Islam, Democracy and Good Governance in Indonesia
2nd International Conference within the framework of the Training Indonesia’s Young Leaders Programme
6-8 October 2009, Novotel Semarang, Indonesia
Joint conference organised by:
- Training Indonesia’s Young Leaders Programme, Leiden University, the Netherlands
- IAIN Walisongo, Semarang, Indonesia
- Ministry of Religious Affairs, Indonesia
Politicians all over the world have been using the term 'democracy' in countless ways. In the Muslim world many governments use this concept to characterise and to (partly) legitimise their regimes. This has led to questions about whether Islam and democracy are compatible. According to the most current interpretation of democracy within political sciences, the will of the people (which is secular in nature) can be fully implemented. In the Islamic view this will can only be realised while it does not contradict God’s commands. This dichotomy presents a topic of debate for Muslim thinkers.
In Indonesia, the New Order regime aimed at ridding the three permitted political parties of their ideology, by advancing the official state ideology, Pancasila. The aim of this was to promote national stability, which was regarded as a precondition for the government’s concern with development (pembangunan). From the mid-1980s the political climate became even more restrictive, when it was made compulsory for all political and mass organisations to carry Pancasila as their sole basis (asas tunggal). Consequently it was forbidden for all other ideologies and creeds (such as Islam, to which 90% of the population adheres) to be their intellectual foundation. Since the fall of the Suharto regime in May 1998 a more open intellectual climate has developed, and a new era in Indonesian politics has begun in which the chances for strengthening democracy are promising.
This conference aims to investigate how Muslim scholars and intellectuals deal with the concept of democracy and good governance in post-New Order Indonesia from a conceptual and Islamic theological perspective. Moreover, it will go into the issue of how these theoretical reflections are used on an operational level in order to legitimise or criticise the existing political culture in Indonesia. In order to place the Indonesian experience in a comparative international perspective, a limited number of papers which deal with countries other than Indonesia will be accepted.
