Indonesian Islamism as a marginal case of the political Islam development in a Muslim country

Abstract

The author analyzes radical Islam in modern Indonesia. The aim of the article is to analyze the heterogeneous nature of Indonesian radical Islam, including Islamic Defenders Front as the largest and formally institutionalized Islamist group that existed until December 2020, as well as its satellite organizations represented by the “National Movement Against Alcohol” and “Indonesia without a Liberal Islam Network”. It is assumed that the recent history of the Islamic Defenders Front and other organizations of Islamist orientation actualize the tendencies in development of the international discourse of Islamism as a form of political Islam. The main goals of the article are the analysis of the processes of radicalization and marginalization of the Front, the study of the processes of fragmentation of Islamist discourse and the general prospects of its functioning in modern Indonesian politics. The author, on the one hand, analyzes the activities of the Front, including its leaders’ choice of a confrontational model of relations with the authorities. On the other hand, the activity of the satellite groups of the Front is also analyzed. The author presumes that the Front and related organizations were united in their critique of liberalism, secularization and the secular state, offering an alternative ideas based on traditionalism and critique of modernization. The author states that the crisis and failure of the radical Islamic alternative in Indonesia was inevitable because moderate actors represented by Muslim parties and NGOs, integrated into the system and loyal to basic organizational norms of statehood, formed and controlled the political discourse of Islam in this country. It is assumed that the Islamists were not able to form an attractive political image, and this failure resulted from their commitment to radicalism, inability and unwillingness to integrate into modern political relations. The author also shows that the numerous provocative statements and actions of Habib Rizieq Shihab, the leader of the Front, inspired and stimulated the marginalization of radical Islam. The author analyzes Shihab’s criticism of the Indonesian government, temporary emigration, return to Indonesia in the fall of 2020, which aggravated and inflamed his conflict with the authorities and led to the prohibition of the Front and the arrest of its leader. The author believes that Indonesian Islamism was not able to offer ideological principles that could contribute to its transformation into a political party.