The pious believers of Bernie Adeney

Last two weeks I have been reading the fascinating book by Bernard Adeney, Living in a Sacred Cosmos, Indonesia and the future of Islam 2018, Yale Southeast Asia Studies vol.66.

Initially it was difficult reading: I was expecting some broad and general theories and observations about Indonesian Islam, how the largest Muslim country takes a different position than the Middle East or India-Pakistan. Or rather: How it is now also developing towards a more 'conservative turn' (Bruinessen 2013, Madinier The end of innocence). But the book is not about Islam as an institution, even not about Islam as a community. In the first chapter only one page (24-5) is devoted to the the more than 50 salafi organizations that have started since 1998, the end of the Soeharto regime. It is not about organizations, it is all about individuals, and most often about personal meetings of Adeney in his Indonesian period, roughly 1993-2013. He was the leader of the postgraduate centre at the UGM, Universitas Gadjah Mada  in Yogyakarta,  where Christians (UKDW, Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana) and UIN, the Islamic State University of Yogyakarta come together as ICRS the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies.
Adeney writes about religious individual experiences not about universal or local Muslim development in leading persons or organizations (and Indonesia is better in organizations than in the great leaders). He gives wonderful interpretations of the creative sensitivity for religious ideas and emotions. He avoids the doctrines and formal organizations.This makes the book sometimes a learned annotated personal diary. It is its weakness, also its strength.
As to formal Islamic learning there is much available in Indonesia and Adeney has not the ability to equal or even to understand them easily. There is one Arab word in Arab script in the book, but unfortunately, the letters are not from right to the left, but the other way round on p.68.When reading the word tauhid or 'Unity of God' here one wonders: did nobody in his office correct him? I have seldom read more awkward Arabic!

But the weakness about 'formal'  or 'official' Islam is corrected by the nice anecdotes, personal stories in this book. Here he often writes more about Indonesians in general than about Muslims more specifically. An excellent example is pp. 237-247 about 'imagination of nature'. It first gives his imression of the dramatic eartquake in Yogyakarta, 27 May 2006, when he saw people saying their ritual prayers amidst the ruins of their house. Then he turns to the tsunami of Aceh, 26 December 2004. It begins with the story of the Protestant minister Elisa who missed his appointment, arrived late in Aceh and found 15 members of his family lost or/and dead. This minister had for some time great problems in accepting God's goodness for his creation, while a Muslim grandmother in Yogyakarta could more quickly put the disaster in her religious imagination. He ends then with a long quote from the Jesuit writer Sindhunata about God as Grandfather Merapi, the volcano north of Yogyakarta: 'With his lava and eruptions that kill, grandfather Merapi demands human victims, but Grandfather Merapi also pays us back with the overflowing richness of nature..'
What has this to do with Indonesia and the Future of Islam? Probably that title was good enough for the marketing of the book. But this is very different from the large amount of studies complaining about the salafi invasion and infiltration in Indonesia and a possible strategy to turn it: that theme is restricted to one page only!

Adolf Heuken 17 July 1929 - 25 July 2019

Only one week after his 90th anniversary, the Jesuit Priest Father Adolf Heuken died in the Carolus Hospital of Jakarta. He was buried in the Jesuit house in Girisonta  ('Mountain of the Saints), south of Semarang, lucky that he could stay until his last days in his beloved Jakarta and not in the somewhat isolated compound where older Jesuits live together.
He was born in Coesfeld, Germany and went to a secondary school in Münster, graduating in 1950, somewhat late because of the troubles of WWII in Germany. We do not know how he survived that difficult period. He was ordained a priest in 1961 and came to Indonesia in 1963 in a period when no new Dutch missionaries were given visa. He studied perhaps some Javanese but soon concentrated on Indonesian and was already in 1963 in Jakarta, in the Mangga Besar parish. In 1964 he was asked by collaegue Jesuit Joop Beek to work for the Mary Congregation, in 1967 given a new name as Christian Life Communities. He gave his publishing house later (1970) the same acronym of CLC but now as Cipta Loka Caraka, meaning a place (loka) from where a herald (caraka) spreads good ideas (cipta).
Heuken had a splendid, clear and concise style of writing and he wrote a long series of pamphlets for the students of the sodality (about one hunderd small booklets, between 50-100 pages) with themes like the practise of living in good health (especially mental), how to communicate, some doctrinal expositions of the Catholic faith.
He lived in Menteng first in Kramat, soon aftwerwards in the beautiful house Jalan Mohamad Yamin 37, together with the leader of the Mary Congregation Joop Beek, who also was the leader of Khasebul, the anti-Comunist and strongly pro-Catholic political training of students. The relation between the two Jesuits, Beek and Heuken, was not so good, because Heuken found Beek too much involved in politics and too hardline, negative about 'the enemy',  first the Communists, later also the Muslims. Heuken did not like to talk about this matter.

Heuken was not only a good writer, he was also a keen manager and had many responsible functions in Jakarta. He could become apparently very quickly anIndonesian citizen. He was a functionary at the office of civil marriage (1964-1984), lecturer in education at the Atma Jaya University, lecturer in ethics at St. Paul's major seminary, Yogyakarta. Between 1968 and 1984 he was secretary of  the Conference of Indonesian Bishops. He was lecturer in Ethics at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy for 20 years. Also very active in German-speaking parishes in Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. He was a member of the board of the German International School in Jakarta. For this work he received a German cultural award in 2008.
He wrote a German-Indonesian dictionary, but most of all became known for his many publications on the history of Jakarta. The Indonesian government gave him in 2013 an award for this cultural work and I now from him personally that he was very glad with this honour.

He was for many years active for the Catholic weekly Hidup. He also published a nice Catholic Encyclopaedia in Indonesian first in 5 volumes, later in 9 volumes. He liked to give a precise but clear text, as well as lively and nice illustrations, photographs as well as drawings for which he hired a capable (and somewhat pricely) man.
He was a middle-of-the-road theologian, not openly liberal, not conservative, just good argumentations were important for him. In the mansion where he stayed in Menteng he also held his wonderful collection of books on Jakarta. During our meetings in my 'Catholic period'  (after I had a more 'Islamic period' in the 1970s and 1980s) he joined the work for the ecumenical book on A History of Christianity in Indonesia. He had no clear successor, even for his books he had until recently not yet found a good place. He was sometimes complaining about his health, but liked to see guests and had a wonderful sense of humour. In memoria eterna erit justus, 'This righteous man will be remembered forever' (Psalm 112:6).

The Glory of Batavia in Lelystad

Colonialism, including VOC history, nowadays often is described as something negative. It should have brought other countries in a situation of dependency and poverty. Especially the period 1945-1949 is now under scrutiny as to Indonesia. However, there is still are groups in the Netherlands who cherish sympathy for aspects of the colonial past. One is the group of 'lovers of the classical vessels of the VOC period'. In 1985 one such group started building a replica of the sailer Batavia who in 1629 went to the Indies and by chance 'discovered' islands off the Western coast of Australia. The boat was also a teaching/learning project for people how to work with ancient technology tobuild such a wooden vessel. Now it is a tourist attraction, supported by many volunteers.

In the new 12th province of the Netherlands, of the 'new land' a reclamation from the former Southern Sea, since the dyke of the 1930s a lake, Ijsselmeer, the capital is Lelystad, after engineer Lely who designed this great project for safety and more land. Inorder to make the capital of the province more interesting, two museums were built, one about the history of the place, former sea with many ship wrecks, another about the replica of the VOC ship.
We went here with Kobayashi Yasuko, colleague from Nanzan University in Nagoya. She is a specialist of Indonesian Islam, mostly about Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, knowing many details of the internal strategies, politics and quarrels of the two great organizations.

The boat has four decks, only four toilets for some 250 personnel, and was built for trade, but there was no VOC trade without guns and canons!
Next to the ship in the water, which could be visited, there was a museum where a group of some 20 volunteers are building a copy 1:10 of another vessel. The love for boats can be shown in many different ways (see last picture below).
The town of Lelystad was considered as somewhat boring and not really attractive, because it is at a distance of more than 30 minutes from Amsterdam. In order to attract more people also a mall was built in traditional style,called Bataviastad or City of Batavia. It looks a bit like a reconstruction of the town of Batavia, built 400 years ago in 1619 by Jan Pieterszoon Coen but is now filled with outlet shops, promising cheap prices, as well a numerous restaurants. For those who know a nice trip through a quiet part of the Netherlands to some colonial past.

Syair Islam Wasatiya

On 20 June 2019 there was a final cultural event, with music and one poem (by the author of this blog) and more speeches on the theme of Wasatiya. There was a good number of Dutch academics as well: in Islamic studies the Indonesians are now sending many PhD candidates and among the Dutch academics I saw Dick Douwes (Rotterdam), Thijl Sunier (Amsterdam, Free University) and Frans Wijsen of Nijmegen, the latter with a nice black pici, the nationalist drew, taken from turkey by the Indonesians.

While reading my poem on Islam Wasatiya I made a mistake and used the word Wataniya  or 'nationalist' instead of Wasatiya which stand for moderate, middle of the road between extremes. But in fact the word was often used to indicate the distance between Indonesian Islam and the Arab Salafi Islam.

Syair Islam Wasatiya

Untuk PCINU, Nijmegen-Den Haag, 19-20 Juni 2019, read by Prof. Karel Steenbrink

Tritunggal Priyayi, Abangan dan Santri sudah habis

Priyayi tetap ada, tapi namanya tidak laris

Abangan dianggap bodoh dan kurang persis

Santri sudah naik pangkat: menjadi akademis!

Bagi NU tidak ada musuh lagi yang namanya abangan

Sekarang yang ditolak diberikan nama puritangan

Atau diberikan cap radikalangan

Dari Arab mau hidup keterasingan

Kata yang laris sekarang wasatiya

Ya, jangan pakai salafiya

Jangan meniru keledai Arab dengan sia-sia

Terhadap yang lokal, ya, katalah iya-iya

Juga Muhammadiyah tidak lagi tolak TBC

Takhayyul, bid’ah, khurafat naik pangkat, sudah CC

Aliran ini, gerakan itu, ya, sudah ye-ye

Asal ada cap lokal dan asli, jadi OK

Islam Wasatiya

Nahdlatul Ulama also has a special branche in Europe, or more specific the Netherlands. In March 2017 they held a conference  to promote the concept of Islam Nusantara and in the earlier version of this blog I wrote some impressions of their conference in Amsterdam. This year the venue for their International Conference was at Radboud University, Nijmegen, 18-19 June 2019.
The concept of Islam Nusantara is still clear, but the central theme was Islam Wasatiya. The basic idea of the word wasat is middle, between two extremes, a middle course and in modern context als environment. It is in Qur'an 2:143 where the direction of prayer has been changed from north (Jerusalem) to south (Mecca), for the community in Medina. It indicates a distinct way from jews (and Christians) to an Arab Islam.
It is precisely this modern Arab or salafi Islam that is rejected by the concept of Islam Wasatiya.
There was more or less traditional music, singing of the Indonesian national anthem and the hymn of Nahdlatul Ulama, where the community showed their fists, prepared to fight for the traditional valus of their blend of Islam.

Below is the orchestra singing a mix of Indonesia gamelan music, Arab tunes and modern relipop. Above, in the centre is minister of religions, Lukman Hakim Saifudin singing, with his fists giving emphasis to the fighting spirit in this moderate style of Islam. In his speech he quoted the Abu Dhabi Declaration of the 'Human Fraternity doucment or Ukhuwah insaniya) of 4 February 2019 with Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Shaykh Ahmad el-Tayyeb as promotors of inter-religious harmony. The minister rejected extremism and respect not only for the major world religions, but especially local beliefs of the many tribes and regions of Indonesia. He quoted Qur'an 5:48: If Allah had pleased He could surely have made you opne people (professing one faith). But he wishes to try and etst you, so, try to excell in good deeds..

 From the European side the idea of Wasatiya was elaborated by Dr.Timothy Winter or Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad from Cambridge (a complicated lecture about the 'green man' Hidr, Sura 18, Ahl al-Kahf) and Dr. Carool Kersten, now teaching at King's Copllege, London who gave an overview of the international use of the term.
After lunch there were many papers brought by Indonesians. Below is one presentation, showing how complex the moderate position can be.

A continuing colonial war

In 2016 the Dutch-Swiss Remy Limpach published his great book on Dutch crimes during the (lost) war of re-colonization of Indonesia, 1945-1949: De brandende kampongs van Generaal Spoor (The Burning Villages of General Spoor). More than 850 pages of large pages in small font. It has raised again the debate about the whole colonial period, and especially its aftermath after Europe (including the Netherlands) was set free from German Nazi regime in May 1945.
Following the publication by Limpach, the government gave money for a new research on the issue, with three agents: the Indonesia (and Carribean, including the other colonies of the Netherlands) Institute KITLV in Leiden, NIOD a research centre for the 2d World War in Amsterdam and the national centre for Dutch military history.

There are two contrasting parties in the debate about the uniliteral project of historical research (Indonesian parties were invited to join this project, but for various reasons found it not suitable to participate). One party is dominated by Eurasians in the Netherlands of mixed European-Indonesian origin. They find the leaders of the project biased: too negative about the Dutch efforts to interfere in the troubled situation in the country. They suggest that the Dutch only wanted to protect the lives of Europeans in that period, as well as break the terrorism of the small group of pro-independence freedom fighters. A group FIN, Federatie Indische Nederlanders are afraid that a one-sided narrative will be given, neglecting the cruelties of the Bersiap-period (September 1945-mid-1946) when freedom fighters from Surabaya killed so many white people, but also Indonesians who did not side with the wish for direct independence. FIN-people suggest that the Dutch army only wanted to restore safety for all people in a very turbulent and violent period.
The other side is represented by two small groups: Jeffry Pondaag of the Comité Nederlandse Ereschulden (Debt of Honour of the Netherlands) and Michael van Zeijl, spokesman for De Grauw Eeeuw (The Dark Century) who minimise Indonesian violence and want to consider colonialism per se as a crime.
Especially the last party broadens the theme of the research and probably this will be a more or less permanent issue for writers of colonial history.
In my own writings on Islam in Indonesia, beginning with the dissertation on the development of pesantren in the colonial period (1974), I took Dutch influence for granted, concluding that the dominant educational system in modern Indonesia was closer to Western culture than to the Muslim traditional practice. In the other line of research, on Christianity in Indonesia, I took for granted that Christian missionaries had an ambivalent attitude towards colonialism: it gave them prestige and money, but in the end they did not support the re-colonization efforts of 1945-1949 and were happy with the positions of Christians under Indonesian law (at least the vast majority of the missionaries).

Taqdir versus qadar in Utrecht, 1619

In the study of Islamic theology the concept of God's absolute will and power is important. It is often simplified as if Muslims confess predestination: all human actions are already from eternity fixed by God's will, taqdir. Some theological schools, however, were seen as 'liberal' giving more place to human will and planning, like the Maturidi, Mu'tazila, who thought that human responsibility (and divine reward or punishment) is only possible when human freedom is recognised, man as master of his own action, qadar.
Yesterday I saw a new book on a similar debate in the Netherlands, exactly 400 years ago, in 1619, at the Protestant Synod of Dordt or Dordrecht. This church council opted for taqdir: humans cannot do anything good unless decided and steered by divine taqdir.
This year there is much debate about this event, related also to the 'President' (or high administrator) of the Duch Republic, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, who was executed because he opposed the feudal warlord Prince Maurits of Orange. In the theological debate it was Protestant minister Arminius who defended free will or qadar, while Prince Maurits took the side of the theologian Gomarus and the people of taqdir.
But it was not only a theological debate, it was also a struggle for political power. Between 1612-1621 the Dutch had a treaty of armistice, suspending the war with Spain. Prince Maurits was the leader of the army and had nothing to do in this period. He wanted to continue fighting and also conquer the region which is now Belgium. There was a peaceful party who wanted trade and expand the VOC for trade with Indonesia. Maurits won in 1619 and could continue fighting in 1622.

Frits Broeijer, my colleague at Utrecht University, wrote a book about the situation in my town of Utrecht. Between 1610-1618 all eight preachers in the Gomarus style, or defenders of taqdir were suspended from their churches and only sympathizers of Arminius were allowed in Utrecht. In 1619 Prince Maurits took over power in the town: he disbanded the local soldiers of the municipality, banned preaching in the Arminius tradition of qadar and he took over the city council, replacing all members with promotors of his party. In this vision there was some theological debate, but behind it was a political fight for power, then won by the feudal party of the Orange family, in case prince Maurits.
One conclusion from this: in theological debates one should also look for the political implications.