a502410

small Dutch-educated elite at the apex of indigenous East Indies society. Both
men were drawn towards the charismatic leader of Sarekat Islam (Islamic Trade
Union), Haji Oemar Said (H.O.S.) Tjokroaminoto. Founded in 1912 in the city of
Solo/Surakarta, later home to Jemaah Islamiyah founders Abdullah Sungkar and
Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, Sarekat Islam was, in essence, Indonesia’s first political
party, although it only formally declared itself as such in 1928. 7 Kartosuwirjo
quickly established himself as a protégé of Tjokroaminoto, becoming his private
secretary and confidant. Initially, Kartosuwirjo had to compete with Sukarno,
four years his senior, for the attention of Tjokroaminoto. Indeed, the handsome,
self-confident Sukarno had so impressed his mentor that he was offered his
daughter’s hand in marriage. Yet Sukarno, a socialist and admirer of Turkey’s
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, split with Sarekat Islam in 1927 to form the Indonesian
National Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, or PNI). By contrast, Kartosuwirjo,
who grieved for the Ottoman caliphate and bemoaned the secularizing reforms
of Ataturk, went on to become the vice president of Sarekat Islam in 1937. By this
time, Kartosuwirjo had become well known for promoting the idea of
independent Indonesia being an Islamic state.
The birth of the Darul Islam movement may be traced to Kartosuwirjo’s
formation of a militia in West Java to fight against Dutch colonialism. In January
1948, towards the end of the struggle for independence, Kartosuwirjo learned
that Hezbollah, the Islamic-nationalist militia that he had led throughout the
revolution, was being squeezed out of post-revolutionary affairs.
8
Unlike the
members of many of the other militia who had struggled against the Dutch, his
men were not being offered places in TNI, the post-independence Indonesian
National Army. Kartosuwirjo thus decided that the time had come for Hezbollah
to make a clean break from the secular nationalist forces with which it had an
uneasy relationship. On 7 August 1949, as the nationalist victory over the
colonial forces was reaching its conclusion, Kartosuwirjo moved to formally
7
Besides Kartosuwirjo and Sukarno, Sarekat Islam launched the nationalist careers of a number
of Indonesia’s leading figures. This diverse group included Semaun, who became the Communist
Party of Indonesia’s first chairman in 1921 before the socialists within Sarekat Islam were forced
out of the organization. Prominent West Sumatran nationalist leader Haji Agus Salim, one of the
nine who drafted the Pancasila, joined in 1915 and went on to draw in future prime minister
Mohammad Roem and Persis activist and future Masyumi leader Muhammad Natsir. Despite
having a strong socialist wing, Sarekat Islam was also very close to many within the ultraconservative
Persis and these figures exercised a strong influence over Kartosuwirjo.
8
Note that the name Hezbollah means the faction, or party, of God and is a common name for
Islamist militia.
35