Mainstreaming Islam in Indonesia

This opening chapter explains the effect of underlying economic changes that have had effects on the Indonesian middle class and on Indonesia’s television system. It is specifically argued that the rise of Islamic visibility in Indonesia since the 1990s has been aided by the secular market economy, and that more recent developments show that the apolitical consumption practices of middle-class Muslims are having political consequences for democratic life. Thus, understanding ‘Islamism’ must take into account the context of the plural democratic society within which it is increasingly defined. Contrary to any monolithic understanding of ‘Islamism’ it is argued that the rise of Islam in Indonesia is also shaped within business and market demands for religiosity.

In the Muslim world within the Southeast Asian region, despite leading the Islamic television drama market as indicated by the volume of production, not much has been written on Indonesian Islamic television programmes. Informed by global television formats formulaic to high ratings, in Indonesia Islam has been married with reality television shows, talk shows, music shows, and television drama—offering a da’wah supermarket to its audience. In effect, the relationship between Islamic teacher and congregation has been both democratised and commercialised by television stations. ‘Television: A Da’wah Supermarket’ concludes that this development has limited the kind of Islam that appears on television, resulting in ‘mainstream’ portrayals, which essentially means it is first and foremost commercially safe.

The mechanisms of television commercialisation ensures that its content do not challenge the way individuals see and think in order to achieve more efficiency in profit-seeking. This complacency is apparent as well in Islam-themed content broadcast on Indonesian commercial television. By catering to as many Muslims viewers as possible while simultaneously not offending the heterogeneous audience, Indonesian television drama depoliticises Quranic verses and the Hadith. It primarily aims to prepare the Muslim audience to become congregations and consumers. ‘Commercial Da’wah’ concludes that Islamic television programmes have connected religious propagation with the primacy of the market. This is accomplished by commodifying the relationship between the ustad and the Muslim middle-class audience, where viewer segmentation informs the production and selection of Islamic themes that are safe to portray on television.

Focusing on Indonesian Islamic television drama, or sinetron religi, the chapter draws attention to the aspirations and anxieties that are projected to distinctive audience segmentation. Looking into sinetron religi, Rakhmani describes the dominant narratives in sinetron religi, and the meaning of Islamic symbols, whether critically interpreted or superficially flagged, in contemporary Indonesia. ‘Anxieties of the Muslim Middle Class’ conclude that audience segmentation reproduces distinctive aspirations and anxieties among specific social stratifications within the Muslim middle class.

This chapter problematises the relationship between television as a mass media with nationwide reach and the rising Islamic visibility it is projecting to its heterogeneous audience in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Focusing on the diverse viewers’ responses towards Islamic television drama in Indonesia, or sinetron religi, the chapter draws attention to how the young, heterogeneous, educated middle class moderated this dominance with cultural pluralism. Islamic television programmes were responded by placing religion on par with ethnicity within the nation-state construct. This shows that there are apprehensions towards the increasing visibility of Islam in democratising Indonesia. This chapter concludes that specific Islamic symbols aired by commercial television, or a rejection of them, resonate with particular secular, developmentalist narratives in support of national unity.

Apprehensions of mainstream Islam in democratising Indonesia have led to reappropriations of pluralist jargons popularised by the previous authoritarian government. This chapter focuses on the responses of the young, heterogeneous, educated middle class identifying as ethnic and religious minorities towards culturally more visible Islamic television drama. It describes the way modern religious and ethnic groups subjugate traditional and indigenous religious and ethnic groups in local, everyday contexts. ‘Local Subjugations’ analyses the way Islamic television drama continues to protract the marginalisation of religious and ethnic groups that were lumped as ‘primitive’ during the authoritarian regime.

This argument, based on empirical evidence from the Indonesian middle-class Muslims, is problematic. In Indonesia, the Muslim middle classes are apprehensive towards the effects of rapid industrialisation, and their social interests cannot be separated from those of the heterogeneous middle class. We must take into account the fact that the anxieties of the middle class are related to specific causes of feeling vulnerable or aspirant. The interest of the vulnerable middle class to secure employment and education is not to achieve higher social status as is the case with the aspirant middle class, but to prevent falling into poverty. What is important to emphasise in this specificity is the division between the mainstream Muslim middle class and the pluralist, heterogeneous middle class. As Islamic doctrine is useful for mainstream Muslims to deal with sources of apprehension—namely hedonism, materialism, and consumerism, an alliance among those made vulnerable by neoliberal economic reorganisation are not formed. Instead, the reproduction of mainstream Islam separates them. Importantly, the pluralist, heterogeneous middle class has connected the notion of community that is at the heart of the ummah with the narratives of nationhood. Although divided, both camps spring narratives that contest each other, when in fact these narratives are rooted in the same sense of vulnerability amid neoliberal reorganisation.

Here, I return to Anderson’s (1991) caution regarding the characteristic amnesias that follows profound changes and the narratives it produces. On the one hand, there is rapid neoliberal reorganisation and, on the other, a continuation of previous centralised powers. This is pronounced in the television industry where Indonesia has seen the proliferation of private television stations actively commercialising the relationship between the advertising of consumer goods and a marketable audience. This system, however, is centralised in Jakarta and consequently promotes urban, consumerist lifestyles. Thus, mainstream Islam becomes interchangeable with older forms of cultural hegemony. It produces narratives that exclude the cultures of minority groups other than those compatible with mainstream Muslims. Significantly, it is also worrisome that the narrative opposing the dominance of mainstream Islam is one that reconstructs New Order state developmentalism, which also marginalises local beliefs and cultures. In other words, mainstream Islam in Indonesia may appear to be democratising Islamic authority through consumerism and commercialisation, as Nasr (2009) has proposed. But it is a democratic transition that has sustained much of the old and is facilitating new forms of undemocratic social condition.

In a weak attempt to avoid, however empirically valid, displaying only grim images of democratising Indonesia, I would like to advocate for the importance of observing practices of ‘hybrid modernities’ (Escobar 1995). There is something valuable to be learned from the urban middle class identifying with minority ethnic and religious groups. While narratives of mainstream Islam and nationhood both show oblivion over local marginalisations, that is not the case with the middle class practising hybrid modernities. They are individuals who benefit from the efficiency of modern, urban societies while at the same time maintain their social relationship with traditional, rural societies. To them, there is no dichotomy. This hybridity has allowed them new ways of thinking that enable strategising with the adoption of modernity and modifying indigeneity without oppressing social groups less able to do so. Based on this, I suggest that more attention needs to be given to practices of hybrid modernities in order to find ways to prevent new social developments that prolong a cultural hegemony.