Ahok blasphemy trial pits pluralism against hardline Islam

The forecasts are grim as Jakarta’s ethnic-Chinese Christian governor prepares to face trial for blasphemy today.

Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is facing jail for a throwaway line. Picture: AFP

The forecasts are grim as Jakarta’s ethnic-Chinese Christian Governor prepares to face trial for the crime of blasphemy today.

For some a guilty verdict will spell the end of Indonesian pluralism, while an acquittal risks sparking an Islamic uprising that could destabilise the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Whatever the outcome for by Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, a once hugely popular politician and family man, there is no overstating the importance of this trial for a country often ­lauded as a model of moderate and tolerant Islam.

That a throwaway campaign line could have led him to the brink of personal and political destruction says much about the rise of political Islam in Indonesia and the shrinking space for minorities.

The success of the Islamic hardliners, led by the vigilante Islamic Defenders Front, who have overseen the downfall of Ahok will not have escaped those who seek to use Islam for political gain.

Two months ago Ahok’s re-election seemed inevitable. He had an impressive record of public service unblighted by the corruption that has tainted many Indonesian politicians.

Many pointed to the election of a “double minority” — a Christian and ethnic-Chinese — to the vice-governor’s position in 2012 as a compelling case for the Indonesian model of “unity in diversity”.

Now it is hard to imagine a scenario in which he does not go to jail for challenging politically-backed conservative clerics who in September cited a Koranic verse known as al Maidah 51 to declare that Muslims should not vote for non-Muslims.

“Maybe in your heart you think that you couldn’t vote for me — but you are being lied to by using Almaidah 51,” Ahok told a group of fishermen.

It was the ammunition his opponents, and those who oppose his ally President Joko Widodo, had been searching for.

An edited version of the speech circulated online sparked mass outrage far beyond Jakarta, where Ahok has been governor since Widodo became president in late 2014.

Several mass rallies later — one attracting half a million people this month — and Ahok’s chances of a fair trial have diminished markedly.

The potential for mass unrest will weigh on the judges who will hear this case. The threat was not missed by Widodo, who controversially joined Islamic hardliners on stage at the December 2 rally to thank the crowd for remaining peaceful. Amid calls for the ­judiciary to maintain their independence, hardliners have warned the unity of the sprawling Indonesian archipelago could be imperilled by an acquittal.

“If the court is just they have to release Ahok because the fact is he did not commit blasphemy, but the risk is there will be a mass reaction towards that decision,” says Yahya Cholil Staquf, an ­Islamic scholar and general-secretary of Nahdlatul Ulema, Indonesia’s largest Muslim Association.

NU was the strongest voice against blasphemy charges among a group of Islamic scholars and organisations consulted by police ahead of the decision to name Ahok a suspect.

But they acknowledge the courts are under pressure.

“The legal system should not surrender to mass pressure, but there must be a program to help the masses understand what really happened here,” Haji Cholil told The Australian.

“This is a serious threat and we have to do something significant because this threatens what we already have here in Indonesia.”

But for Ismail Hasani, from Indonesia’s Setara Institute, the fact that the case has come to trial already represents “a huge setback for pluralism and a crisis for Indonesia”.

“The tradition of tolerance and pluralism in Indonesia is on the wane,” says Hasani.

“Ahok is the last battle to maintain pluralism in Indonesia.”