FPI still alive? Habib Rizieq Shihab grumbling from Mecca, threatening with 212

From early March until now, end of July 2020, the newspapers and media were absolutely occupied with the COVID-19 virus. Academic, social and political news most of the time was related to the disease, which was much more serious in Europe and most of all the USA and not so much in the Muslim countries of the Middle East and also not in Indonesia. However, during Ramadan all mosques had to be closed, minister of religion Fachrul Razi issued a ban on common meals from saur, early morning, up to the breaking of fast, iftar, together. Also khalwat or a seclusion of the ten last days of Ramadan in a mosque, celebration of nuzulul Qur'an, and, of course, also the most popular salat tarawih, the longer prayer after breaking the fast and maghrib prayer, should take place at home, not in the mosque and also not in larger groups than only the small family. Habib Rizieq Shihab, still in Mecca, protested against the 'negative prospects' of the Minister of Religion.
He was even more negative about a second issue, the proposal for a law on Pancasila, doctrine and practice, now known as RUU HIP, Rancangan Undang-undang Haluan Ideologi Pancasila. The most debated issue is about article 7:

(1) Ciri pokok Pancasila adalah keadilan dan kesejahteraan sosial dengan semangat kekeluargaan yang merupakan perpaduan prinsip ketuhanan, kemanusiaan, kesatuan, kerakyatan/ demokrasi politik dan ekonomi dalam satu kesatuan.

(2) Ciri Pokok Pancasila berupa trisila, yaitu: sosio-nasionalisme, sosio-demokrasi, serta ketuhanan yang berkebudayaan.

(3) Trisila sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (2) terkristalisasi dalam ekasila, yaitu gotong-royong.

In this article first the traditional five pillars of Pancasila are repeated in a short version: Divinity, humanism, unity of Indonesia, a democratic system of politics and economy for all. The second part makes it in three parts, no Communism included like in NASAKOM (Nationalism, religion, communism, from the last years of Sukarno), but nationalism, democracy and divinity in its (local?) culture. The third part of this article reduces the three to one issue alone: cooperation, gotong-royong.

Communism is not explicitly condemned in this debate of Pancasila and the religious values only vaguely mentioned in the first and second part. Rizieq Shihab asked that President Jokowi should step down because of this bad formulation. He threatened that 212 (after Two December 2016, when the great demonstrations against the Indo-Chinese candidate for governor of Jakarta, Ahok, was forced to step down) could become effective again!
Also the MUI, Majelis Ulama Indonesia, the Indonesian Council of Muslim Clerics, have protested against the bill, which entered the agenda of parliament in March 2020, in the early beginning in the Covid-19 period. It was not really debated in parliament and now maybe will be dropped for further public debate: 75 years after Suarno issued the idea of pancasila, the debate has not yet ended.

The New Indonesia of Pramoedya

Due to extra time because of the Covid-19 virus, while also libraries were closed, I have read again many older books in my personal library. After reading again Arus Balik, or the book on the arrival of Islam in Java by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, I took the tetralogy on Minke, alias Tirto Adhisoerjo, the journalist/nationalist (ca 1880-1918). It is a work of four books, 1600 pages, more or less the story of the early years of kebangkitan nasional for the period 1900-1918. The first two books are a story of a son of a bupati or regent, studying at the highest level of secondary education. Minke is an excellent student, the best of his school in Surabaya, much better than the European and Eurasian pupils. Much of his story is related to the separation of race in the colonial period. Minke falls in love with the daughter of a nyai, a native lady, the bed-partner of a Dutch entrepeneur. The Dutchman finally becomes addicted to alcohol and the girls of a nearby brothel. The nyai runs his business, but when this man dies the two children and all possesions are taken by his family in the Netherlands.
Minke starts writing (in Dutch!) about colonial society in a narrative style: anecdotes from concrete life and this is the message of the book: how nationalism and political criticism of the colonial society started. Some reviewers therefore state, that the book has a political agenda. Anyway, it is an interesting view on the period. Historical novels sometimes may have more influence than academic books on history: like the Lion of Flanders (De Leeuw van Vlaanderen) by Henry Constance for Belgium nationalism.
In this Surabaya period Minke first meets a few people from China, who are promoting a secular and democratic Republic that should be the successor to the feudal empire.

Volume 3 is about the study of Minke/Tirto Adhisoerjo in Batavia/Jakarta, where he becomes a student at the medical college, but finally more and more is involved in journalist writings and finally also in the foundation of the nationalist organization Medan Prajaji. He meets people of the newly erected Chinese organization who publish a daily Sin Po, he has some contacts with Arabs from Jamiatul Khair, hears of Budi Utama, the feudal organization in Yogyakarta. He starts a weekly, Medan Prijaji where also some schools, some business is attached. This is a failure, and he starts Sarikat Dagang Islam, with some better results, but finally this is taken over by Haji Samanhudi in Solo under the name Sarekat Islam, and soon after this by HOS, Haji Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto in Surabaya. In 1912 he is expelled to Bacan, the smallest sultanate-island of the Moluccas and only returns to Java in 1918 and soon thereafter dies. Volume 4 is a long resumee of this development from the perspective of a Catholic native man from Menado, high official in the colonial bureaucracy.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer has written a mixture of historical narrative, based on solid documentation, and fantasy, which is a historic novel. For me it was of course again a reading of history, quite different from my own work, concentrating on Islam: the first Muslim journalist and novel writer was Hamka, Jamiatul Khair is part of the couple with its opponent, Al-Irshad, more reformist. Muhammadiyah, also founded in 1912 is not even mentioned!. Minke is a nominal Muslim: he marries a (legally) Dutch lady (Annelies, the daughter of the nyai Ontosoro) in an Islamic ceremony, but this is not recognised by colonial law, he has some contacts with Tjokroaminoto. But in the book there is nothing about Islam as part of the Indonesian society as depicted by Pramoedya. So, in fact it is a nice correction for me looking at Indonesian society as it was until the 1970s: much less religious than it is nowadays. Perhaps COVID-19 which has closed the mosques, has banned the hajj-pilgrimage for this year, has helped to postpone the activities of FPI, Front Pembela Islam, also will mitigate some of the extreme influence of religion in Indonesian society of the last 20-30 years.