Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia

MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN INDONESIA 81planning. Controversy over the use of IUDs (intra uterine devices) was one suchexample of regime mobilisation of Muslim support in aid of its family planningprogram. In 1971, a group of (eleven) prominent ulama issued a religious rulingdeclaring that Islamic law forbade the use of IUDs. The regime realised that thereligious decision could seriously impair its free and aggressive contraceptionprogram. It therefore sought vigorously to persuade and pressure the ulama tolend their religious approval and justification to the use of IUDs. After years ofresistance by religious conservatives, this approval finally came in 1983, whenthe Ministry of Religious Affairs and the National Family Co-ordinating Boardconvened a national conference of ulama. At the meeting, MUI reversed theearlier ruling with its own fatwa permitting IUD insertion. 24The regime also called on MUI to advance its development projects throughthe sending of ulama and da’i (preachers) to remote regions and transmigrationsites. President Suharto launched the program in 1989, which was funded by hisand his wife’s private foundations (Yayasan Amal Bhakti Muslim Pancasila,YABMP, and Yayasan Dharmais). 25 The Departments of Religion andTransmigration were responsible for implementing the program, using the MUIas a vehicle for recruiting the preachers. Selected preachers were given the title of‘development preachers’ and underwent a one-month preparatory training course.They were not only briefed in religious and pedagogical techniques, but werealso trained in practical skills and community services like farming andplantation skills, marriage counselling, burial preparation and how to deal withthe sick. 26Aspects of the regime’s pembinaan mental (ideological guidance) curriculumfor preachers included a strong dose of instructions on harmony, duties andrights to the nation, leadership discipline, and morals. It also included courses onnational security, health and family planning and farm management. The regimesent them mostly to oil-palm plantation sites (PIR) and to areas for the mining ofprecious metals, fishing farms and forestry estates. 27Developing social harmony through religious guidance was central to thepreachers’ activities. Preachers were to assist migrants from different islands andethnic groups to settle and assimilate. In particular, they gave pembinaan mentalto the newcomers of Muslim faith (the majority of transmigrants) in order toavoid points of tension among the migrant settlers and between them and localcommunities. 28 The MUI supplied each preacher with a booklet of guidelines onmaintaining inter-religious harmony. The booklet contained governmentregulations and decrees on religious propagation, constructing places of worship,mystical sects, foreign aid and violation of religious commemorations. 29The regime wished to ensure that each religious community maintained aninterpretation of their religion consonant with government development policy.It therefore instructed preachers to monitor, in conjunction with state agencies,the unrestrained growth of deviant sects or alternative religious interpretations atsites. Preachers were charged with the task of bringing deviant religiousmovements or expressions back into the mainstream fold of