonesia's political leadership has played a role in the country's religious relations. President Wahid was a moderate Muslim cleric, current President Megawati is secular, but her Vice President, Hamzah Haz, is a more activist Muslim leader.
Interreligious
Former President Suharto maintained a large proportion of Christians in his cabinet and in the military during his term from 1966-1998. He made efforts to de-Islamicize Indonesian politics. In 1985, Indonesia's two largest Muslim groups, Muhammadiyah and the Nahdatul Ulama (NU) had to agree to accept the secular national ideology, Pancasila, as their underlying philosophy.
In the early 1990s, then-President Suharto attempted to balance the power of the military by encouraging the formation of new Islamic groups. One of them was the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), spearheaded by then Minister of Research and Technology, B.J. Habibie. Habibie tried to utilize ICMI as an umbrella group to control numerous Muslim groups, but failed.
The rise of Islam within Indonesian politics began to cause a more serious rift in the country in the 1990s. The military split into nationalist and Islamic camps over the issue of whether Indonesia should be increasingly Islamicized. Nationalists like General Wiranto were in favor of a secular state, while Islamists like Lt. Gen. Prabowo were in favor of strengthening Islamicization.
As Islamic forces increased their political power, violence against Christians by extreme Muslim factions also increased. In Maluku, rising tensions between the Christian and Muslim communities turned violent, sparked by a fight between a taxi driver and residents in an Ambon neighborhood. Subsequently, the city became segregated in Christian and Muslim neighborhoods and the violence spread to the countryside. The ongoing conflict has caused 5,000 deaths. Although the two parties have signed a cease-fire, violence continues to erupt.
Much of the religious violence has occurred in Maluku, a previously majority Christian region, where 55% of the total population is now Muslim due to recent migration trends. However, Southern Maluku has a Christian majority and violence has claimed the lives of many Christian inhabitants of the islands. In the 1950s, the Republic of Southern Maluku Movement tried to separate from Indonesia but was crushed by the military. Now rising tensions have led to the resurgence of these separatist sentiments.
The Islamicisation of Maluku, Indonesia
Inter-Muslim Issues
While Indonesia is predominantly a Muslim country, it is not free of the divides present in other areas of the Islamic world. These divides are made explicit by the fact that Islam lacks a centralized hierarchy of leadership from which official interpretations of religious principles can be obtained. This allows for greater variety within the tradition itself.
In addition to the split within the military, another fissure in Indonesian society is the clash between the traditionalists and the modernists. The traditionalists, who mostly live in rural areas of the country, are considered more open to foreigners and other religious faiths. The modernists, while accepting and incorporating many Western educational and philosophical ideas, are considered more exclusive of other faiths and ethnicities. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is the group most commonly associated with the traditionalist movement, while Muhammadiyah is associated with the modernist movement.
Against the backdrop of inter-religious violence in Maluku, some see intra-Muslim violence as another push toward political instability in Indonesia that will cause the country to fall apart. This issue came to the fore during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid, who was himself a moderate Muslim cleric. Wahid was backed by the mainstream NU, Indonesia's largest Muslim group, which Wahid led before becoming president. Meanwhile, the modernist group Muhammadiyah backed one of his most vocal critics, Amien Rais, a noted Muslim scholar who had previously been its leader. Both Wahid and Rais received fervent support from their groups, the constituents of which have been known to use force to support their views. Indeed, during the constitutional crisis that brought down Wahid, he warned that his supporters would take to the streets in his defense. Such a threat was credible in light of demonstrations in which his supporters marched on the Parliament building and threatened to destroy it if Wahid was impeached. Despite these apparent dangers, Wahid convinced his supporters to stay calm, and no riots occurred. Wahid spoke bitterly of Indonesia's future when he stepped down, but the transfer of power took place peacefully. However, the issue is not a dead one. During Wahid's presidency, groups of his supporters occasionally rioted elsewhere in the country and attacked the president's political opponents. Furthermore, Amien Rais warned Megawati not to "make the same mistakes" as Wahid, indicating that he remains a force to be reckoned with in Parliament.
Events in September 2001 served to bring the issue of inter-Muslim issues into the international spotlight. Muslim groups, including the militant Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and Indonesian Muslim Student Action Group (KAMMI) took to the streets in protest of U.S. action in Afghanistan pressing Megawati to oppose such action. While such protests have since subsided, it remains an issue.
CSIS: Indonesia's Muslim Divide: Past and Present
Government Response
Part of the problem in Maluku stems from accusations that the Indonesian government, police, and military directly supported the hostilities, or at least failed to prevent them. Some reports mentioned that security forces stood idly by while Muslim groups attacked Christians or burned down churches and homes. Reports state that these same forces actively participated in the violence. Many people have called for the government to step in and prevent further aggression, but this is accompanied by a growing fear that Indonesia is being Islamicized to a greater degree than before, and that the government and military are helping to plan and coordinate the violence.
With regard to the intra-Muslim divide, the government and military find themselves facing the same rift as Indonesian society. The president's hesitancy to speak out illustrates the fine balance between powerful Moslem groups, the traditional moderate form of Islam, and the secular state. Debates over the secular nature of the state have existed since the constitution for an independent Indonesia was drafted.
Challenges
Religious divides within Indonesia can easily support and polarize political issues, blurring the dividing line between the intra-Muslim and the Muslim-Christian conflicts. The combination of religious fervor and convictions coupled with political and military power creates a situation that must be handled with great care in order to prevent further bloodshed.
Due to the fact that Indonesia has faced several different secessionist movements in the recent past, violence and tensions between religious communities only raises the risk that the country might split. The inter-religious tension worsens an increasingly sensitive situation in Indonesia where the government and its people face multiple threats to the integrity of the country.
Causes of Hostilities
Over the last two years, ethnic violence and hostility has been mounting in Indonesia. The underlying causes of increasing tensions include political instability, economic problems, and the remnants of the government's policy on transmigration.
The uncertainty following the end of the Suharto regime and the precariousness of former President Wahid's position meant that the government was not stable enough to prevent conflict or mediate disputes. Despite Wahid's support for human rights and religious tolerance, his impeachment preoccupied the political agenda, rather than the need to curtail ethnic tensions.
Heightened ethnic tensions, especially against the Chinese, are partially a result of economic scarcity following the Asian financial crisis. Although the ethnic Chinese comprise only around 4% of the population, before the financial crisis they accounted for the majority of private economic wealth and activity. This is partly due to the Dutch colonial legacy of using the ethnic Chinese as "middlemen". While some of the Chinese control large amounts of money, there are also many lower and working class ethnic Chinese. In the spring of 1998, around 1,200 Chinese were tortured or killed and many businesses were looted or destroyed. Since then, an estimated 150,000 ethnic Chinese have fled the country, taking their assets with them, although some have since returned. Although conditions are better now, the environment remains unsupportive with roughly 50 laws and ordinances considered to be discriminatory toward Chinese-Indonesians.
Another cause for the rising ethnic violence is the Transmigration Program instituted by former President Suharto. The resettlement project was designed to move people from densely populated islands to some of the less habited ones. Migrants were given land, housing, and access to education and healthcare. The indigenous people often resented the new migrants, and felt that their land and culture were being invaded. The transmigration policy has led to many clashes between the migrants and the indigenous people in various regions of the country.
View more information on the impact of the Transmigration Program
Ethnic Conflict
Economic difficulties, government policies, and the rise of extremist groups, have intensified ethnic conflict in recent years. The violence against ethnic Chinese in 1998 is a salient example of the destructive potential of ethnic conflict. In Kalimantan, violence between indigenous Dayak tribesmen and migrant settlers from the island of Madura is another explosive issue. The conflict partly stems from the effects of the Transmigration Policy and resulting land disputes. Migrants from Madura were relocated to Kalimantan in the 1960s and 1970s and given land along with other benefits. The indigenous Dayaks hold land communally and resented the land and other economic benefits given to the Madurese. These tensions have resulted in serious violence with reports of groups of Dayak's looting, beheading, and killing Madurese people.
For more information please view the Kalimantan brief in the Regions section.
The violence in West Papua is primarily due to the activities of a long-standing separatist movement but hostilities have also flared between the Papuans and migrants, including transmigrants.
For more information, please view the West Papua brief in the Regions section.
Challenges
Any sustainable peace will have to address the underlying causes of the increased ethnic and religious violence. Observers consider that the challenges are many and include addressing economic disparities and stabilizing the political situation. Enlisting the military to assist in solving ethnic hostilities is another important factor.
More research is needed to understand fully the ultimate causes of tension in various regions in order to appropriately address the conflicts.
Resources
For general information, please see the following resources:
2001 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom
Causes of conflict in Indonesia - Excerpts from Asia Society panel discussion by Sidney Jones, Executive Director, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch
Some thoughts on Religious Pluralism in Indonesia
Indonesia: Violence and Radical Moslems (ICG)
Updated May 2002
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