Violence in Indonesia 1995-2005: Riots, Pogroms, Jihad (Sidel, 2006) reference from 'Dynamics of Human Violence'
groups 2007 population 234 million, 86.1% Muslims, 5.7% Protestant, 3% Catholic, 1.8% Hindu, 3.4% other or unspecified
before 1995 (historical) 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
events (general qualification) riots in provincial towns and cities, targeting buildings: Chinese business, Christian churches, governmental buildings pogroms in Central Sulawesi and Maluku of armed groups of Christians and Islamics, ethnic cleansings and killings jihad paramilitary mobilization and terrorist bombings vs ‘Western’ targets: ambassies, hotels, tourist nightclubs
events (more specific) The 1959 decree vs ‘alien-owned’ retail stores (vs Chinese, of which 100.000 left Indonesia in 1960) was lead by right-wing NU and other Muslim parties. anti-Chinese riots, Riots were beginning with insults, violations and abuses by Islamic figures and institutions. anti-Chinese riots. The riots were not directed against persons, but against buildings and properties (burning of Chinese properties and Christian churches, government buildings and Golkar offices) as demand for public recognition for Islam. election-related riots riots and mass rapes of Chinese women. The Jakarta riot was more about nation and class than Islam. 1998/1999 antiwitchcraft campaigns on Java. 1999-2001 interreligious pogroms in Poso and Maluku with murderous attacks on individuals and entire neighborhoods and villages. ‘Color-war’ (read and white headbands), not along ethnic, but along religious lines, leading to segregation of Christian and Muslim communities (‘cleansing’).
actors of violence often elusive [ongrijpbare] and ever shifting agents: mobs, entire local communities, politicians, gangsters, religious activists, narrow networks of terrorists often elusive [ongrijpbare] and ever shifting agents: mobs, entire local communities, politicians, gangsters, religious activists, narrow networks of terrorists often elusive [ongrijpbare] and ever shifting agents: mobs, entire local communities, politicians, gangsters, religious activists, narrow networks of terrorists
sociological Different transformation and shifts 1949-1990 of the Chinese businessclass, the ‘dangerous’ popular classes and the political class, still showing the aftermath of the 19th century Dutch pillarization in networks along religious lines. Suharto regime: ghettoization and discrimination in social and cultural realms, together with a hardening of religious identities and boundaries
education a small but privileged minority of Indonesian Christians was overrepresented in the ranks of bureaucracy, army, universities and urban middle class, 37 due to Dutch schooling of children of local aristocrats and Protestant and Catholic missionary schools, delivering literacy, soldiers, bureaucrats, teachers, policemen, company clerks, plantation overseers, mine foremen etc. 1912 Muhammediyah did build its own network of modern schools (madrasah, which combined religious instruction with a Western style of schooling) and 1926 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) raised rural Islamic boarding schools (based on the oral tradition of scholasticism, ‘ulama’, devotional and mystical pesantren tradition). problem of a predominance of Christian churches and schools.
economical Chinese merchants > large Kongolmerats, web of ‘market corruption’ between private businessmen and government officials anti-globalization movements vs capitalist economies of the secular North (North-America, Japan, Western-Europe) problem of government supported konglomerats (lead by Chinese businessmen) at the cost of small scale local stores of Muslims
political Dutch colonial rule (village institutions (‘dorpsrepublieken’)), Dutch pillarization (> 'aliran' along racial (e.g. Chinese, European, natives etc) and religious lines), The 1945-1949 ‘Revolusi’ mobilized mass politics, also the authoritarian and repressive Suharto regime showed actions of crowds of ordinary people, which fuelled the urban fear of becoming desoriented in rural travels The aliran were reconfigured as political parties: PNI (nationalist), PKI (Communist), Majumi (modernist Islamic party), NU (traditionalist Islamic party). Anti-globalization vs the wave of democratization, increasing claims on public space and state power under Islamic banner. 1973 New Order - PPP (as forced unity of Islamic parties, 1977 30%, 1987 16%, 1992 17%) During the early 1990s the Suharto regime moved to capture and claim for itself much of the attractive power associated with the institutions and idiom of Islam – Habibi was leading the process of incorporating more and more high educated Muslims. The 1998 Habibi regime loosened the centralized autorization, state’s survaillance and control, destabilizing hierarchies of power and causing uncertainty about authority and identity. loss of state power by the forces [sc.organizations and political parties] that were most insistent on the promotion of Islam (re)entrenchment [verschansing] of the secular [nationalistic] and Christian [Protestant and Catholic] forces in the seats of state power, leading to [reactive] violence related to the problems with the place of Islam in Indonesia The 2001 weak Wahid administration was replaced by the Megawati (PDIP) administration, which brought stronger protection for non-Muslims in Indonesia and caused an effective dislogding of Islam from state power. The 1980-1990 succes of Iranian revolution, Afganistan, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey Islamic parties showed since 1990 a notable decline for forces promoting Islam in these countries, causing retaliatory terrorist violence.
religious  development of religious institutions and autority relations vs Christian globalized mediatization of the Christian religian (labeled ‘globalatinization’) increasing claims on public space and state power under Islamic banner - Islam jumped into the social gap vs Chinese predominance in business and vs Christian prominence in the New Order state religious tensions (due to the activities of ‘fire tenders’ and ‘conversion specialists’) defeat or disentegration of various Islamic movements, leading to the weakening of religious authority, leading to fights to recreate a community loss of state power by the forces [sc.organizations and political parties] that were most insistent on the promotion of Islam (re)entrenchment [verschansing] of the secular [nationalistic] and Christian [Protestant and Catholic] forces in the seats of state power, leading to [reactive] violence related to the problems with the place of Islam in Indonesia In South-East Azia jihad waged in the face of deteriorating political conditions for the avowed representatives of Islam > dissolution of Islam as unifying force in parliament and public sphere Religious violence is about religious authority, identity and its boundaries.