It appears that our democracy will take a very long time to move beyond the political domination of a president who is Muslim, nationalist, and Javanese.
By
SUKIDI
·4 minutes read
SALOMO TOBING
Sukidi
The controversy over the Indonesian presidency being dominated by Javanese figures has revived old memories of the United States presidency being dominated by White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) figures. An old and well-established democracy, it took the US hundreds of years to break the political domination of WASPs.
The US turned a new page in history in 2012, when neither its president nor vice president were WASPs. Barack Obama became the country’s first black president and his vice president was Joe Biden, a Catholic.
A minority religion, Catholicism was still a source of controversy and hate in 1960, when John F. Kennedy ran for president. However, Biden's faith was not a major issue by the time he ran for office and was elected as the second Catholic US President after JFK. This progress in US politics put an end to the domination of WASPs, which E. Digby Baltzell popularized in The Protestant Establishment (1964).
Is it possible for Indonesia, with its majority religion of Islam, to mark a new chapter in its democratic history by being led by a president who is Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist or Confucian? Like the US, the Indonesian Constitution upholds the principle of equality, namely that all citizens have an equal right to be elected president, without discrimination on the basis of any religion, faith, or ethnicity.
However, the country’s political history has proved different. Islam, nationalism, and Javanese ethnicity are the three important variables to become the Indonesian president. And it has also been proven that all Indonesian presidents are Muslims. Just as "the Anglo-Protestant culture has survived for three hundred years as the most important element of American identity", according to Samuel P. Huntington's political analysis(2004), Islam is also one of the most important elements of an Indonesian president’s political identity.
Even though Islam is a symbolic marker of political identity, interestingly, no Indonesian president has been elected on a campaign promoting Islam as the basis of the state. All presidents have remained loyal to the national consensus that Pancasila, not Islam, is the ideological basis of the independent Indonesian state. And this republic was established by its founders on the basis of Pancasila.
“Sila means principle or basis, and on these five principles we have established the State of Indonesia, eternal and never-ending. And an eternally independent Indonesia must be based on Pancasila," Soekarno said in his speech on 1 June 1945.
KOMPAS/PRIYOMBODO (PRI)
A man walks past a mural of the faces of former and Indonesian Presidents on Jalan H Ba'an, Poris Plawad Indah, Tangerang City, Banten, Sunday (16/5/2021).
Awareness that a president must uphold Pancasila as the basis of the Indonesian state has implications for achieving victory of national politics. The political preference of the Indonesian public, even though the majority is Muslim, is for a president that possesses an authentic and strong nationalist belief.
On the other hand, those with a track record in Islamic ideology have never been the preferred choice for either Muslims or the general public. History shows that the Indonesian president has
always hailed from figures who hold tightly to the principles of diversity, the values of Pancasila, the constitutional mandate, and the ideals of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.
This noble consensus should be the political guide and model for anyone who wants to achieve the Indonesian presidency. Even those figures that have ranked high across all surveys on the 2024 presidential election are all Muslims who possess strong nationalist views.
The preference for a Muslim and nationalist president is supported by the historical fact that all presidents have been Javanese, the largest and dominant ethnic group in national politics. The reforms that resulted in the direct elections, with the principle of “one person, one vote”, has only cemented the political dominance of Javanese figures.
With Java being the center of the largest electoral base, only a candidate who comes from Java and is highly knowledgeable about the character of the Javanese people can win the presidential contest. Candidate who do not come from Java must have unlimited patience in their efforts to win the hearts of the Javanese people to be elected as president.
It appears that our democracy will take a very long time to move beyond the political domination of a president who is Muslim, nationalist, and Javanese. In the future, we all certainly have hope in the ideal that brilliant, creative and innovative ideas for advancing Indonesia toward greatness will be the determining factor for electing a president, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or ideology.
/https%3A%2F%2Fasset.kgnewsroom.com%2Fphoto%2Fpre%2F2021%2F05%2F16%2F7b12d3ad-bb62-45e9-9941-05afbb2638c7_jpg.jpg){kind=logo}
