Ahok jailing a victory for Muslim extremists in Indonesia

Muslim extremists in Indonesia have been handed a complete victory with the jailing of outgoing governor for blasphemy.

Police secure the gate of Jakarta's Cipinan prison in the face of protests from supporters of Basuki Tjahaja ‘Ahok’ Purnama (right).

If yesterday’s shock jailing of Jakarta’s outgoing ethnic-Chinese Christian governor for blasphemy has achieved anything, it is a growing consensus among Indonesia watchers that the country’s famed pluralism and religious tolerance is indeed under threat.

As Basuki Tjahaja ‘Ahok’ Purnama has these last seven months juggled a tide of Islamist-led mass protests and an eventual blasphemy trial alongside his now failed bid for re-election, there has been ongoing debate over the meaning of his persecution.

Did the well-funded, venomous anti-Ahok campaign lead to his eventual election loss, or was this effective administrator the architect of his own downfall through arrogance and forced slum evictions?

Did his defeat last month — notwithstanding a majority view that he was the best candidate — reflect the rising power of Islamic conservatives, the usual Machiavellian power plays of Indonesian politics, or simply the will of the people?

With Tuesday’s guilty verdict and sentencing of Governor Ahok to two-years’ imprisonment for blasphemy — notwithstanding the prosecution’s recommendation he be convicted of a lesser charge and serve two-years’ probation — there is an emerging coalescence of opinion.

Supporters of Jakarta's governor Basuki Tjahaja ‘Ahok’ Purnama protest outside the Jakarta Cipinang prison. Photo: AFP

“A dark day for Ahok, a dark day for the Indonesian legal system, and a dark day for Indonesian democracy,” ANU Indonesia expert Marcus Mietzner summarised neatly yesterday.

Perhaps Governor Ahok’s conviction and jailing should not have come as such a shock.

Since the beginning of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s tenure in 2004 there has been a steep rise in blasphemy cases and an almost 100 per cent conviction rate of those charged.

What was most telling about the Ahok verdict was how willing the judges were to fully endorse the Islamists’ politically-motivated narrative against a Governor who, throughout his political career, has faced strident opposition from hardliners citing a Koranic verse known as al Maidah 51 to argue Muslims should not elect non-Muslim leaders.

For having lightheartedly challenged an interpretation that is also questioned by many Islamic scholars, Governor Ahok opened the door to an allegation almost impossible to defend — blasphemy.

With Tuesday’s victory, activists fear the previously little-known al Maidah 51 verse will in future be applied to the appointment of other public positions too, such as school principals and municipal councillors.

Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama talks to his lawyers after his sentencing hearing. Photo: AP

The darkest predictions ahead of the verdict were that the judges would bend to the same mob intimidation tactics that had already compelled President Joko Widodo to defer his Australia visit and sacrifice a political ally to appease a constituency that will never support him.

Having already played a major role in orchestrating Ahok’s political destruction, Muslim extremists like the vigilante Islamic Defenders Front and pro-Caliphate Hizb ut-Tahrir were handed a complete victory yesterday with the 50-year-old’s personal downfall.

They owe their success to having tapped a rising vein of religious conservatism and intolerance in Indonesia that, in future, more will be tempted to exploit for political gain.

How could these groups, and others besides, not be emboldened by proof that such mass mobilisation yields results?

How could minority figures in Indonesia not learn a lesson from Ahok’s downfall, and conclude it safer to steer clear of political life or public office?

Those who argue Ahok was a special case — a double minority seeking a historic electoral mandate to one of the most important offices in the country — need only look at the nascent campaign against President Jokowi (as he is known) who faces his own re-election bid in 2019.

Facing threats from outside as well as potentially from within his own political coterie, the President drew his own battlelines Monday with the announcement that Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia will be disbanded for threatening national unity.

There were hints the Islamic Defenders Front, among others, could be next in line.

Individuals within these groups have already been targeted with charges from treason to pornography.

Whether that will derail the Islamists’ current winning streak and weaken their influence in Indonesia, or feed into an emerging narrative from Jokowi’s political enemies that he is a defender of minorities at the expense of the Muslim majority, is yet to be seen.

President Jokowi came into office on a modern reform agenda.

He heads the largest Muslim-majority nation, one consistently lauded as a model of tolerance, at a time when this region — and the wider world — is looking to moderate Islamic countries as a bulwark against the spread of extremism.

But a president with his back against the wall at home can ill-afford the time for regional or global leadership, and nor can he afford the luxury of reform.