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Nahdlatul Ulama, arguably the world’s only Muslim mass movement propagating a genuinely moderate and pluralistic form of Islam, has forged an unlikely, albeit temporary, alliance with the Saudi-controlled Muslim World League.
The League is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s chief propagator of a socially less restrictive but autocratic interpretation of the faith that demands absolute obedience to the ruler.
In a bold but risky strategy, Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim civil society movement with 90 million followers in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim majority-country and democracy, hopes that the alliance will undercut Saudi and League support for an Indonesian political party associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
Against all odds, Nahdlatul Ulama also envisions its Humanitarian Islam philosophy rubbing off on the League as a result of cooperation with the Indonesian group.
The philosophy embraces religious and political pluralism, unambiguously endorses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and advocates reform of what it terms “obsolete” elements of Islamic jurisprudence.
Persuading the League to endorse a genuinely moderate form of Islam would have enormous significance. It would lend the prestige of the Custodian of Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, to Nahdlatul Ulama’s effort to reform Islam. That, however, is a long shot, if not pie in the sky.
More likely, the League sees reputational benefit in its association with Nahdlatul Ulama. The League also probably hopes to co-opt the Indonesian movement to prevent it from becoming a serious competitor for hearts and minds in the Muslim world.
Neither group may succeed in fulfilling its aspirations.
Nahdlatul Ulama has a century-long history of fiercely defending its independence and charting its moderation course.
At the same time, there is little reason to believe that the League can embrace anything but what Mr. Bin Salman authorises.
If the last two months provide an indication, Mr. Bin Salman and his loyal lieutenant, League secretary general Mohammed al-Issa, can, at best, be expected to opportunistically pay lip service to Humanitarian Islam.
Moreover, the kingdom has long demonstrated its determination, often in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, to stymie endeavours for political change across the Middle East.
Most recently, Saudi Arabia sentenced two women to respectively 34 and 45 years in prison for tweets that allegedly “cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security” and “tear (Saudi Arabia’) social fabric.”
Last week, a Saudi court committed to death row three members of the Howeitat tribe that was forcibly ejected to make way for Mr. Bin Salman’s US$500 billion science fiction Neom megacity on the Red Sea. The three men had resisted the ejection.
Adding fuel to the fire, Mr. Bin Salman reportedly appointed Awadh bin Ali bin Ayedh al-Mayshar al-Ahmari, a detective allegedly involved in the cover-up of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as president of the kingdom’s counter-terrorism court that handed down the recent harsh verdicts.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia has interpreted freedom of religion as inter-faith dialogue that does not stray beyond lofty statements and high-profile meetings and conferences rather than lifting a ban on non-Muslim houses of worship in the kingdom.
To be sure, Mr. Bin Salman has curbed the authority of the religious police, enhanced women’s rights and opportunities, and enabled Western-style entertainment, but that did not entail religious reform. Instead, it amounted to long overdue social change by decree.
As a result, Nahdlatul Ulama stands a better chance in loosening the ties between the League and the PKS than persuading Mr. Bin Salman that in addition to social change, genuine religious reform and good governance should be the legs of his efforts to diversify the Saudi economy.
One litmus test of the League’s relationship with Nahdlatul Ulama will be whether Hidayat Nur Wahid, a PKS luminary, remains a member of the League’s Supreme Council.
Mr. Wahid accompanied Mr. Al-Issa in 2020 to the secretary general’s initial meeting with Nahdlatul Ulama, the first in the League’s 60-year history. Yet, he refused to join Mr. Al-Issa in 2020 on his historic visit at the head of a delegation of Muslim scholars to Auschwitz, the Nazi extermination camp in Poland.
To be fair, Nahdlatul Ulama, while virulently opposed to political Islam, has demonstrated its democratic credentials by confronting the PKS politically but not disputing its right to compete in free and fair elections or being politically active within the legal confines of Indonesian democracy.
Sacrificing the PKS is a small price for the League to pay for what Nahdlatul Ulama offers.
The association has already paid off with no public indication that the League has met any of Nahdlatul Ulama’s aspirations. Instead, the League has milked its partnership with Nahdlatul Ulama for what it is worth on social media.
As the convener of the Religion Forum 20, a newly created official Group of 20 engagement group, Nahdlatul Ulama has invited the League to co-host next month’s summit of religious leaders in Bali in advance of a meeting of leaders of the G20 that groups the world’s largest economies. Indonesia is this year’s chairman of the group.
The faith summit aims to “help ensure that religion in the 21st-century functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems.”
Add to that Nahdlatul Ulama’s recognition of the League as a non-governmental organisation even though it is wholly government-controlled and primarily government funded.
The invitation was in recognition of the League’s break with its past as a major vehicle in the global spread of Saudi ultra-conservatism before the rise of Mr. Bin Salman in 2015. The invitation also followed an approach by the Saudi government to its Indonesian counterparts requesting that the League have a platform at the R20.
The approach “stroked with dynamics in the Indonesian government. There was a sort of feedback loop. In the end, Nahdlatul Ulama and the government reinforced each other,” said a well-placed source.
Nahdlatul Ulama’s National Awakening Party (PKB) has four ministers in Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s government, including Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, the religious affairs minister, and a brother of the movement’s General Chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf.
Mr. Widodo has embraced Nahdlatul Ulama’s push for a genuinely moderate Islam but, at the same time, has been willing to legitimize Saudi and Emirati efforts aimed at ensuring that moderation does not entail political liberalisation.
In contrast to Nahdlatul Ulama, the two Gulf states have steered clear of anchoring social change in jurisprudential reform of Islamic law.
The alliance with the League spotlights Nahdlatul Ulama’s difficulty balancing its domestic objectives with its effort to position itself internationally as the voice of a genuinely socially and religiously pluralistic and tolerant Islam.
Partnering with the League in the hope it will pay more than a domestic political dividend entails reputational risk, with the kingdom’s troubled human rights and freedom of religion track record potentially again moving centre stage due to increasingly strained US-Saudi relations.
Nahdlatul Ulama deserves credit for what is a daring strategy. The question is whether the group could have secured the domestic dividend without legitimising an autocrat’s toolkit and whether the reputational risk will prove worthwhile.
Batik as the strength of Indonesia’s diplomacy
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and three forthcoming books, Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africaas well as Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Ultra-conservatism and China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.
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Indonesia is an archipelagic country rich in natural, human and cultural resources. With its diverse cultures, Indonesia is able to produce various local wisdoms in various regions, one of which is the art of batik. Batik is a form of artistic cultural expression that has a philosophical meaning in every style and motif with its existence at that time batik received world recognition as an original work of Indonesian culture by one of the UN special agencies UNESCO. With this acknowledgment, of course, it will have a positive impact on the Indonesian people from the recognition it is able to raise the spirit of their sense of nationalism towards the love of batik as a work of Indonesian cultural art. Batik is an original Indonesian product that is artistically beautiful and the process of making it. Indonesian batik is one of the oldest drawing arts in the world. So what is cyclical in a batik cloth has a very deep meaning, which contains a very high philosophical and meaning.
In general, the term batik is an illustration of decorative motifs on fabrics, the technique of which is to use the dyeing process or commonly considered as a barrier or night dyeing process as a color barrier, followed by a color dyeing process using synthetic dyes, also with natural dyes. The process of batik is a means to meditate which is motivated by a traditional philosophy with high charisma, imbued with the value of harmony and majesty, both in the outer order and in the meaning of the spiritual order. But if you look deeper from the cultural point of view, a batik is not only beautiful and valuable from the outside, but inside it contains unique motifs and is very deep in meaning and philosophy for human life. The meaning and philosophy above generally consists of the content of educational sciences, such as morals, ethics, morals, human-human correlation, human-God correlation and so on. All batik motifs are created with various intentions and good wishes. none of them have bad goals and hopes. however, each motif has its own use, when it should be used. socialization of the form of ornament is also necessary so that when using it avoid embarrassing mistakes, for example using it in an inverted position. Value is an abstraction from a set of behavior or behavior that is carried out by someone. Values are divided into various kinds, one of the values inherent in a person is a moral value. What is meant by moral values is a form of objective illustration of the truth side that is carried out by someone in a social environment.
This definition of moral enlightenment is in accordance with various discussions of the explanation of moral terms, for example in Greek “Etika”, Arabic “Akhlak”, and in Indonesian “Kesuliaan” Batik motifs have their own philosophy and meaning. This is because the motifs on the batik cloth are created according to the beliefs of the people who come from the batik cloth. Some motifs on batik cloth are also said to only be used by the royal or royal family in ancient times. This is of course because of the unsynchronized philosophy that comes from batik cloth and can be used by all circles. The existence of its own philosophy and meaning in batik cloth makes this cloth not just a cloth used to cover the body, but has a deep meaning for human beings. There are several types of Indonesian batik that have deep meaning and philosophy and have a high artistic taste.[1]
The government’s efforts to promote batik nationally is one of the first step in promoting batik internationally. In government President Soeharto in 1994, the government had promoted batik by giving batik to the heads of state who were present at APEC which was held in Jakarta. However, batik at that time was not yet popular among the people. The promotion carried out by the government is also not as much as after the recognition from UNESCO. After batik became increasingly popular in the country, the government continued to carry out promotion internationally. In carrying out international promotions, there are efforts made by the government such as holding a batik exhibition at the Indonesian Embassy in Jakarta Washington D.C., United States in 2011, an exhibition themed “Indonesia Batik: World Heritage” was held to appreciate cultural heritage and introduce batik which has become a world cultural heritage[2].
In this era of globalization, diplomacy between countries continues to develop, in contrast to the era of globalization previously that made hard power the strength and influence of a country. Public diplomacy is one of the developing diplomacy in this globalization era.where the form of communication between countries is not only established through the government but covers more broadly, namely government to society. Compete with other countries such as South Korea with K-Pop music and Thailand with gastrodiplomacy namely introduce their culture through food. The spread of nation branding is also necessary this is done in order to spread that batik is Indonesian culture.
The author supports research in explaining public diplomacy by its relationship with other variables, then about how public diplomacy and the nation branding becomes a link in the government to build the country’s image. The Public Diplomacy of Emerging Powers Part: The Case of Indonesia by Ellen Huijgh, at the beginning explained that public diplomacy was used to improve international image started in the West during the cold war and attracted attention in Asia since the 1990s. Indonesia’s reputation internationally had collapsed due to the crisis economy in 1988. However, after the crisis Indonesia rose again become a dynamic country with a strong economy. But Indonesia is still not can overcome problems such as infrastructure, corruption and bureaucracy that hinder in the future so that it affects Indonesia in increasing its profile international Indonesian public diplomacy is characterized as; give and accept by democratizing international policy, coexistence with Islam, democracy and modern society and its “intermestic” ( approach between international and domestic).[3]
[1] https://www.tvonenews.com/berita/nasional/70124-batik-dan-kekuatan-diplomasi-indonesia
[2] Sujatmoko, Ivan. (2011). Seberkas Sejarah: Sekolah Jaman Kolonial Belanda. [online]. Diakses dari: pendidikan4sejarah.blogspot.co.id/2011/04/sekolahjaman-kolonial-belanda.html?m=1 [11 November 2015].
[3] Huijgh, Ellen, “The Public Diplomacy of Emerging Powers Part 2 : The Case of Indonesia”, CPD USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Anneberg School, FIGUEROA, 2016
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The dilemma experienced by Indonesia in responding to the arms race in the region reaps many concerns. Australia announced plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines as part of a joint U.S.-British security alliance called AUKUS. Australia intends to respond to Chinese hegemony in the Asia Pacific. Exactly a year ago, Indonesia, represented by the Ministry of foreign affairs in September 2021, responded with 5 points to which Australia must pay attention. A year passed. How was the commitment of ‘ the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) among regional countries, Indonesia’s response and analysis of nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy regional security during the NPT Review Conference on September 12-16, 2022?
AUKUS is an acronym for three countries: Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). AUKUS is a trilateral security pact or international security agreement of three parties, namely Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The primary purpose of this security pact is in response to the acceleration of Chinese power with the nuclear submarine project. In response to the arms race, Indonesia gave a warning signal to Australia by complying with the normativity of international law. A year later, academics need to analyze the normative perspective based on the ‘ Treaty of Amity and Cooperation approach to legislation. The case study will analyze the causes and responses of Indonesia.
Speaking about AUKUS, on September 17, 2021, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that he would hold a direct meeting with Joko Widodo. The case stems from the acceleration of Chinese hegemony in the South China Sea because there are strategic sea lanes and potential oil and gas wealth. This attitude of China is inseparable from the ‘Nine Dash Line’ claim that crosses Southeast Asia. Indonesia finally responded to the arms race in this region through 5 critical points for Australia, especially its commitment to the TAC. TAC is an association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that feels vulnerable during a war between China and the US, where the supremacy of both is at play in Southeast Asian countries. Australia and the US have agreed to promote lasting peace, friendship, and cooperation in Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, TAC was established in 1976, and the basic principles of peaceful coexistence and friendly cooperation among countries in Southeast Asia include Australia as the closest country to Southeast Asia. Australia needs to pay attention to international norms that apply to good relations between countries. It is a legally binding code for relations between countries in the region and beyond. The treaty has been amended three times, in 1987, 1998, and 2020, respectively, to allow for the approval of countries outside Southeast Asia and regional organizations whose members are sovereign, among other countries. As of January 2021, there are 43 High Contracting Parties in TAC.
Looking more broadly at the AUKUS launch, Indonesia needs to look deeper into the big question mark of Australia’s interests, not only with the US but also with the surrounding region. AUKUS is a binding pact between the US and Australia. While it was the beginning of AUKUS, the pact will bring several technological benefits to Australia regarding cyber capabilities, Artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, among others. Moreover, there is comfort in that.
The cause of the formation of AUKUS is in the context of hegemony in the South China Sea. Disputes in the South China Sea involving China and the US are caused by several interests, namely political, strategic, and economical. The US claims the LCS should be guarded without lawful hindrance to the movement of the military, commercial and private vessels. In addition, the US emphasized that coastal states respect UNCLOS, which includes coastal states ‘ peaceful norms towards EEZ. The US has allied agreements with Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines in the LCS region. The US also said it has close ties with New Zealand and Singapore. Therefore, the US offers a strong development and defense opportunity to the Asian country’s security network. Sometimes, Indonesia responds when the US defense in question does not involve Indonesia in it, including in the AUKUS. Australia and the United States have signed an agreement aimed at promoting lasting peace, lasting friendship, and cooperation in Southeast Asia.
ASEAN countries are already agitated about the re-emergence of multilateral cooperation (Australia, the US, Japan, and India). AUKUS now appears to have added military might, Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, a military analyst at Ahmad Yani University in West Java, said. Many alliances do not involve Indonesia, proof that Indonesia cannot remain silent because Indonesia is one of the leaders and influential countries among countries in ASEAN.
Referring to the functions of diplomacy, the melting of deteriorating relations, the Prevention of War, establishing cooperation, building opinions, and carrying out foreign policy countries, Indonesia responds to the arms race that began to heat up in the LCS case, the Australian Nuclear Submarine. Guided by TAC and UNCLOS, Indonesia gave Australia a precautionary warning. Based on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the TAC regulates conflict resolution mechanisms among state parties involved peacefully. The TAC was signed in 1979 by the 5 (five) founding Heads of state of ASEAN. The TAC was amended in 1987 to open countries’ accession in other regions. As of 2014, 32 (thirty-two) countries, including 10 ASEAN countries, have acceded to the TAC.
Nuclear proliferation over time has changed. At first nuclear development was associated only with security. Nevertheless, now nuclear is also narrated as a security holder. For instance the US-India deal, the US has taken the lead in acquitting India of the charges. Even before the U.S.-India nuclear deal appeared to be heard, it became a disturbing consequence. The US became willing to grant nuclear permits following its national interests. Another example of US intervention in nuclear matters, Pakistan and Israel, were also denied access to the nuclear technology market. Pakistan’s National Command Authority, responsible for the nuclear weapons program, was declared in August 2007. The US-India nuclear agreement would have implications for Strategic hegemony, allowing India a large number of nuclear weapons if left unattended.
That is what Indonesia fears when it is not included in the security agreement between the US country and its allies in the AUKUS. Disputes in LCSs close to Indonesia as a signatory to UNCLOS need to take action or voice recommendations along with a response. AUKUS started the project with the Australian Nuclear Submarine plan, which in the future may be nudging Indonesia because Australia and Indonesia are limited close to maritime waters. The Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Indonesia stated the Australian Nuclear Submarine.
A result of the acceleration of Chinese power in the South China Sea attracted the United States’ response to become a player in it. The United States joined Australia. Indonesia, which borders the Nine-Dash Line and is directly affected by Chinese hegemony in the LCS, is proven by Chinese ships entering Indonesian waters. The non-inclusion of Indonesia as a collection of AUKUS countries makes Indonesia also have to respond to the AUKUS project, namely the Australian Nuclear Submarine. Although the purpose responds to Chinese hegemony in the LCS, Indonesia should be wary of a maritime country close to Australia. Therefore, Indonesia issued a statement, and its response to the Australian nuclear submarine project was withdrawn from the normative side, especially in holding the ‘ Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Indonesia also warned Australia to be careful and pay tribute to UNCLOS 1982 in maintaining peace and security in the region.
During the anniversary of AUKUS, Indonesia said:
“Indonesia calls upon all States parties to the Treaty to garner political will and create opportunities for IAEA member States to develop a constructive approach on verification and monitoring arrangements of the nuclear-armed forces, with a view, among others, to enhance safeguards agreements that tighten monitoring measures for uranium designated for naval propulsion reactors in non-nuclear-weapon States to prevent diversion of that material for use in a nuclear weapons program.”
A year of the AUKUS commemoration, in July 2022, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said satisfied with Australia’s commitment to comply with Nuclear non-Proliferation. The 10th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) on 12-16 September prompted discussions on AUKUS. Indonesia had opposed AUKUS, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia stated Australia’s nuclear submarines, especially the nuclear program close to Indonesian waters. A year later, Indonesia’s submission invited much international attention. This submission shows that Indonesia opposes Australia’S SSN program and seeks to prevent it. Whatever the Indonesian government’s personal views, the working paper does not oppose the acquisition of SSN by Australia. In fact, it provides a path to the establishment of a solid protective regime.
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In a mirror image of recent polling in the Middle East, a just-published survey of Muslims in Southeast Asia suggests Islam’s central role in people’s daily lives and choices.
The survey was published days after former Indonesian minister of social affairs Habib Salim Segaf Al-Jufri was named secretary general of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), founded by controversial Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the world’s foremost Muslim theologians associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Al-Qaradawi died on Monday in Doha at the age of 96.
Intriguingly, Mr. Al-Jufri, a senior member of Indonesia’s Brotherhood-affiliated Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), also represents the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in East and Southeast Asia, a Saudi government-funded organization initially established in the 1970s to promote Saudi religious ultra-conservatism globally. Since 2016, the group has been redirected to promote Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as a reformer pushing the kingdom towards a more moderate and tolerant interpretation of Islam.
The publication also came as Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim civil society organisation in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country and democracy, forged an unlikely alliance with Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World League.
Like WAMY, the League, once a prime vehicle globally propagating Wahhabism, has become Mr. Bin Salman’s primary vehicle in his effort to garner religious soft power and propagate an autocratic version of Islam that is socially liberal, but that demands absolute obedience to the ruler.
Neither event will have influenced the responses of the 1,000 people covered in the survey of Southeast Asian Muslims. But the events put the poll into a context in which Muslim organisations, whether state-controlled or not, are pushing different concepts of a moderate interpretation of Islam and making political Islam’s perceived legitimacy or illegitimacy one of their key drivers.
Mr. Bin Salman, who pushes social reform against the background of a history of promoting ultra-conservative dominance, may be more concerned about the growing importance of traditional Islam than governments in Southeast Asia, whose history and encounter with Islam are often influenced by local culture, tradition, and mysticism.
Even so, political and business leaders in Southeast Asia, home to 276.5 million Muslims who account for 40 per cent of the region’s population, are likely to take note of the Southeast Asian survey as well as recent polling in the Middle East amid perceptions of greater religious conservatism in their countries that are not only aligned with trends in other parts of the Muslim world but also in major non-Muslim faith groups across the globe.
Malaysia and Indonesia, together with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, emerged as the top four halal markets on this year’s Global Islamic Economy Indicator compiled by US-based research and consultancy company DigiStandard.
The Indicator considers various sectors, including halal food, Islamic finance, Muslim-friendly travel, recreation, and media. Malaysia maintained its long-standing top position because of a 20 per cent jump in investment in Shariah-compliant funds and the success of its Islamic cartoons for children.
Ninety-one per cent of the respondents of the Southeast Asian survey conducted by two New York-based consultancies, Wunderman Thompson Intelligence and the Muslim Intel Lab established last year by YMLY&R, described a strong relationship with Allah as very important.
Lagging in importance was wealth, which was of significance to only 34 per cent of those surveyed, followed by 28 percent who cared about their passions and 12 percent to whom fame was a concern.
Eighty-four per cent of the respondents in Malaysia and Indonesia said they prayed five times daily. Thirty-three per cent described themselves as more observant than their parents, 45 per cent said they were just as observant as their parents, and 21 per cent stated that they were less observant.
Religion’s increasing importance stroked with the polling in the Middle East where 41 per cent of 3,400 young Arabs in 17 Arab countries aged 18 to 24 said religion was the most important element of their identity, with nationality, family and/or tribe, Arab heritage, and gender lagging far behind. That is 7 per cent more than those surveyed a year earlier.
The Middle Eastern polls further showed that a majority disagreed with the notion that “we should listen to those among us who are trying to interpret Islam in a more moderate, tolerant, and modern way.”
In many ways, the Southeast Asian survey was more granular because it focused on Muslim consumer behaviour.
The poll put into perspective a decision in March by the Indonesian ministry of religious affairs headed by a prominent Nahdlatul Ulama figure to deprive the once-powerful Indonesian Ulema (Islamic scholars) Council of its de facto monopoly on halal certification by opening the sector to competition.
Halal certificates are big business. The Halal Product Assistance Agency issues the certificates based on a fatwa issued by the Council to companies in food, fashion, education, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, tourism, media, travel, medical, health, art, culture, and finance.
The overwhelming majority of respondents in the Southeast Asia survey, 91 per cent, said whether a product was halal was very important in their decision to purchase. At the same time, 83 percent identified halal with certification by an Islamic body.
Sixty-one percent factor halal into their banking and investment preferences. Seventy-seven percent said the availability of halal facilities was important in their choice of travel destinations. Eighty-five per cent wanted a metaverse that caters specifically to Muslims, and 53 percent used prayer and Qur’an apps.
All in all, comparing the polls suggests that religion plays an increased role in people’s lives in the Muslim world beyond the Middle East.
In Southeast Asia, the survey underlines the importance of efforts by groups like Nahdlatul Ulama to promote a humanitarian interpretation of Islam that is tolerant, pluralistic, and respectful of human and minority rights.
In the Middle East, the surveys challenge autocratic leaders whose concept of moderate Islam is social reform needed to cater to youth aspirations, enable economic diversification, and provide religious legitimation of their absolute power as part of a strategy for regime survival.
As a result, Southeast Asia, rather than the Middle East, could emerge as the cradle of religious reform in the Muslim world.
Nahdlatul Ulama appears to believe it can achieve that if it convinces the likes of the Muslim World League that reform has to be genuine and holistic rather than self-serving. That’s an if with a capital I in a strategy that is as risky as it is bold.
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