Scrolling down the 9gag page and I found something interesting. It was a short cartoon serial called “The Crow” with a message that was nothing near my expectation. The cartoon started as a character asked the Crow, “does it ever upset you that good things happen to bad people?” The Crow then wisely answered, “answering that question requires morality to fit within a binary categorization.” The rest of it is less inspiring.
That line of words brings me back a week ago when I had a discussion, organized by Indonesia Berbicara. One of the big questions of that time was whether the state is doing enough to curtail the influence of dangerous (i.e. subversive) civil society.
One participant proposed an idea and I guessed her view was prevalent among many Indonesians, “the state should cooperate with MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) to make sure that no civil society (civil society which has concern with religious affairs) with subversive idea could exist in our country.”
Do not get me wrong, I do not have any problem with MUI presence. What strucked me is the idea to empower one particular religious group with authority of the state to enforce their interpretation of a particular religion for all the believers. That kind of rights exactly resembles what radical group like FPI (Front Pembela Islam) is aspiring for all this time.
I did not make any comment at that time. However, I immediately pondered if it was the case, would not Indonesia fall into the category of an Islamist country? How about our secular identity, is not it too much involvement for a civil society (which MUI is basically one of) to co-govern the state? However intriguing all of the questions might be, many are out of my concern for this article.
This brings us back to the Crow’s answer. Such a proposed solution means giving one religious group a chance to be God – to define and separate the right from the wrong, the evil from the good side. Such a proposal, unfortunately, would bring disastrous impact upon our fragile and divided society. The division of society would be greater not only among different religious group, but among Moslems as well.
After all, Moslems as we know are divided into numerous groups with different interpretations of the same Quran and the same Hadits. With each of the group believes that they are the righteous one – the one that represent the divine power of God, giving one group power to rule the other would create a tension for sure.
I am not trying to say that particular religious group is dead-wrong, of course not, my point is that, rationally speaking, we cannot be 100% sure which group is the right one. And it is impossible to know either because as the Crow nicely put it, to accurately define something or someone as good or bad requires us to be able to create universal standard for morality. Can one mortal being even do that? I doubt so.
Feeling right or wrong is humane while defining the right and the wrong for the whole humanity is beyond what we are capable of. It is not just imprudent, but it is also arrogant and simply impossible.
As long as we do not have the universal standard, I will vote against any licensing of state authority for one of the religious group. Sounds like an idea of an infidel Westerner, like an anti-Islam thought? Nope. In fact, the wisdom has its root in an ancient and one of the oldest Islamic punditry. It is called the Murjites, a forgotten school of theologicians from the late seventh century Islamic world.
The school appears at a time when Moslem was split between several groups, most notably between the proto-Sunni and proto-Shiite, and each was claiming that their group is the rightful heir of Prophet Muhammad. Then, the conflict even descended into something chaotic and fighting was prevalent among them.
As was explained by Mustafa Akyol in one of his commentary:
“… the more urbane Murjites presented a brilliantly simple argument: No Muslim had the right to judge others on matters of faith; only God had that ultimate authority. Thus, they reasoned, all doctrinal disputes should be postponed to the afterlife, to be resolved by God – The Quran itself supports this view: “Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation [united in religion] … To Allah is your return all together, and He will [then] inform you concerning that over which you used to differ [5:48].” This is why they were called ‘Murjites,’ which means, ‘the Postponers.’”
This appears to be similar with what we have in Indonesia as many groups are now frequently fights to suppress and dominate others. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is not helping for Indonesia’s unity, security, and prosperity.
This must be stopped. Unfortunately, as stopping it would be challenging – and requires a long term plan, a more achievable goal would be to prevent an escalation. One goal that is achievable by not giving any part of state authority for a particular group.
In addition, the government must prevent the temptation of doing that especially as part of an attempt to gain electoral vote. Not one of us should become the judge upon earth. Not any one of the group ever have the duty to do what God would be done in the judgment day.
For our part as young generations and the intellectual spearhead of our country, we must be able to approach such a delicate issue rationally. The core interests of our country – namely preserving the integrity of Indonesia – should be in our mind all the time and set the standard to divide good ideas from the bad one. Any idea that jeopardizes our core interests must be rejected and ruled out.
And the idea to empower a particular religious group is an example of the real dangerous and subversive idea that must be wiped out from our beloved country.
Written by: Zidny Ilman
