There was plenty of fiery rhetoric on display during Tuesday’s rally by hard-liners demanding the Ahmadiyah sect be outlawed, but the calls for revolution seem to have fallen flat.
Thousands of Muslim hard-liners marched from the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle to Merdeka Square opposite the State Palace in Central Jakarta, threatening to topple the government if the president did not issue a decree to disband the minority sect.
Some of the protesters vowed to camp out in front of the palace until a decree was issued, saying they had enough supplies for four days.
Fiery speeches calling for jihad and revolution echoed outside the palace as representatives of the protesters met inside with Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali and State Secretary Sudi Silalahi.
Muhammad Noval, a member of the Islamic Anti-Apostasy Peace Alliance (Ada Api), asked the protesters if they were ready to go to war. “Are you willing to make your wife a widow and your children orphans?” he shouted to the crowd, who replied in unison: “Ready!”
The call to defend the Prophet Muhammad was repeated throughout the day, with many speakers vowing revolution if their demands were not met.
Some Muslim groups have accused Ahmadiyah of heresy, saying it professes the sect’s founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, to be the final prophet, which runs against Islamic beliefs that reserve that position for Muhammad.
Ahmadiyah community leaders, however, say they have never claimed Mirza to be a prophet, but rather a messiah, a concept that is accepted in mainstream Islam.
After two hours of talks on Tuesday, the chairman of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Rizieq Shihab, along with the secretary general of the Islamic People’s Forum (FUI), Muhammad al-Khaththath, and 10 other representatives, emerged from the palace saying the government would meet their demands.
“We must monitor the drafting of the presidential decree. If it takes too long or if they lie to us, we’ll hold a rally that is twice as big as today,” Rizieq said.
Rizieq, who was jailed in 2008 for leading an attack on a group advocating pluralism, said the protesters should go home to “gather strength through prayer.”
On Wednesday, talk of revolution appeared to have waned. Julia Satari, a leader of the youth organization Pemuda Pancasila, toned down her rhetoric and said the group was going to trust the government.
“We have a deal with them, so let’s just wait until the president issues the presidential decree,” she told the Globe.
Other leaders like Khaththath and Rizieq could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Noorhaidi Hasan, from Jakarta’s Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), said the calls for revolution were empty words and there was little chance that it would happen.
“First, the president still has considerable support behind him, including political parties and the military,” he said.
“Second, these groups are not mainstream. It’s just because the government lets them take up so much public space that these groups have become presumptuous and arrogant.”
Noorhaidi said that unlike what was happening in the Middle East, what the groups here wanted was for the government to listen, not to topple it.
“That’s what I mean by the call for revolution being just rhetoric,” he said. “Their real target is gaining political concessions.”
According to Noorhaidi, the hard-liners’ cause does not resonate with the majority of Indonesians. “It’s just the views of frustrated people who are probably jobless,” he said.
(Ulma Haryanto & Ronna Nirmala)
do 3 maa 2011 - 7:32